The Day Today and The Onion- Media - News satire.

In the days before TV became Cowell's personal plaything and therefore lost its appeal to all but the brainless, 'The Day Today' was satirising the conventions of formulaic news broadcasting.  It's tres amusing.  I think this link will take you to a full episode.  If not, have a look on the internet yourself, do I have to do everything for you?! 

                                                                         The Day Today


Meanwhile, over in the USA, if Fox News isn't hilarious enough for you, then The Onion News Network is superb.   This video is one of my favourites and, let's face it, my taste is significantly better than yours.

Representation in the Media: Gender, Age, Ethnicity and Class

Behold!  Herein I shall place links to various resources that can be utilised by both AS and A2 for the units on media representation of various identities.  It shall be an ongoing project and hence the contents of this post will not be exhaustive by any means.  Nonetheless, I hope, nay, I pray that they will be of some use to you in your ceaseless quest for knowledge. Bon chance, mes enfants!

“The media do not merely represent; they also recreate the world as desirable, and saleable. What they reproduce is chosen, not random, not neutral, and not without consequence”. (Patricia J. Williams)


Proper Studies!

Still a Man’s Game:  Gender Representation in Online Reviews of Video Games

The virtual census: representations of gender, race and age in video games

'A Content Analysis of Gender Differences in Children's Advertising'

Children, Television and Gender Roles

Offensive Ethnic Clichés in Movies: Drugs, Sex, and Servility

Mockery and Morality in Popular Cultural Representations of the White, Working Class



General Stuff

This site looks very good for resources

Media Stereotypes

Representation of Age in the media

Gender

Ethnicity

Studying Media Representations

Media Awareness Network


Media blog with posts/videos on representation

Age

Youth   Youth 2

Ethnicity


Another blog on media

And don't forget my previous post on Age Identity videos!



Childhood

Kids - what the papers say

On Wednesday 22 April, a conference was held in London, UK, to discuss the representation of children in the media


Youth

Media demonises teenagers

Behind the stereotypes

Young people media portrayal

The concept of youth


The Elderly

BBC 'One Foot in the Grave'.

Damn you, Disney!

Elder stereotypes in media & popular culture


BBC - Are pensioners stereotyped?   1   2   3





BBC 'Last of the Summer Wine'

 



Class

White Working Class  and this

Watch this on class in media

This blog post explains how several songs by 60's group The Kinks can be related to class.


Ethnicity

Gender, Race and Media representation

BBC: TV 'failing ethnic minorities'

BBC: How Entertainment Changed - The media and multicultural Britain

Can Gramsci's theory of hegemony help us to understand the representation of ethnic minorities in western television and cinema?

Ethnic minorities and the Media

Cadbury accused of racial stereotyping in chocolate advert

Racial stereotype bingo ad is banned

KFC ad accused of racism


Islam

‘The British Media and Muslim Representation: The Ideology of Demonisation’

From Aladdin to Lost Ark, Muslims get angry at 'bad guy' film images

Islam and the Western Media   Stereotypes and misconceptions about Islam in the media are rooted in prejudice, and ignorance, says Bassil Akel.

Why the terrorism scare is a moral panic.

My Name is Khan    Wiki page  "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist"
Revision

The role of the mass media in representations of age, class, ethnicity, gender...'

Life in North Korea - BBC Documentary

Continuing my frankly bizarre obsession with North Korea, here are parts 1 and 2 of a BBC documentary called  'State of Mind'.      Part 1 Part 2 

And another documentary with good info on media control in 'North Korea - Suspicious Minds'

 Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

North Korea tries to avoid detection by turning all the lights off.

It's not all jackboots-crushing-your-face, famine and pitch-black darkness though, Korea has just hit the top of the pops in the corruption charts!

Weird Facts about the late Dear Leader (video!)    article

AS Age Identity - Videos and that.

So, like, at the moment yeah, we're like totally doing Age Identity in the AS lessons, yeah?  Yeah.  So, like, I said I'd, like, put some videos and that on the blog, yeah?  Yeah, so I done that here, yeah? Nice one.

Watch these...

Old Age

Here are two videos featuring Iggy Pop

Now  and  Then

Does he look/act like you'd expect a man in his sixties to look/act?

                                     Movie Trailer - Harry Brown

                   Is this a typical portrayal of an old man?

The song 'My Generation' is very useful for Age Identity essays because of the line 'Hope I die before I get old'.  Originally by The Who  it has recently been covered by The Zimmers  and Robbie Williams has also done ''Hope I'm old before I die' giving you several views about old age from different perspectives.

Youth

Here's what some sections of the media think young people are like  but I prefer this


 
Youth Subcultures

Extensive list of subcultures from wiki





A Mod.  They didn't all look this ridiculous.



Mods and Rockers (1960's) here.

Film - Quadrophenia (trailer)

Hippies (1960's/70's)

History Channel documentary on Hippies

Avoid Acid and Bombs, that's my advice.

Punk (1970's)

This man used to advocate smashing the state. 
He now sells butter. 
Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

Sex Pistols  BBC documentary on Punk 



Skinheads  (1970's/80's)

Movie - This is England (trailer)

Skinheads and Reggae    Brighton Skinheads


Skateboarding Culture - Dogtown and Z-Boys (full movie)

Get a job, divot.

Acid House/Rave  1990's

Movie - Human Traffic  (trailer)

Altern-8

Music videos!  

Altern-8 'E-vapor-8'

The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode

Zero Zero – Zeroxed

Documentary

Documentary on Acid House Summer of 1989

'The Star is not a truth-seeking enterprise.'

The Leveson Inquiry continues to enthusistically throw up more chunks of tabloid vomit into the ever increasing lake of shame-puke lapping at the embarrassed feet of a society that pretends it wasn't eager to pay for the papers that funded this filth. 

Read this one to see the full context of the Star quote above.  Then check out this one in which ex-tabloid hack Paul McMullan tells some exciting stories, including the time he 'paid one "rent boy" £2,000, then dressed up as another to expose a priest. Having snapped the picture of the reverend in flagrante, the two ran off in their underpants "through a nunnery at midnight" to get the story safely into the paper.'  

Ethnic Identity - Ethnic variation in prison sentences

We'll be looking at ethnic identity soon, in another one of my bowel-shatteringly exciting lessons, which will include some details about how identity can be affected by the different treatment received by different groups at the hands of the merciless hounds of the law.  Here is an article relating to a study carried out by The Guardian (that's a newspaper, you may have seen it on the magazine racks when you are looking for the latest copy of 'Activities for Simpletons Monthly' or whatever drivel you like to read on the commode). It says offenders from ethnic minorities are more likely than their white counterparts to be sentenced to prison for certain categories of crimes, and this is based on analysis of more than one million court records.

Once you've digested this, take a look at this which looks at how many judges are white, middle class and Oxbridge educated.  Could these issues be related? 

Gender Identity in the Media - Female Action Roles

'Stop portraying me as a housewife!  Eat hot lead, mysoginists of the media!'

As we have seen during some of my bladder-burstingly exciting lessons, 'the laydeez' often get a raw deal in TV and Movie roles, where they are often portrayed as weak and/or flawed in some way and best relegated to the kitchen and/or whorehouse, depending on which idiot/pervert is directing the production in question. In exam questions relating to this kind of stuff it is useful to have a few examples of women being cast in strong roles to balance the many examples to the the contrary. Hence my decision to post this link to an article about 'the next wave of celluloid superheroines'.  Read it, chumps.