Vehicle Strand The Real:

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Vehicle StrandThe Real Reality, Realism
the Media
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The Real ? Modes, realist and the fantastic?
Realism and the real? Modes and technology?
Undermining modal oppositions ? Key concepts
realism, modes
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Representation and Reality ? Genres
conventions and expectations verisimilitude
? Narrative factual and fictional ?
Representation re-presentation of reality
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Genres and Modes
?Genres discursive categories involving
narrative conventions, iconography types etc. ?
Modes broader discursive categories cutting
across genre distinctions ? Significant modes
(for us) realist and fantastic
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Operation of Modes ? What makes something
fantastic or realist? E.g. subject matter or
form? ? Whose reality, whose fantasy? Are these
diametrically opposed? ? Ethical implications?
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RealismRealism is a difficult word, not only
because of the intricacy of the disputes in art
and philosophy to which its predominant uses
refer, but also because the two words on which it
seems to depend, real and reality, have a very
complicated linguistic history. Raymond
Williams, 1988 Key words
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• The Real and Reality complexities? social
  construction of concept? transformed
  historically and geographically
• Prioritised differently in different cultural
  settings? a recent and provincial invention
• Legal and economic connotations
• Realism multiple and changeable

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Realism Documentariesdo not differ from
fictions in their contractedness as texts, but in
the representations they make. At the heart of
documentary is less a story and its imaginary
work than an argument about the historical
world. Nichols, 2001, p.11
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• Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore (2002)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vQ1iuEcu7O50
• Consider
• ?Camera shots
• Audio
• Who is involved.
• Dialogue.
• Settings and costumes.

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• Elements of Realism
• Factual Media? an alignment with real events
  the facts
• stylistic emphasis on the factuality of facts
  e.g. documentaries and camera technologies no
  acting no intrusive music objective
  information.

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Film, realism and the material conditions of life
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• This is England, Shane Meadows (2006-2013)
  Consider
• ?Camera shots
• Audio
• Who is involved.
• Dialogue.
• Settings and costumes.

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• Elements of Realism
• Fictional Media
• representation of everyday situations
• audio-visual techniques detail
• Concern with social, economic and political
  conditions of life
• But, who are the film makers?
• Ethical issues?
• e.g. British Social Realism, Dogma 95.

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• Politics of realismOften concerned with the
  oppressed and downtrodden so, involves truth
  claims regarding groups lacking the resources to
  challenge them
• Politics of aesthetics debate about political
  implications of realism in film and media
  studies.
• Colin McArthur realist texts expose social
  conditions this can inspire action
• Colin McCabe realist mode inspires passive,
  contemplative engagement more inventive,
  disruptive, analytical forms required.

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Politics of realismIn essence, realism is a
regime of unified portrayal very criterion of
realism aims at the same objective, to combine
all the elements of the representation at any one
point into a harmonious whole. This prevents the
reading of the image, scanning it to see its
different elements and their possible conflicts
or combinations, which is a central feature of
modernist tendencies in the other visual
arts. John Ellis, Visible Fictions (1992,pp. 6-7)
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http//www.youtube.com/watch?vpbK5HIfdyWc
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Modes and technology? Realist and fantastic
modes tied to technologies as well as styles ?
E.g. special effects, CGI and the fantastic ?
Realism and photographic technologies
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• Realism and media technologies?? A literal
  trace of the real? Photographs as indexes.
• Mechanical no apparent human intervention.
• But link between photography as much to do with
  professional uses and discourses see John Tagg,
  The Burden of Representation, and Susan Sontag,
  On Photography.
• Realist mode association with portable camera
  technology e.g. cinéma vérité phone camera
  footage of 2009 G20 summit, London Arab Spring.

Robert Doisneau The Kiss, by Hotel de Ville.
1950
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• New media technologies and The Return of the
  Real? Convergence of TV and internet, ubiquity
  of webcams
• Proliferation of reality TV genres and
  sub-genres apparently demystifying and
  democratic
• News as spectacle rolling news as infotainment
• Commodification of reality as entertainment,
  packaging of entertainment as reality (Andrejevic
  2004).

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• Realistic and fantastic a false opposition??
  Genres that undermine opposition, e.g. magical
  realism, allegorical fantasy (not pure fantasy
  e.g. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter.)
• Pans Labyrinth both a fantasy and an account of
  the Spanish Civil War
• Less a genre or mode than a way of reading.

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Environment StrandRear-view Mirror
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(No Transcript)
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• Rear-view mirror examples? electronic
  keyboards look like pianos
• dialling phone numbers
• file icons on computer desktops
• ? the term desktop
• Global Village?

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• Rear-view mirror (cont.)? Not just about
  anachronistic figures of speech
• Our belong to the past they have not kept pace
  with technology
• We still live as if in the visual space
• Electronic media produce acoustic space
• How does this relate to the Internet?

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• New media examples
• Intellectual property?? free information vs.
  economic scarcity
• Privacy?
• moral panics?
• do young people care about what McLuhan would see
  as another 19th century idea?
• Case study?

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Is McLuhan a technological determinist?
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• What is technological determinism?
• Extreme (also called "strong" or "hard")
  technological determinists
• Information technology transforms society and/or
  our behaviour.
• Weak (or "soft") technological determinists
• Technology as a key factor which may facilitate
  changes in society or behaviour.

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• Technological Determinism Critique
• Socio-cultural determinists
• Socio- cultural and historical contexts determine
  technological effects.
• Voluntarists
• Individual action, not technology, determines
  change in society.
• from Technological or Media Determinism Daniel
  Chandler http//www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/te
  cdet/tdet11.html

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• McLuhan as technological determinist
• Newspapers create the public (collective made up
  of rational individuals)
• Electronic media create the mass (no separate
  and distinct viewpoints, no time or space for
  reflection etc.)

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• But consider
• Today, the mass audiencecan be used as a
  creative, participating force. It is, instead,
  merely given packages of passive entertainment.
  Politics offers yesterdays answers to todays
  questions. (McLuhan and Fiore, 1967, p.22)
• What kind of statement is this?
• Paradox of the rear-view mirror
• Is McLuhan asking us to think for ourselves about
  the fact that technology is thinking for us?

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• Case Study guidelines
• Apply? a theory to a media text (vehicle
  strand)
• Or
• a probe to a technical device or digital platform
  (environment strand).
• Module handbook
• Assignment description
• Assessment criteria
• For week 9
• Bring case study topic, research and ideas to
  class.

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Assessment Sheet Case Study
Grade Research
Writing

Understanding
Application
Research Understanding Application
70-100 ? Evidence of at least 5 texts read ? Excellent clarity of expression ? Excellent structure ? Consistently accurate grammar, spelling and punctuation ? Consistently accurate referencing using the Harvard System ? Excellent knowledge and understanding of theories and ideas ? Original application of theory or probe to chosen artefact or medium
60-69 ? Evidence of at least 4 texts read ? Thoughts and ideas very clearly expressed ? Very good structure ? Essentially accurate grammar, spelling and punctuation ? Essentially accurate referencing using the Harvard System ? Very good knowledge and understanding of theories and ideas ? Very good application of theory or probe to chosen artefact or medium
50-59 ? Evidence of at least 3 texts read ? Thoughts and ideas mostly clearly expressed ? Good structure ? Some grammar, spelling and punctuation errors ? Some referencing errors using the Harvard System ? Good knowledge and understanding of theories and ideas ? Good application of theory or probe to chosen artefact or medium
40-49 ? Evidence of at least 2 texts read ? Meaning apparent but not always explicit ? Fair structure ? Several grammar, spelling and punctuation errors ? Several referencing errors using the Harvard System ? Fair knowledge and understanding of theories and ideas ? Appropriate application of theory or probe to chosen artefact or medium
Fail, resit (30-39) ? No evidence of independent research ? Meaning is often unclear ? Poor structure ? Extensive grammar, spelling and punctuation errors ? Extensive referencing errors and/or Harvard System not used ? Poor knowledge and understanding of theories and ideas ? Poor application of theory or probe to chosen artefact or medium
Fail, no resit (0-29) ? No evidence of independent research ? Meaning is largely unclear ? Very poor structure ? Consistently poor grammar, spelling and punctuation ? Consistent referencing errors and/or Harvard System not used ? Very poor knowledge and understanding of theories and ideas ? Very poor application of theory or probe to chosen artefact or medium
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Next weeks reading? Branston and Stafford
Chapter 8 New Media in a New World
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