Hi here is a link to a documentary I
made at the Arms Around Moore Street protest on April 21st. Has the eviction of Irish history begun? If you compare this to how America remembers it's history with The Alamo, Holland with the Ann Frank Museum and Belfast with the Titanic Museum is Irish history being celebrated in a similar fashion? This video features interviews and speeches
from 1916 relatives of James Connolly, Thomas MacDonagh, John O’Connor and
others, it has a recreation of a James Larkin speech performed 100 years ago at
this event, there is a rousing rendition of the national anthem performed by
Diarmuid Breatnach followed by a montage of gravestones from Arbour Hill and
Glasnevin cemetery where the 1916 leaders are buried with quotes. Every Irish
kid studied about this in school as these actions lead to the birth of the
Irish state. How should this be
remembered? The freedoms we have today were obtained by their actions. Do you think it should be knocked down?
Directed and edited by Marcus Howard. .If 1913 was remembered historically in Ireland as the year of the Great Lockout will 2013 be remembered as the year of Ireland's Great Bailout? This video looks at the Campaign Against Household and Water charges march on 13th April 2013, the weekend that EU members were in Dublin Castle discussing the way forward for the EU and Ireland. The video combines footage of the protest as well as some of the speakers like Richard Boyd Barrett, Joan Burton and Joe Higgins, who are elected representatives of the Irish people in opposition to the current Irish Government. All classes and groups of people from all walks of life united to show the red card to what is being done to the people of Ireland. The video also mentions a little bit about the Save Our Forests campaign and future plans for May 1st. I was amazed at the wave after wave of people from all over Ireland marching in protest and of the creativity of the posters. As a fan of history I thought the march was particuarly poignant because of the 100 year anniversary. I am an independent documentary filmmaker who was just interested in capturing this event.
If you would like to see a video of a tiny little village in Ireland who are taking on the might of the EU, the ECB, the IMF, the Irish Government and the banks please watch this. They have protested every week for over 110 weeks and are beginning to make some headway. They are attracting some international media but are being mostly ignored by Irish mainstream media. It will only take 15 mins of your time to watch. I made the "Ireland 2016 European Rising" series. Thanks for taking your time to read this. Marcus Howard
This section will be exploring how media ownership affects media provision, taking account of power influence on social, cultural, political and economic dimensions, by identifying sources of power within, for example
media agencies (self-regulatory bodies and statutory regulators)
media corporations and organisations online, print, broadcast , both public and private
media concentration & cross media ownership Click on this Wikipedia link to find out some interesting facts and statistics about the media in Ireland. The link mentions statistics about the press and can be viewed here
Here is a link to another useful article in Wikipedia to freedom of the press and it's importance worldwide
You may find this article useful about RTE and this one for TV3 and this one for TG4
Here is a link to one of the largest media corporations in the world, News Corporation, owned by Rupert Murdoch and his family.
What do you think are the intention of the following pictures? What do you think they are trying to say?
An interesting debate can be found here about trusting the news (although it applies mostly to the US)
Are all these newspapers telling the same story in the same way?
Todorov believed that all stories started with an equilibrium. Then a disruption to that equilibrium woud cause Disequilibrium. This would in turn cause a disruption and unsettlement. There is an attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
Vladimir Propp helped develop narrative by analysing the formula and attributes of characters to help develop a narrative story. By deconstructing Russian fairy tales he was able to identify a narrative structure in all stories. He also identified the following character types in most movies.
The villain who struggles against the hero.
The dispatcher who helps send the hero off on their quest.
The (magical) helper who helps the hero on their quest.
The princess or prize- Often the story end when the hero marrys the princess usually after defeating the villain. The hero would like to mrry her but because of an unfair evil, is prevented from doing so.
The father gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero and marries the hero. the father is often sought during the narrative.
The donor prepares the hero or gives them some magical object.
The hero reacts to the donor and weds the princess. The hero may be a victim/seeker hero.
The false hero may take credit for the hero's actions and may try to marry the princess.
Social types of analysis of media products
How do media producers apply market segmentation techniques taking into account demographics and behavioural analysis?
Different types of ideologies need to be applied to analysing media. Ideologies are systems of belief. You may have preconceived notions about how you interpret or analyse media as a result of a system of belief you may ascribe to.
McLennan in The Power of Ideology set out 3 conditions which must be fulfilled if beliefs and ideas are to be considered ideological.
1. The ideas must be shared by a significant amount of people
2. The ideas must form some kind of coherent system
3. The ideas must connect in some way to the use of power in society.
Coates describes 4 traditions of thought as a way of understanding society 1. Liberalism - sees society as "rational individuals in pursuit of their own self interest". This belief structure would argue that the state provides "external defence and internal order" and where individuals are not only motivated by self-interest but also for society's general good. Liberalism is derived from Adam Smith's economic theories of self-interest being of benefit to society.
The role of the mass media [in a Liberal
society] is to provide accurate and reliable
information, upon which rational economic decisions can be made; the
media must respect the rights of the individual;
the media are made up of groups of energetic entrepreneurs; the media should
not be run by the state, although sensible regulation is necessary.”
(Price,
p.14)
2. Marxism - Karl Marx was of the belief that individuals only truly existed in social relationships and that only by mutual co-operation could society benefit from this. His descriptions of the class system who owned property and the means of production (the bourgeois) hindered the lower classes development as they simply worked for them.
“The mass media [in a Marxist view of
capitalist society] exist to maintain the capitalist state in power.”
(Price, p.15)
3. Social reformism - developed from the thoughts of John Stuart Mill who believed in the moral development, reform and education with the greatest amount of people possible participating in society by way of these activities.
“The role of the mass media [in a Social-Reformist
society] is to play a constructive part in a mature
democracy.”
(Price, p.15)
4. Conservatism - is a belief of maintaining the status quo. They believe that "the present with all it's inequalities, is based on the accumulated wisdom of previous ages".
“The
role of the mass media [in a Conservative society] is to act as a force
for social cohesion.”
(Price, p.15)
Semiological (Semiotics)
In it's simplest definition, semiotics are seen as "the study of signs"by Saussere.
How can we know that a bunch of roses signifies passion unless we also know the intention of the sender and the reaction of the receiver, and the kind of relationship they are involved in? If they are lovers and accept the conventions of giving and receiving flowers as an aspect of romantic, sexual love, then we might accept... [this] interpretation. But if we do this, we do so on the basis not of the sign but of the social relationships in which we can locate the sign... The roses may also be sent as a joke, an insult, a sign of gratitude, and so on. They may indicate passion on the part of the sender but repulsion on the part of the receiver; they may signify family relations between grandparents and grandchildren rather than relations between lovers, and so on. They might even connote sexual harassment. (Strinati 1995, 125).
E. Anne Kaplan argues that feminist thought can be divided into the philosophical and the political.
The Philosophical approach is
either ‘essentialist’ or ‘anti-essentialist’.
1.Essentialist argue that
women are a distinct group of people “in terms of an essence that precedes culture and is ultimately biological in origin.”
Women
therefore possess essential
humaneness to combat men’s competitiveness.
2.The anti-essential view is
one that does not look for the essential femininity but tries to understand the
process by which the female is ‘constructed’ by a male-dominated society.
The political categories are:
1.Bourgeois feminism means
the concern of women to obtain equal rights
and freedoms within a capitalist system
2.Marxist feminism which links the specific
oppression of women within the
larger structure of capitalism
3.Radical feminism which sees women as different
from men and pursues
completely
separate communities for women with their specific needs anddesires
4.Post-structural feminism
where we analyse the language order “through
which we learn to be what our culture calls women”
Meehan conducted a survey of
prime-time US drama series in the 1970’s and came up with ten types of
representation of women and called for new representations:
“it’s time to tell the
stories of female heroes - heading families, heading corporations, conquering
fears, and coping with change.”
Growing out of some elements of Marxist thought,
McQuail has described a number of alternative models of society.
1. Mass society theory where the institutions with power (the
establishment)
support each other; the population is offered
entertainment by the media as a diversion from their subordinate or lower
position.
2. Classic Marxist theory
states that the capitalist class dominates and exploits the working class, whilst the mass media,
being owned by the capitalists, circulate ideas that will keep them in
power.
3. Political-economic theory
stresses that information which circulates in society
is valued according to its possible profitability; the uneven distribution of
resources prevents critical voices being heard. One development of
this theory is that the media’s role is to produce
and deliver audiences as
sources of profitability.
4. The theories of the Frankfurt school
and Marcuse suggest that the working class has
been diverted by the mass production of goods, ideas and culture, and that
marginal groups in society can resist and change even
though they do not have the same control over the
working class
5. Theories of hegemony
come from the belief that the dominant ideas of the
ruling classes
reproduce themselves inthe minds of the subordinate
. Ruling ideas would become
the ideas of the whole of society and capitalism is able to survive.
6. Social-cultural theory
tries to understand how
marginal group in society make use
of mass
culture offered by the media and how in turn mass culture
draws these younger people and ethnic minorities
into society.
