Media and the online age

Micheal Wesch
Digital Ethnography
University course website
Wikipedia

Barry Wellman
Netlab
Wikipedia

George Sieman
Elearnspace

Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly website
Wikipedia
Wierd Magazine

Red Riding - Collective Identities

Gender is displayed as a very male predominant world in red riding, females trying to empower decisions are soon cut short by a part of the male cast overruling her - this is shown more often in the 1974 episode - mainly due the female equality becoming more of importance in the 80's. All the women in Red Riding are wives, lovers/casual partners or victims of male violence, i believe that there wasn't a female lead so the idea of male predominance is kept strong in the mind of the audience.

The majority of characters are middle working class,

Red Riding

Red Riding.

In Red Riding the police are shown to be corrupt. This is shown by them arresting people who didn’t nessecarily have anything to do with the murders. It is also shown that people who try and get the right answers and question what it is going on will be beaten up and tortured.

In the scene where the reporter goes to talk to the boy who got arrested for the murder Britain is shown to be quite a rural, working class place. In the scene there are people playing out on the street and they live in terraced housing. Other elements of the mise en scene contribute to this and if I remember correctly there was a factory in the background. This is true of the times as this was just before Thatcher came to power and there was a lot of industrial workers working in poor conditions with low wages.

Britain is shown to be quite a gritty horrible place. Most of the people in the film are nasty characters. A particular theme in the film is the divide between the north and the south. When the reporter returns from living in the south he is ridiculed by the people he works with as well as the police and gangsters he meets. Also the mise-en-scene represence this really well with the costumes being ragged worn with shirts and torn troussers. This contrasts well with the gangsters in suits with a better standrad of living and the working class locals in poverty.

“Marsh offers us the bleak view of rain and windswept moors that face the ‘clean cop’ from lancashire who must attept to uncover the corruption.“ – Reading Red Riding.

rojiars moment of stardom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoZzOp7I-iY

Reprisentation of British life in 'Red Riding'.

From the start of '1980' British life is represented as violent, argumentative and depressive. When shooting the footage the lighting was dark as it was 'more forgiving'. The characters are dressed in dull clothing lacking colour and eccentricity. The mise en scene contributes, as the story follows the hunt for the infamous Yorkshire Ripper; the darkness and depressive atmosphere help get this across. Police brutality is shown at the start of the scene during an argument between two central characters, the room they're in appears abandoned and dangerous. There is a mirror behind the policeman; a mirror represents self-knowledge, he is facing the mirror highlighting his vanity and power. In reference to the title, Yorkshire was traditionally divided into North, East and West Ridings. When West Yorkshire emerged in 1974 the previous police force combined to create one new authority. This was a period of jealousy and feuds. This time of social change was shown in '1980' during the interrogation.
'The male characters strength and weaknesses are associated with sex, violence and alcohol - a stereotypical mix of the qualities of masculinity in the North of England'.

Liam and Gareth

The opening scene to misfits immediately represents the youth of britain today with the fact they're serving community service, smoking and swearing regularly and making insults too each other for the littlest of reasons. For example, it starts off with the 5 main characters and their probation worker, the scene features consistent abuse towards one another, swearing and disobeying the probation worker, which fits in with the conventions set for Britain's youth of today.

You call me ‘chav’ one more time I’ll kick you so hard in the cunt your mum’ll feel it”

People seem to refer to Heroes when talking/writing about Misfits. This isn't valid as Heroes is a very different series. Misfits is about some ordinary late-teenagers getting super powers - Heroes is about Hollywood characters receiving superpowers and saving the world by being superheroes.

The teenagers are seen as scum by the audience, the adults in the show and each other. they represent britain in the way that the age difference supposedly makes them lower class in the eyes of the biased adults. The series successfully manages to sway this vision of teenagers as scum, by making you sympathise with the difficult decisions they frequently have to make in life. This not only attracts the audience in deeper but makes you

Analysis of Red Riding

The Red Riding trilogy is set in West Yorkshire between 1974 and 1980. This is during the time of Yorkshire being split into North, East and West 'Riding's' (riding being a corruption of the viking word Thirding (Meaning to be split equally into three parts)) which happened in 1974, and also in time with the Yorkshire Ripper Murders (The serial killer Peter Sutcliffe) and, although there are references to the murders, Sutcliffe is not the name used in the films.

The scene starting when the journalist drives through the suburban rural area reflects the economic state of the country at the time as being in a depression. The kids casually hitting a burnt out car reflects the attitude not only of the children but of anybody struggling to find a job and the boredom that comes with being in such an bad economical state.

representation of British life tht is constructed in 'red riding'
-ref to social/economical/historical facts
-detail ref. to scene
-the role of film aesthetics
-quote from the article.

British life is consrtucted through the micro elemnts by being dull, with little bright light and many smokey rooms, representing briths life as dull and boring. background charecters are alos used to create a sence of high unemploymnet. an example of this is the scene when the reporter visits the boy which was accused of the murder. while his is driving into a wet grainy town people are standing around doing nothing or salvaging cars for scrap metal. this relates to the situation at the time with mass unemployment and political unrest with there been a hung parliament in 1974.

The narrative for "Red Riding" revolves around the corruption of the police, journalists and powerful property developers.

"the thee films are very rich texts, mixing fact and fiction", such as the Yorkshire ripper, unemployment in the 70s as a result as a collaps in the mining industry and corruption in the police force. these are represented through the films narrative and also with clever use of the micro elements. One of scenes that portrays this, is the scene where Edward, our main character, is shown the location where one of the young girls was found. The location is a run down industrial area, or a closed down factory site.

red riding

Red Riding is a period piece set in 1974. As a result the representation of 'British life' is different not only in a historical sense, but in also a social/economic sense. It shows the 70's as a very different  place to the one we know today. In the mise-en-scene, the costume is stylised to make them look very 70's natural and very british. 

Red Riding shows a different representation of gender to what we might expect today. The male characters in the program are shown as dominant over the women and indeed there are far fewer woman character in the piece. The woman characters are often shown as passive, for example there is a scene where the protagonist goes home and we see his mother and sister but they do provide any advancement to the plot. Another example is when the protagonist goes to visit a family to interview, at the door a woman (who we learn is probably the wife and mother of the other two characters) she does not want to let the protagonist in, but when the man comes to the door he overrides her decision and lets him in. When they are talking the child tells her mother to 'shut up'.  

In the 1970's people didn't have as much money as they used to especially in the north.  This is represented in the piece, in one scene there are shots or children vandalizing cars and playing in the street. These scene shows lack of money and breakdown of society0.

1. its an unexpected comedy
2. look at how they are dressed and you can see there personality
3.age is shown by the type of things that age group get up to, and the hair style show the type of age group
4.16-25

James Patrick Ryan

1. Superheroes. Funny.

2. Their names, a brief character description and their super power.

3. Black guy runs. Shy guys invisible. Chav hears people calling her chav. Slag gets shagged. Dick gets nothing.

4. Teenagers. There are teenagers in it. Blood. Gore. SEX!

*Not finished yet

1) Humor - makes it more enjoyable.
Age ralated - we can relate to some of the everyday things they go through. Characters same age as us.

2) Not a lot.

3) Havn't the foggiest.

4) An audience, our age. As the characters are our ages.........

Misfits Analysis - Oliver Flint + Samuel Bristow

1. What things appeal to you and why?

- The tab named "Funny Shizzle" draws our attention as it appeals to our vocabulary as young adults.

- The links on the side of the website link us to interesting things to do on the website. 

- The background of the website is of a council estate which appeals to our age group as it could represent some of the youth today.

2. What can you learn about the characters from the website?

-The character represented the most on the website is Nathan, the first image is of him, and he is shown further down the page as-well. This shows he is possibly the main character who the audience focus on the most. 

Misfits Website Analysis

Find the official website for Misfits www.e4.com/misfits

Spend some time looking at all the content, including the external links.

Make a new post on this blog with notes on the following:

• What things appeal to you and why?
• What can you learn about the characters from the external links?
• How is youth, gender and race represented on the site?
• Who is the series aimed at and how can you tell?