UNIT 01 - AO4: Discuss the effect of representation in media products on target audiences/ consumers

STEP 1: REPRESENTATIONS

1. Create a post name it UNIT 01 - AO4: Discuss the effect of representation in media products on target audiences/consumers

2. Write up your notes to demonstrate your understanding about representation, stereotypes and objectification from last Wednesday's lesson.

3. Select two female characters and 2 male characters from your chosen genre. Post a picture of each one, caption it with their names, the game they are from and the year the game came out.
Then analyse and describe with reference to the following areas:
Role within the game - (hero, victim, bad guy, friend, damsel in distress etc.)
Appearance - physical, clothes, animation style
Background - brief bio
Strengths/Skills
Weaknesses
How do they compare to other women/men in the game. 
Mention if relevant - hyper-sexualised characters, objectification, used of stereotypes, misrepresentation of a certain social groups. If you can - think about the reference of the representation (the reality it's recreating), preferred, negotiated and opposed readings. 

See the above PDF for some guidance.
 
4. Select a key aspect of the game - crime, violence, happiness, a location, a vocation - and analyse how the game represents it. For instance is crime glamourised, are you rewarded/punished for violence/lawlessness, what makes your character happy/angry etc.
 
STEP 2: EFFECTS ON THE AUDIENCE

Explain your understanding of Blumler and Katz - Uses and Gratification
This theory assumes the audience is active rather than passive and it emphasises what the audiences of media texts do with and why approach them initially them rather than what the media does to the audience.  The Uses and Gratifications theory suggests that individuals and social groups use texts in different ways and the audience are no longer viewed as passive receivers.
The identified needs of the audience we later refined as:
 
Entertainment & Diversion – as a form of escapism
 
Personal relationships/ social interaction – identification with characters and being able to discuss media texts with others
 
Personal identity – the ability to compare your life with that of characters and situations presented in media texts
 
Information/Education – to find out and learn about what is going on in the world

Using this theory and if we assume that audience approach texts 'to compare their life and situations presented in media texts' - what effect would the representations you have identified have on the audience.

Here's an example of work done last year. 

Behaviourism
Albert Bandura developed a theory of how we learn from modelling types of behaviour. His experiment used children learning aggression from adults. He broke the stages of learning down to the following:

Attention - to absorb knowledge

Retention - being able to remember

Reproduction - duplicating the action

Motivation - positive in the form of reward, negative in the form of punishment for not doing

If we apply this to videogames we can see that this structure of learning is often in place - you're taught how to play, you must remember the controls, you reproduce certain moves and activities and you're rewarded or punished accordingly.

Apply this theory to your representation of your chosen key ASPECT (happiness, violence, crime etc) from your chosen genre. If we learn behaviour from games (as Bandura theory suggests) what would be consequences of learning from your chosen ASPECT?
It could be - aggression solves problems, crime pays and is glamorous, happiness can only be achieved by attaining money and items.