The BBC will only survive by understanding its diverse consumers

"The BBC will only survive by understanding its diverse consumers"

A snail could crawl the entire length of the Great Wall of China in just slightly more time than the 200 years it will take for women to be equally represented in parliament. That was just one of a series of striking statistics from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in their Sex and Power report published last week.
It added that women hold just 11% of FTSE directorships, with the judiciary and others also strongly criticised. At the BBC, the figures are a bit better - almost 38% of all senior managers are women - but it does bring into sharp focus the challenge the whole media industry is facing to improve diversity among its workforce.
Tomorrow's Guardian Ethnic Media Summit is a chance to debate what is arguably our most pressing diversity issue - ensuring more talent from ethnic minority communities reaches the upper echelons of broadcasting. The growth particularly of young ethnic minority audiences, is soaring - way above the population average - making them a critical cultural and business challenge for everyone in our sector.
Things are definitely changing but still not quickly enough. The whole media industry needs to look afresh at what more can be done.
So why does a white, middle-aged bloke like me feel compelled to write about this? As the BBC's chief creative officer, overseeing our programme production made in-house, I believe passionately that only by drawing on the talents of every part of society can we best reflect the lives and concerns of our diverse audiences on screen.
We must do more and the BBC is certainly redoubling its efforts. And though ethnicity is very important, it is only one part of this story. We must also think in terms of age, disability, gender, social class and regional difference.
That is why I think the historic changes to move a significant proportion of BBC network production out of London to places such as Glasgow or North West England over the next decade might be key to all this.
We will transfer large numbers of staff from London but we will also recruit many new faces - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to add something substantially new to our gene pool of talent, to change the BBC's DNA a little.
We seem to be moving in the right direction, increasing opportunities for people from ethnic minority backgrounds at most levels.
The proportion of our staff from ethnic minorities is 11.5% - again comparing very well with both public and private sector organisations including the civil service, health service and the police. But as the Edinburgh Television Festival heard, still not enough people make it into senior management roles, particularly as controllers and commissioners.
The BBC has looked closely at the barriers to progress and announced new schemes to tackle them - costing £3m over three years.
Firstly, we need to change the way we recruit. We are dramatically increasing the outreach work we do - in community groups, colleges, schools and through open sessions across the UK - to encourage under-represented groups to apply to the BBC. I recently worked with an energetic bunch of young students, mainly from ethnic minority backgrounds, who were introduced to the BBC by the University of Central Lancashire - from the former mill towns of Blackburn and Preston, not places we'd traditionally think to look for the next generation.
Then we need to be better at retaining talented individuals and supporting them in reaching their full potential and moving into senior roles. Our new mentoring and development programme, which offers greater one-to-one and intensive personalised support, is so important. In addition, our new trainee production scheme, which has just kicked off, and our journalism trainee schemes, have a strong diversity focus, so we are providing clearer pathways into all parts of the BBC.
On screen, we must constantly strive to reflect as accurately as possible the rich cultural mix of the UK.
Earlier this year BBC non-executive director Samir Shah criticised what he called "inauthentic representation" of ethnic minority communities, citing the Ferreira family in EastEnders.
It is unfair to highlight one five-year-old example from a drama series that remains the most popular programme on television among ethnic minority audiences. This example fails to reflect many other aspects of our work, particularly our in-house drama output. Our continuing drama series, including Holby City and Casualty, have led the way in casting diverse talent, in leading roles as well. Though we do not always get it right, overall we have much to be proud of.
The BBC set up the Writers' Academy, under John Yorke, four years ago, increasing the number of writers from diverse backgrounds working on our biggest programmes, including some of our continuing drama series.
In addition, programmes such as Criminal Justice, No1 Ladies Detective Agency, Life Is Not All Ha Ha Hee Hee, Shoot the Messenger, the entertainment series Last Choir Standing and a lot of our children's output have also been praised for the way they have represented diversity or addressed issues faced by communities from different backgrounds.
Part of this is ensuring we get closer to audiences when making programmes. For example, White Girl - part of BBC2's groundbreaking White Season - told the story of a white family relocating from Leeds to a predominantly Asian community in Bradford. Here the production team worked very closely with the community to ensure a sensitive and accurate portrayal.
In an increasingly globalised creative economy where competition will intensify, it is only by understanding our diverse consumers that we can stay relevant and survive. The BBC prides itself on keeping in touch with its audiences - to do so successfully we'll need to keep making changes, and fast.

Off screen and On screen representations

...Off screen and On screen representations...

The on screen and off screen representation of celebrities would affect my critical investigation as it will highlight how accurately these celebrities are portrayed on screen in regards to the people portraying them off screen. As I will be analysing contemporary texts such as "Britian's next top model" and "extreme skinny celebrities", looking at the representation of the people on screen and off screen, I will be able to deteremine how the people off screen represent the people on screen. An example would be if a celebrity is on a diet, trying to loose weight and have not been caught eating much food, then the off screen producers would interpret that the celebrity is growing health probelms such as Bulimia and on screen would show that this is what celebrities do when they want to loose weight. This develops an impact on the audience as they will be seeing what the producers want them to see and grow the same view as the producer.

[Audience Theory]

►Audience theories...

►Theories which attempt to explain how an audience receives, reads and responds to a text. Theoretical explanations of how humans ingest the information transmitted by media texts and how this might influence (or not) their behaviour.

► The Hypodermic Needle Model...

►Dating from the 1920s, this theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. It is a crude model and suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data. It is important to keep in mind that this theory was developed in an age when the mass media were still fairly new - radio and cinema were less than two decades old. Governments had just discovered the power of advertising to communicate a message, and produced propaganda to try and sway populaces to their way of thinking. This was particularly rampant in Europe during the First World War and its aftermath.

►The Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciouness of the audience unmediated, ie the experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media-makers. It assumes that the audience are passive and heterogenous. This theory is still quoted during moral panics by parents, politicians and pressure groups, and is used to explain why certain groups in society should not be exposed to certain media texts (comics in the 1950s, rap music in the 2000s), for fear that they will watch or read sexual or violent behaviour and will then act them out themselves.

►Linking to Investigation & Production...

► This theory links to my investigation and linked production as through this theory i will be able to look at whether the audience of each text I analyze is active or passive. Even more, do teenage girls act out the behaviour they are exposed to of celebrities they see on TV or read in magazines, in reality.

►Uses & Gratifications...

►During the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming texts. Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways. In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:

►surveillance

►correlation

►entertainment

►cultural transmission

►Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (ie uses and gratifications):

►Diversion/ escapism - escape from everyday problems and routine.

►Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life

►Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts

►Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living e.g.) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

Since then, the list of Uses and Gratifications has been extended, particularly as new media forms have come along (eg video games, the internet).

►Linking to Investigation & Production...

► This theory links to my investigation and linked production as it allows me to determine which segments of the Uses & gratification theory do my targeted audiences relate with. This will allow me to draw conclusions on why teenage girls watch certain programmes or read certain texts and see what they gain out of it.

.*.*.[Half Term Homework].*.*.

.*.*.[Half Term Homework].*.*.

*•..Critical Investigation..•*

For my Critical Investigation, I am going to look at the extent which the representation of female celebrities influence teenage girls? In order to do so I will be analysing contemporary texts such as "Extreme skinny celebrities", "Britain's Next Top Model”, as well as other resources such as magazine and newspaper articles.

*•..Linked Production..•*

As a Linked Production to this investigation, my partner (Anika) and I will be creating a four page magazine article interviewing teenage girls on how the representations of celebrities influence them, which will also explore health issues. We will seek to do a number of interviews and surveys mainly targeted at girls of Greenford High School in order to see how far the representations of celebrities affect teenage girls with any relation to their health.

.*.*. M.I.G.R.A.I.N .*.*.

* Media Language:

• I will be analysing different angle shots in each of the TV series in order to determine where the emphasis is being put on most by the camera shot. For example the celebrities' waist lines, etc.
• I will also look into the timing of each shot, to see how long the emphasis of each shot has been put upon certain areas, For example whether 'skinnier' models/ celebrities have more emphasis than 'larger' models/ celebrities.
• Lastly, I will examine the different types of props that are associated with the celebrities or models in addition to studying the affects they have on teenage girls.

* Institution:

• Institution is also a big aspect in television as the instituter's market and advertise the TV series so it can appeal to its target audience. I will be looking into the instituter and seeing if there is a similar pattern in the types of TV programmes which they have distributed.
• I will also look at the institutions of Magazines and Newspapers to see any patterns in the articles they produce on celebrities and teenage girls.

* Genre:

• The chick flick genre is the genre that is prominent in the TV programmes I will study and therefore I will be focusing on the most. The reason for this is because "Britain's next top model" is mainly targeted as late teenage girls and I can see if the director has broken any conventions of the chick flick genre to make it more appealing to the audience.
• For my critical investigation I will also be looking at the drama genre as "Britain's next top model" creates drama and sustains tension throughout. The reason for looking at the drama genre is so that I can be able to identify whether the director has used dramatic parts of the series such as fights or back stabbing to attract a greater audience as the series mainly attracts females.

* Representation:

• The representation that I will paying particular attention to is the celebrities portrayed in "Extreme skinny celebrities". I am going to be analysing in close detail, to aspects such as their clothing, their facial expressions and the way they represents themselves to others. This will allow me to see how their appearance affects teenage girls, especially the facial expressions as if they seem happier with the way they are this will have a huge influence on teenager girls.
• I will also be referring to the other females which have been represented in "Britain's next top model" so that I can compare each texts to see how the representations are different or similar and what are the causes for this. I will then justify my argument and use statistics to prove that the media has an affect on the female teenage audience and how teenagers tend to copy what is being shown on T.V.

* Audience:

• For my critical investigation, I will be mainly exploring teenage audiences.
• I will also refer to the 'uses and gratification' theory in order to help me explain why these audiences have a particular interest on a certain text.
• For our linked production we will be having teenage audience of females. The magazine is based on girls and shows how the media has an effect on them, sometimes without them even knowing, which will regard to Louis Althusser's Hypodermic syringe model theory distinguishing teenage girls to be either a passive audience or active ones.

* Ideologies:

• I will be looking into the explicit and implicit ideologies of the institution as part of my critical investigation. Newspapers may have a particular political affiliation, which will make some of their articles biased to a particular view of teenage girls or health issues regarding celebrities, making their ideology explicit.
• However, visual representations of skinny models and celebrities in magazines and TV series will be implicit.
• I will also be looking at Mulveys theory about the "male gaze" and prove to teenage girls how women are just put in the media to-be-looked-at. The ideology will remain strong so long Hollywood keep portraying women as sexual objects.

* Narrative:

• For both my critical investigation and linked production, I will be looking into Rolande Barthe’s 'enigma code' theory. Some TV programmes use many enigma codes, for example before break showing clips of 'what's yet to come' in order to generate hype and keep audiences attracted to the show.
• I will also look into Lévi-Strauss’ theory of binary oppositions when analysing the texts. The ideas of skinny or slob, A list designers or charity shops are all stereotypical binary oppositions connected to celebrities and affect teenagers.

.*.*.Media Theories.*.*.

* Audience Theory is key when looking into the representation of Celebrities in TV programmes and other texts for my critical investigation. I will be looking into all types of audience theories including the 'Uses and Gratifications' theory, 'Reception' theory and 'Hypodermic Needle Model'. One of the main things to look at will be whether the audience of each text I analyse is active or passive.

* Semiotics is also a theory that I will be looking into as it involves me looking into the deeper meanings in the TV programmes to really understand each the representation of the characters. A passive audience will only notice the denotations in the texts, but if the audience is active, the connotations in the movie will play a very influential part.

* The male gaze by Laura Mulvey. The reason for this theory is that I believe that the representation of females in the media is strictly sexual to attract a male audience. Therefore, this gives a negative response to the female teenage audience and may imitate certain scenes as they may feel it is right.

This study fits into the contemporary media landscape as it covers an issue which is important in both society and the media. Looking into the representations of Celebrities over different types of texts and how they affect teenage girls will help us to understand whether health concerns for young teenage girls stem from the representations of these models or celebrities in the media.

[Media Homework]

(`v´)...Theories...Semiotics...(`v´)

Semiotics is the study of sign processes. Semioticians classify signs or sign systems in relation to the way they are transmitted. This process of carrying meaning depends on the use of codes that may be the individual sounds or letters that humans use to form words, the body movements they make to show attitude or emotion, or even something as general as the clothes they wear. Codes also represent the values of the culture, and are able to add new shades of connotation to every aspect of life. Denotation is the surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary. Decoding is more than simply recognising the content of the message. In semiotics, connotation arises when the denotative relationship between a signifier and its signified is inadequate to serve the needs of the community. As a signifier, i.e. it will have a form that a person can see, touch, smell, and/or hear, and as the signified, i.e. it will represent an idea or mental construct of a thing rather than the thing itself. Connotative meanings are developed by the community and do not represent the inherent qualities of the thing or concept originally signified as the meaning. If a signifier has only a single denotational meaning, the use of the sign will always be unambiguously decoded by the audience. Theorist Louis Hjelmslev (1899-1965) proposes that although the function of signification may be a single process, denotation is the first step, and connotation the second.

[Critical Investigation and linked production homework]

[•][•][•]Critical Investigation and linked production homework[•][•][•]


[•] Task: Select one critical production and linked production from the post it notes given to you during the lesson and rewrite the ideas in as much detail as you can. Select 5 keywords from the glossary which are relevant to the titles and explain how each word links in to the chosen titles.


Critical investigation title ► Looking at female representations in American Hip-hop music videos.
Linked Production title ► Creating a magazine article on a new album releasing with images of females and there stereotypical representation within the text.

[•] 5 Key words relating to Case study:

Binary Opposition: Binary opposition a term used by Claude Levi-Strauss that describes a pair of theoretical opposites. Binary oppostitions show that a narrative is structured around oppositional elements of human culture. For example: Good 'vs' Bad, Dark 'vs' Light, Feminie 'vs' Masculine, Old 'vs' new, etc.

Male Gaze: This is the term used by Laura Mulvey in her essay 'Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema' (1975), saying that sexism exists not only in the content of a text, but may also exist in how the text is presented. Theorists note the degree to which people gaze at women in advertisements that "sexualizes" a woman's body even when the woman's body is unrelated to the advertised product.

Sexism: Is the term a term coined in the mid-20th century used to describe the representations that discriminate on the basis of sex, especially against women, which is seen to derive from and sustain patriachy.

Patriarchy: Patriarchy refers to the role of men in society more generally where men take primary responsibility over the welfare of the community as a whole. This authority often includes acting as the dominant figures in social, economic, and political procedures. In simplier terms patriarchy describes male dominance in society.

Representation: a process whereby the media construct versions of individuals or groups in images, words or sounds in media text to an audience. Representations follow a paradigm in that they follow a framework of values and beliefs, which lead to steroetyping individuals or collectives with regards to their gender, social class, ethicity, etc.

Self Evaluation on Presentataion

Self Evaluation

As part of my summer research task, i was also required to put together a 3-5 minute presentation on key points from our research. We were being examined on four different areas for our presenatation, these were: Significance- why does it matter? Structure- Is it easy to remeber? does it link? Simplicity- Does it have too much text? colour scheme? and Rehearsal- Is it presenated well?

In these four ares i was awarded 2 marks each, with the marking cheme of 1: outstanding and 5: poor, therefore in all aspects i averaged a 'very good'. In terms of feed back, each member of the class gave a point for 'what went well' (WWW) and 'even better if' (EbI). For my WWW i was given acknowledgement for explaining each character individually and thoroughly, using sufficient amount of media terminiology such as, 'watershed', 'stereotype', 'binaray oppositions', etc. i was also acreditied for using good vocabulary words ssbiguous' as well as exending and elaborating on the media institutional research. The design and colour asortation of my slides were also part of the structure and simplicity which i chose to keep colour coordinated with a balance between the amount of text and images that were displayed on each slide. Also as part of my feed back, my previous research consisted of both primary and secondary research, where a sound amount was applied to both the presentation and my blog, moreover i managed to end my presentation with a strong conclusion delievering why Skins is a goo programme to watch and how it appeals to its audiences.

However,there were some EBIs, these were having a more detailed introdction to the text as i found not many people were either aware of or watched the text. Also i was criticised for using full sentences in some of the slides as elaborating on key words that triggered the sentences would have earned me better marks as well as improved my presentational skills. Also i could have exhibited a more intricate analysis on genre and audience by using other theories such as Uses and gratification. Though i was unable to apply Proppain's theory of roles as it did not contemplate my chosen text i was advised to explain why it did not fit my chosen text in future so that the audience are aware of this.