Week Monday 21 September: three lessons

POWER & THE MEDIA: ORIENTALISM  

We are preparing for the 'Power' exam question. Your final essay may consider three topics: how black / Asian identity is constructed in the media; how women are represented in the media; how Arabian culture is represented in the media. Today's lesson on orientalism therefore may give you a third to a half of your final exam answer.

Please email me your completed essay by Friday 25 September.

You will write a short essay on Orientalism as part of this topic in answer to the exam question: "The media construct identity." How far do you agree with this view?

• define orientalism and how it relates to the media's power to shape perceptions about identity
• give an account of Edward Said's thoughts on orientalism. Edward Said was a founder of the academic foeld of post-colonial studies, whose work Orientalism was a foundational text.
• offer three case studies that support your views
• brief conclusion that relates to the exam question

In our lesson on orientalism, we will use these resources:

• What is orientalism? A stereotyping of Arab peoples and cultures
• Imperialism and orientalism: what did Edward Said write?
• Orientalism asserts the West's superiority and justifies the assertion of Western power over the East
  
• Hollywood stereotypes: Arabs as terrorists, Arab women as exotic or oppressed
• The misrepresentation of Arabs in Western media

 Watch the brief video

ADVANCED PRODUCTION LESSONS

PRELIMINARY EXERCISES 

Complete practice trailer. Post in Preliminary Exercises explaining what conventions you used. Set it out attractively. Update your preliminary exercises with additional work.

PLANNING: THE TRAILER

Start brainstorming A2 Advanced production trailer with a large sheet of A3 paper and pencils. Bank the sheets in the silver tray at the end of the lesson (don't take them home).

Write individually a brief post with an account of initial ideas: your target audience, the genre, what topics within the genre that would meet both audience's desire for satisfying familiarity and offer a USP (something new). Involve me in the discussion at early stages before you pitch it. Remember that trailers 

• signal genre clearly through mise-en-scène, sound
• take giant strides through the narrative arc so don't have continuity editing
• focus on high points
• introduce the main characters
• have key dialogue only
• build towards the end point, hooking the audience
• don't explain everything, but intrigue the audience
• have inter titles that point to key concepts
• have a strong, original film title

PLANNING: THE TARGET AUDIENCE

Write a post explaining that you set out to identify your target audience. Devise your questionnaire this lesson, complete it and send it out to suitable respondents immediately. Check with me that your spellings are correct. Ensure that you invite co-operation politely and that you thank your reader at the end. Add the questionnaire to your blog post.

Once you have a good number of replies, create a bar chart (or similar) and add the results to this same blog post so that the whole task is in one place.

• You drew on what you had learned from the FDA presentation.
• You created an audience questionnaire using GoogleForms
• You used the following questions....
• You asked your respondents to view and comment on the following trailer(s) which your target audience are likely to enjoy
• You asked your target audience to comment on the following posters which are likely to attract and address your target audience....
• You have some questions that invite a longer (qualitative) response