‘Media text rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives’ Explain how you used conventional or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.

I am going to discuss the ideas of narrative in relation to my advanced portfolio, which was a music video for Linkin Park’s cover of Adele’s ‘Rolling In The Deep’.

As it was a rock (nu metal) cover of a popular pop song I decided to look into other nu metal songs, and pick apart the key points that they used to engage their audience. I looked at Linkin Parks music video for ‘In the end’. The song is about the struggles of growing up and how life isn’t worth living but the video was created to lighten and juxtapose the lyrics. The song starts and ends with the piano which symbolised the cycle of life, at the start of the music video we can see a lifeless desert but during and nearing the end of the video rain comes down and spawns life in the form of flowers, rivers and butterflies. Although it would be hard to relate this format of the music video to mine, I liked the idea of juxtaposing lyrics and visuals, and so I decided do the same in certain parts of my narrative.

Goodwin has 8 principles to his theory, I looked at; ‘there is a relationship between the music and the visuals (with visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics), and decided the relationship between my lyrics and visuals would be that they contradict. As the song was about the emotions of a scorned lover “See how I’ll leave with every piece of you”, I decided to oppose these lyrics with visuals of a stereotypical couple, but as my narrative was fragmented it does show the breakup between them as well. Todorovs theory of narrative states the stages of equilibrium, disequilibrium and ultimately a new equilibrium being formed. The audience can engage with the video as there is an understanding of equilibrium, this being the couple happy together which many people can relate to. Although the narrative is fragmented, using this theory allows for a clear storyline to be set and followed by the audience. 

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How might the influence of new media be said to strengthen or weaken the public sphere?

It can be argued that the influence of new media is strengthening or weakening the public sphere depending on what angle you see the debate from. The public sphere can be defined as 'the social sites or arenas where meanings are articulated, distributed and negotiated by the public', we see Habermas stating that this public sphere is beginning to weaken in the 20th century. However, there is evidence suggesting otherwise, that although the public sphere face to face may not be as strong as it was, a whole new concept has been introduced through new (social) media where the community has been transferred online.

When looking at the Syrian uprising, we see the power of convergent devices such as mobile phones, where syrian rebels are able to record and share footage, which is then published online via social networking sites. It is this idea of "witness, record, share" that appears to reiterate the initial ideas of the public sphere as it then after uploading that a community, that which exists due to social networking, discusses, debates and then shares again. Furthermore this shows a strengthening of the public sphere as it allows it to bypass censorship as these individuals can show what the traditional media cannot as reporters were banned by the Syrian government. 

New media adds another strength to the public sphere that it is not only cheap but easily accessed. With mobile phones being inexpensive and all smartphones having the ability to access the internet it gives nearly everyone the chance to be active online. We see this in the Syrian uprising as the videos of protesters were shot on mobile phones which were then uploaded straight away or through a computer onto social networking sites such as FaceBook and Twitter. The only foreseeable problem with this idea that everyone can have access online is that there are number of people who cannot afford the technology needed. Another problem to take into consideration is the digital divide, that as the public sphere is weakened in a face to face sense and gets stronger as it goes online, those that do not know how to use such technology such as the elderly will be excluded from the debates and so their voice will be lost.

However, there are apparent negatives to the rise in new media, the struggle with anonymity being a strong concern. Tom Macmaster would be a prime example of this; he is an American student studying in Edinburgh, he pretended to be a young Arab lesbian blogger. His case highlights that anyone can create an identity online, one that it can be completely moulded and shaped to how you want the virtual world to see and believe it. This is clearly a poor decision on his part as it was unethical and created quite a serious problem as there was uproar on Twitter and with Blogger users as he endangered those in the eastern gay communities. Although he was trying to raise a serious issue, it turned out to cause more harm than good, when he did reveal his identity and apologised it wasn’t accepted.

In conclusion we can definitely see that new media is affecting the public sphere, with both positive and negative effects including accessibility and anonymity. In my opinion I believe that the pros far outweigh the cons as we not only have instantly accessible news, but we can share this with the world alongside our own views upon the current situation thus promoting democracy in the online age.

Derick shows Jesus the way