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Socio-Economic Groupings

Class structure assists programme makers/schedules in choices relating to target audience

Social group A is upper middle class, this is jobs that are higher managerial, administrative and professional jobs such as a principle, head teacher, doctor/specialist.  

Social group B is middle class, which are jobs that are intermediate managerial/ Middle Management or professionals for example a bank manager or a teacher.

Social Group C1 is lower middle class, which are jobs that are supervisor jobs or clerical jobs such as a shop floor supervisor, bank clerk or sales person.

Social Group C2 is skilled working class which consists of jobs such as an electrician or carpenter.  

Social Group D is working class which consists of semi and unskilled manual workers such as assembly line worker, refuse collector or messenger.  

Social Group E is the lowest level of subsistence which consists of casual labourers, pensioners and unemployed people, for example state pensioners, and people on basic benefits.

UK Demographic Classifications

6% Elite-High salary-large savings-Dentists, Judges, CEOs

25% Established Middle Class- Electrical Engineers, Midwifes, Police Officers, Environmental Specialists, Special Needs Teaching Professionals

6%Technical Middle Class-Pilots, Pharmacists, Researchers

15%New Affluent Workers-Electricians, Retail Cashiers, Sales Assistants, Plumbers

14% Traditional Working Class-Electrical Technicians, Care Workers, Cleaners, Van Drivers

19% Emergent Service Sector-Bar Staff, Chefs, Musicians

15% Precariat-Shop Keepers, Labourers,

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Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Qualitative research is where people’s opinions, beliefs and experiences are used. It is a more personal means of research. Some examples of this are diary entries, one to one interviews and vox pops (asking random members of the public questions). However, the information could have a bias due to the use of people opinions.

Qualitative research will help you gain and insight into people’s feelings and experiences and provide highly valuable key information.

A media source that uses both forms of research is BBC News who includes both factual research including percentages and statistics but also use opinions, quotes and eye witness accounts. It is important and valuable to include both forms of research as it helps provide key information to the audience and cover all angles so you include opinions and quotes on a personal level but statistics and evidence to back up and support points and help make your report seem more reliable.

For  example in a BBC News Report on a protest caused by an Anti-Islam film statistics are used to help further inform the audience of the topic. For example statistics used are “About 3,000 protesters burned US and Israeli flags in the southern Philippines city of Marawi”. But quotes are used to show another angle/opinion on the story; ‘Tony Blair said the film was “wrong and offensive but also laughable as a piece of filmmaking-what is dangerous and wrong is the reaction to it”.’  This gives another point of view to the article and helps give people another angle on the subject.

 Quantitative is where statistics and percentages are used-the information is purely factual and gives no information on a personal level (gives no personal feelings, experiences). Some examples of this form of research are exam results, tallies, graphs, statistics and data. This data should not be used alone for some circumstances due to the blunt nature of it. Sometimes people will want to put an emotional spin on a story/situation and will need to include qualitative research to connect with the audience and give an insight into the story from perhaps an eye witness.

For example, a lot of this research may be used to show how popular piracy is at the moment due to it being a hugely discussed topic in the media at the moment. It may be used to show the increase in downloading and give statistics into how many people use it.

Quantitative research is good to use because it provides factual and valid information which you can back up and support by using other sources of information and it also avoids a bias. People can see just the facts and not be affected by other people’s opinions or beliefs. This is helpful for the audience to know that the information and key points you are providing are accurate and reliable and not just opinions.

You should only use quantitative research when trying to put a blunt point across not for an emotional/sensitive situation. 

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Effects Debate

This is basically the debate about restricting certain content as certain people believe that if someone watches a certain kind of behaviour or act, such as violence, people watching it will act in a violent manner.

For example, video games are hugely accused of promoting a certain kind of behaviour in the children partaking in the game. There have been different reports such as children are more likely to grow up to be better people if they play the hero opposed to the villain in a video game.

Games that include heavy violence such as Grand Theft Auto receive a lot of criticism as the player receives points for killing people and committing crimes. When someone commits a violent crime, if they have been playing a game such as Grand Theft Auto, it becomes the scapegoat for the crime and is held responsible for the crime when in actual fact you can't blame a game for someone's behaviour, although video games can have an influence on someone, it is still up to that person how they behave and they should still have their morals and have knowledge of what is actually right and wrong and draw the line between a game and reality. There has also been evidence video games can actually have positive effects particularly on people who have dyslexia and certain kinds of anxiety. 

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What is the use of a product?

Radio

A radio is a very ueseful product because it can grab the audience's attention without demanding their undivided attention for example, someone can still clean their car or do work and be able to hear what's going on with a radio. People stuck in traffic jams will get bored and frustrated so may resort to turn on the radio to keep them entertained whilst they wait.

Magazine

An example for how a magazine is used as an effective product is magazine stands at train stations. Perhaps whilst a commuter is waiting for a train they will see a magazine that grabs their attention and they may end up buying it to read whilst they wait for their train or even to read on the way to wherever they're going whilst on the train. The are helpful for people to read whilst travelling and are also good because they contain useful information or celebrity gossip which people can then discuss.

Web

The web contains a variety of information that is useful for a wide audience as it contains information about so many different areas from general knowledge to celebrity gossip to history. It covers a wide audience and is also an effective tool for social networking which gives it huge appeal in many people looking to communicate with others or get their viewpoint across on something, perhaps a program or news report.

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Uses and Gratifications Theory

This concept is more agreed than the Hypodermic Needle Model because it takes into account the fact their audience each have their own minds and experiences and such.

It considers who the product will be relatable to, for example, slimming programmes are made to appeal to people of a larger size looking to lose weight.

The gratification theory is what the audience will get out of the product, why they are using it and what they are hoping to feel/get from it. For example people will watch horror films to be intentionally scared and put on edge and people will watch comedy films to laugh and cheer themselves up perhaps.

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Hypodermic Needle Model

The Hypodermic needle model is the concept of the media giving the audience information and it causing a certain reaction/response. It is called the hypodermic needle model because of the way a doctor would inject a stimulant into any working muscle and it would work the same way, so it is a theory that by the media 'injecting' certain information into it's audience, all human mind's will react to the information in the same way.

But not everyone agrees with this concept as certain things shown will have different reactions. Not every person likes the same thing and some people will have their own experience or relation to something being shown and whilst some people will be able to relate to what they are being shown in a positive way, others will react to it in a negative way. For example, if an advert is being shown that promotes some kind of chocolate or something sweet, some people would watch it and become hungry and tempted to go and buy it, but for someone who's perhaps on a diet or maybe lactose in tolerant, they might change channels or would switch off, the advert would not have the same kind of positive effect on them as it would on someone who loves chocolate.

One game that I know has received a lot of controversy is 'Grand Theft Auto' it is believed that the game encourages violent behaviour in the player, as you are rewarded with points/money for stealing cars, assaults and murders. One example of this is Neil Dugdale who stormed over to his best friend's house after he'd stopped playing the game with him with a hammer and a kitchen knife shouting how he was going to 'slit his throat'. During the article I read on this it was mentioned how players receive points for aggressive acts and how the game has already received a lot of criticism.

There are obviously positives about media censorship but I believe there are also negatives too. I think sometimes it's possible for young people to be shielded to what goes on in reality, obviously severe gore and potentially psychologically damaging content should be censored, but I think certain things like drug use should not be censored too thoroughly, it's reality that everyone will come across drugs at some point in there life and I believe if it is portrayed in the right way it can be educational and very beneficial to the audience. For example, if drug use is shown in a way where the audience is seeing the negatives and damaging side to drugs as opposed to glamorising it, it could make the audience reconsider taking/ trying illegal drugs. But obviously censorship is good in the sense it shields children from content that could affect them mentally, for example a scene which shows a brutal murder is likely to have some psychological affect on the child because they are too young to comprehend what is going, but at some point slightly later in life they will be able to watch it with a better understanding of what's going on because as they grow up they will come to realise that murders do happen in the world.

The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is very important for ensuring that the content in films is not damaging to it's audience, but it's interesting looking into films and how the classification is constantly changing. I think this is because in the world we live in, it is a lot more accepted to see perhaps a scene of a sexual nature in a film, and the language has definitely changed a substantial amount. A really interesting example I found on the BBFC's website is 'Quadrophenia' which is a film that was aimed at a younger audience (12-18 year olds) but then received an X rating from the BBFC upon it's release back in 1979, which caused many complaints from the teenagers who had been looking forward to watching it. The reason it was given the x rating was because the BBFC argued that the mob violence stimulated even an adult audience and that the language was excessive even for an X rated film. There are many scenes of a sexual nature as well as strong use of language, alcohol and drug use is also very common during the film. Yet the film was re-classified as a 15 upon theatrical re-release in 1996. It surprises me how quickly times change, it shows how numb society has become to things such as language, for Quadrophenia to go from being suitable for only 18s and over to 15 year olds show how younger people are becoming more used to language and it's no longer something that's frowned upon as much.  

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079766/parentalguide?ref_=tt_stry_pg

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Research

It's important to make sure you research when creating a product. For example, on a chat show, it's important that research is done into the interviewees beforehand to ensure the questions are relevant and will not cause offence. 

Lack of research can cause embarrassing moments for the host of the chat show or offence to the interviewees. When this happens a chat show can risk being cancelled. 

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Demographics

Demographics sort the audience into age, race, gender and other different categories. 

With magazines, if for example a popular magazine seems to be lacking in a younger audience, they might put younger models on the front cover and more modern stories that will appeal to younger people and be more relatable to them. 

By researching into your audience it allows you to select successful methods of marketing and helps you decide the best way to advertise a product. 

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Target Audience

When designing a product, the target audience is the group of people you are aiming at to get their attention. For example, Heartbeat is aimed at an older audience. 

It is important to taken into account certain things when considering your target audience such as the time you are going to have your program shown at night, if you have a program on late in the evening chances are you won't be aiming for children to be watching your program but if you show it earlier you will be getting a wider target audience with variation of ages hopefully. 

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Personal Progression

I feel throughout the project I have developed some skills I had initially shown no interest in at all. I started this project very narrow minded and persistent on only doing photography. I had the mind set 'I've not done anything else so I'm not good at anything else'. I actually have done quite a few roles I never saw myself doing.

I have been an interviewer which is something I kind of shocked myself doing and admittedly did struggle to do it due to my confidence. But I didn't refuse to do it or say I couldn't, I just got on with it and did the best I could and was fine, it still wasn't a strong point but I did okay.

Another role I did was I recorded audio for one or two interviews which at first I was extremely reluctant and hesitant to do. But everyone strongly encouraged me to do it and reassured and supported me which was nice. The whole time I was worrying that there would be a problem due to the fact that the audio has gone wrong before but I finished the interview checked the audio recorded and it had and then asked some people to listen and they said it sounded okay, which reassured me and gave me some confidence to do it again.

I have also helped frame some shots for the interviews and check what the composition was like, admittedly I didn't always have a particularly strong role in this, usually assisting someone else, giving my opinion, small things like that. But it made me more aware of how to frame a good interview and gave me ideas for composing shots.

I also helped to edit, on some videos it would only be a small amount I'd be editing but on an other video I stepped out of my comfort zone and edited cutaways in the layout the brief had wanted. I asked people how to do this and got advice, I also colour corrected some of the footage for the cutaways which I hadn't done before. When I handed the cutaways over I got told they were good and it was really nice knowing that my work is such a big contribution and I will recognise that work on the website, it encouraged me to edit some more cutaways, so I offered a few times after.

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The deadline is this Friday (Friday 13th December) so we are coming to the end of our project. This project was initially meant to be three weeks long but we are now in our fourth week, but I think this has really pulled our group closer together and shown everyone how much we are capable of.

A lot of people have developed some leadership skills, certain people in the class have really stepped forward and taken charge of videos, we have also developed group skills because everyone is working as part of a team and always communicating with each other making sure that everyone knows what they're doing. This project has been interesting to do and it has kind of given us a taste of what it would be like to actually be working to a brief for actual clients.

Obviously this project has been very helpful but like most situations, it's had some low points in it. I think every so often the class's energy and enthusiasm would slip slightly, at first it was after about 2 weeks in I think. So the class had a day where we weren't very constructive but the next day everyone came back and were ready to work hard and make up for the lazy day and worked very hard and totally focused.

Another thing is there were points we weren't 100% organised, there were quite a few occasions SD cards would go missing or even times where a small amount of footage would be deleted. In fact today we all panicked because we thought we'd lost all our footage for good, but luckily we found it. But we realised you need to be extremely careful when looking after footage to not lose it and make sure everyone has a copy and it's somewhere safe.

What I think helped to keep people motivated is when the clients would come in and talk to everyone and show an interest and take the time to appreciate our work and thank and praise us.

This project has definitely taught everyone to have sharp observation because we've had to make sure for interviews the video and audio is synced up together perfectly, it can't even be slightly out because we all know it's going to be seen by so many people and it's going to be what convinces people to come to our college and do that particular course.

I think it's amazing that the class is in for full days every day of the week and have been for the past three weeks and yet no matter how tired some people get, the quality of the videos never even slightly slips, it's always at such a professional standard. I think when people have been feeling a bit low or tired it really does pick them up again to have our clients come in and saying things like how impressed they are with our work, the class looked very proud with the work they had produced.

I also think it's such a nice project because every single person in the class has contributed in one way or another whether it's been filming, editing, doing sound, photography, whatever role it's been everyone in the class have given something towards this project, and I think that's another thing that has kept people motivated.

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This is our fourth week doing the project and we are doing very well, our deadline is Friday, and now we are basically just editing and making final adjustments to our edits to perfect them for the new website.

The client has said we may need to film more footage for Business at some point but at the moment things are going well and we are nearly finished. We have completed and handed in so far: Hospitality and Catering Hair and Beauty Engineering  Construction Painting and Decorating Sports Uniformed Services Art and Design Graphics and Photography Fashion Early Years Science Health and Social Care Music Gaming and Computing Business So we've pretty much done all the videos, just final changes to them if necessary and film, edit and finish Media's video.

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This is what inspired the idea of recreating the Matrix 'Bullet time' scene. This is a video which compares the actual scene to the home made version of it. They have recreated the scene very well, there isn't much difference.

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Nearly Finished...

Today we are exporting most/all of the final promotional videos and are editing the Media promotional video which is coming along nicely.

So far today we have filmed some more scenes from films so far we have filmed a scene from 'Jurassic Park' and also we are going to film a scene from the Matrix today. For the Jurassic Park scene we have people directing a large dinosaur.

I have also got further with my UCAS application, I have filled out most of my personal details and have also looked at a computer animation course at Bournemouth University.

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Today's Work

Today has been a busy day, we started this morning by helping out with a first year's project, which didn't take long. After that we needed to make a start on the promotional video for media, which proved to be harder than we thought, we realised it'd be quite hard for us to promote our own department. 

We came up with some really good ideas, we decided we would try to make it look like we were responsible for filming iconic moments from famous films such as: E.T, Psycho and Anchorman. We positioned an interviewee from our department who would be actually filming/doing sound during their interview it turned out really good. 

We then went from there to Science to film over there, we filmed several cutaways of the students working with Bunsen burners and also recorded two interviews. It might be a challenge having to edit one of the interviews as they said 'err' and 'erm' a lot  but our second interview went really well and although he occasionally stammered he didn't say "err" or "erm" and if he did it was extremely minimalistic. 

We are all nearing the end for the deadline and today we had to make a cancellation for the learning support centre video because we were so tied up doing the media promotional video. We are mostly just editing right now, we have pretty much filmed all the departments now, the ones we have done are:  Hospitality and Catering Hair and Beauty Travel and Tourism Engineering Construction Painting and Decorating Health and Social Care Early Years Child Care Music  Aeronautical Engineering Science Performing Arts Business Gaming and Computing Graphics and Photography  Art and Design I'm pretty sure they are all the departments we've filmed so far, so now we are mostly just editing it all together.  Yesterday I put together cutaways properly that then were put into the promotional video for Graphics, it went well and it was nice knowing I'd contributed something to the videos. It was my first time compiling cutaways and it went really well and fitted into the video well and the video's looking really good so far.  And then at the end of the day I edited together cutaways for Performing Arts. 

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What I Have Done Today

Today I recorded the audio for the interview we did in Art and I also edited an interview for fashion and have given that over to be put into the corporate video for fashion. I had to cut "erm" and "er" and breaks in her speech out and had to link the audio up with the video footage and it is complete now.

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What's Being Done Today

Today we are doing Sports and Art. This morning we did an interview for someone in Art which went well, I recorded the audio for it. It was my first time dealing with audio. The class split in half again, one half went off to Sport and the other half went off to Art, I went to do Art with Terri Johnson, Connor Cleary, Connor Ferrier and Luke Parker whilst the rest of the class went off to film Sport.

For Sport the group came up with the idea of getting the Go Pro camera and putting it in a hamster ball and allowing the students to kick it around, it will make it look like they are kicking a football around.

When we went into our first classroom for Art we found out there were only three people in and there wasn't much going on so the lecturer said come back tomorrow when there will be more people in and more will be going on. The second class we went in there wasn't much going on, but we did our interview and asked a student to draw something so we could film it and she was co-operative and did it, so we got some good shots through that.

I haven't edited today but I made sure I asked people in my group if there was anything I could do to help edit wise and there wasn't so I have been keeping up to date with my media blog.