Benefits Street

Benefit Street:

Age/Gender:
The show gives quite a negative representation of middle aged men aged around their early 40's. This is shown because through one person in the show called 'Fungi'. He is portrayed in a negative way as he is an alcoholic and has taken drugs in the past. In the title sequence of the show you see him standing in the street with a can of beer and in a full adidas tracksuit abusing a group of foreign people walking past. Part of the the title sequence also shows a wide shot of Fungi in a group of middle aged men and they are standing next the the street sign making inappropriate gestures. This suggests to the audience that they are not very respectable people.

Ethnicity:
This show has a lot of different representations of ethnicity. There is one person in the show who is an elderly black man and he is saying how he has lived on the street all his life and how that it has gone downhill over the years. The show uses a close up camera angle of his face to show his angry facial expression and disgust about the street that he lives on.

Age/Gender:
The show gives quite a mixed representation of the middle aged woman in the show named 'white Dee' The show gives a negative representation of her because she talks about how she doesn't need a job because the government just give her money, and the show uses a wide camera shot to show the inside of her home and it isn't very clean/ tidy which gives a negative representation of her. The diegetic sound also gives a negative representation of her because you hear her swearing at her children, one of them is only 7/8.
However the show does also show some positive representation of her, she is shown as the matriarch of the street and she looks after all of the other people on the street, the camera used a wide shot of her talking to other members on the street and trying to help them out with their problems.

Uses and Gratifications:
People might watch the show for;
Information - people who are part of the higher socio economic grouping such as A or b class might watch the show to get an insight into what it is like for people who aren't as well off as them and don't have a comfortable life like them.
Entertainment - people who are in the socio economic grouping might watch the show because they find it funny to watch or they might see it as an emotional release for them, because they have a high grouping they have good jobs, well paid, lots of pressure on them so they watch the show because it's completely different to all the problems they face in real life.
Social Integration - people from any of the socio economic groupings might watch the show because lots of people are watching a talking about it, especially younger people between the ages of 16-25, because their friends are watching it they might decide to watch it too so that they can join in on conversations that people are having about the show.

Representation Task

Strippers:

At the start of the show it seems that the show adheres to the stereotypes of what strippers are like, the first shot used is a close up of a young girls face who is applying a lot of eye make up, and automatically you assume she is using it in order to try and attract men. The next shot used shows a young woman's body in the mirror, they only show her body and not her face, this shows that women are being over sexualised and just considered as sexualised objects.
Gender:
The show demonstrates a negative representation of men ss they are the ones who degrade the women and just treat them as sexual objects. This is shown by the use of a close up of a middle aged man standing outside the club with a beer in his hand shouting at the younger girls, saying degrading things.
Gender/Age:
The programme also contradicts the stereotype of what you think a typical strip club owner would be like, the stereotype would be a middle ages man, quite perverted, who doesn't really care about the girls, whereas the owner of this club is called Shelly, a middle ages female who is very protected over the strippers that work there, this is shown by the use of a close up shot of her face during an interview and you can see that she has quite a serious facial expression when she is saying that no men are allowed to touch the girls so this breaks the stereotype of what a strip club owner would be like.
Gender:
The show also shows a positive representation of stripper girls, they use a wide shot of one of the most experienced strippers named Kim sitting next to a large collection of medals that she had one for gymnastics when she was younger which shows people that strippers aren't all just unintelligent, untalented girls, a lot of them only do it because they need money to live on, it also shows Kim talking about how her job is only temporary and that she plans on 0. The lighting used on the show when they are filming in the club is mostly red, this colour is commonly associated with passion and danger and so it shows how the girls are being over sexualised which gives them a bad reputation because it makes them look very promiscuous and dirty when really all they are there for is for a job, to make money.
Ethnicity:
One part of the show has an interview with a foreign stripper talking about her experiences and she says that she feels 'gross' about stripping and it shows a wide shot of her cooking a meal for herself, this shows quite a positive representation of the firs because it shows that they don't do it because they enjoy it and they are just quite normal people who outside of their job do normal things.

Uses and Gratifications:

Personal Identity - A lot of women might watch the show because they might be in the same position because they can't get a job or they are a stripper and they don't know whether to tell their families/friends etc. so they might watch the show to see how the characters deal with those problems.
Information - people might watch it because it gives an insight into what it's really like to be a stripper and it breaks down the stereotype, people in higher classes might watch it to get informed about what it is like to have a job like that
Entertainment - people, especially men between the ages of 18-50 might watch the show just for entertainment, they might have been in strip clubs before and they are just watching the show to entertain them.
Social Integration - because it is quite a popular show people will watch it because other people are watching it and they are interested about why everybody is talking about the show

Representations of Ethnicity in Soaps

Negative Representation:
In this clip it shows a white policeman stopping a black man for no reason, this gives a negative representation of white men because it suggests that they are racist because if they see a black person they automatically assume that it's them that might have done something wrong just because they are black.
This could also give a negative representation of black people because

Representations of ethnicity in Films

The Blind Side:

Positive Representations of Ethnicity:

The film gives quite a positive representation of white people in America, because the mother of the family is the one who reaches out tot help the black boy, she is a christian woman, she is very wealthy, she has a nice house a nice car and therefore many younger females will look up to her because they would want to be like the the character that they are watching in the film. It is also shows that the woman is a very dominant character, more than some of the men in the film and so women will look up to her for being a powerful person.

Negative Representation of Ethnicity:
This films shows quite a negative representation of some black people in the film. The mother of the black boy (Michael) shown in the clip, she is seen to be living in a small dirty house, on a rough estate that is heavily populated with violent, aggressive, abusive young black boys, and she has had a lot of children, she doesn't know who most of the dads are and she hasn't seen most of them for years. The wine bottle on the side, shown in the trailer suggests that she drinks a lot and people assume that because of her background she might have taken drugs swell. This creates a negative representation of middle aged black women living in America and that they are not people to look up to

Age Representation

'He's got 10 missing teeth and a pot belly... but he's still gorgeous to me!': Couple with 38-year age gap renew vows on 13th wedding anniversary

• Nicola was 16 when she started dating Joe, then 54
• Joe who was uncle of Nicola's school friend
• Just two weeks after admitting their feelings they moved in together
• Caused huge backlash from families and Joe was called a paedophile
• Nicola still doesn't speak to many of family
• Pair now have four children and plan to renew their wedding vows 
• 'If people disapprove of us it’s their problem, not mine,' says Nicola

By KATY WINTER

PUBLISHED: 11:57, 24 February 2014 | UPDATED: 13:24, 24 February 2014

They may look like grandfather and granddaughter - but 29-year-old Nicola and 67-year-old Joe Philpot are actually husband and wife.

When they fell for each other, Nicola was just 16 years old and the romance caused a huge backlash from their families.

Joe, who is a grandfather, was even branded a paedophile by locals in their hometown of Chigwell, Essex.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2566535/Hes-got-10-missing-teeth-pot-belly-hes-gorgeous-Couple-38-year-age-gap-renew-wedding-vows-13th-anniversary.html#ixzz2uFvZ6A5m
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Audience:
The audience that this article could appeal to could be anybody from the ages of 25- 70 because that is the age range in which the couple are being written about.

Uses and Gratifications:

ASOS

ASOS:
The aim of the ASOS is to sell products to the people go on the website.
People who take the preferred view of this website will be people between the ages between 16-35, and are part of a socio economic ranging from D-B, this is because people in the D grouping tend to be young people and students. It might also appeal to people of a B group because they sell a range of different clothing including some designer stuff which might appeal to people of a higher grouping.

People who take a negotiated view of this website might be people who are older than 35, they accept that the clothes on the website are aimed at younger people, but they are still interested in clothes and fashion, they might look at the clothes on the website but they don't go and buy anything from the website.

People who take a oppositional

Benefit Street

Benefit Street:
Audience:
The audience for benefit street would be mainly people ages between aged from 18+ because that is when you become and adult and start to get a job and then start to pay tax. It would also be watched by a lot of people who are in the A or B socio economic grouping because they are the people that have the better paid job and therefore pay more money in taxes. They will watch the show to see how their taxes are being spent and also to see how people in the E socio economic grouping live day to day.

Uses and Gratifications:
People might watch the show for;
Entertainment: they watch because they are interested to see how people at the lower end of society are living and the things that they do in their daily lives. They might watch it because people of a higher socio economic status find it relaxing and escape from reality because the show is so different to their normal lives.
Information: people might watch the show to get informed about how the benefit system works and how people are able to live off the money that they get given from benefits and see what their quality of life is like.
Social Integration: they might watch the show because it is a popular, controversial show that a lot of people are talking about and so they tune it to see why people are talking about it so much and so they can then join in on conversations and debates that people are having about the show.

Big Brother

Uses and Gratifications:
Entertainment: Things like this tend to occur a lot on shows like big brother and people watch this to get entertainment from it.
People may watch Big Brother because it is very unrealistic to relationships in real life such as the relationship between Lee, Casey and Jasmine and so people might watch it to escape or divert from real life problems, as an emotional escape.
People might find it relaxing to watch other peoples problems rather than deal with their own.

Social Integration:
People watch the show so that it gives them something to talk to about with their friends and it might even cause them to talk to people about it to people that they don't normally talk to.

Personal Identity:
People might watch the show and identify with a certain person on the show that has a similar behaviour to themselves and they might identify how they could maybe change their behaviour and attitude.

Audience: I think that the audience for Big Brother is probably ranged between 16-40 years because the show has been running for about 15 years so many people might have started watching it when they were a lot younger and have stuck with the show over the whole period, and younger audience members might have only been watching it for a few years but they can relate more to people in there because most of the contestants are in their 20s/30s.

How to Improve

Audience Question:
Learn and Apply the different theories and be able to apply them to my answer
Use the correct type of media language and be more specific when using texts/TV shows etc. as examples to support my ideas

Representation Question:
To improve on this question i need to be more specific when using examples, so when i was talking about the Inbetweeners i needed to talk about a specific episode of the show not just the programme in general.
I also need to manage my time better so that I get to talk about different more different media texts.

Revision and Study:

I need to do more revision leading up to the exam, I plan to do about an hour of revision every week. I need to revise the different theories and i also need to revise different media language

Coursework:

I have finished all of my coursework to a high standard