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The Specials - 'Ghost Town'

  The Specials - Ghost Town: Blog tasks Background and historical contexts Read this excellent analysis from The Conversation website of the impact Ghost Town had both musically and visually . Answer the following questions 1) Why does the writer link the song to cinematic soundtracks and music hall tradition? 2) What subcultures did 2 Tone emerge from in the late 1970s? 2 Tone had emerged stylistically from the Mod and Punk subcultures and its musical roots and the people in it, audiences and bands, were both black and white. Ska and the related Jamaican Rocksteady were its musical foundations. 3) What social contexts are discussed regarding the UK in 1981? England was hit by recession and away from rural Skinhead nights, riots were breaking out across its urban areas. Deprived, forgotten, run down and angry, these were places where young people, black and white, erupted. In these neglected parts of London, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool the young, the unemployed, and the disaf...
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Postmodernism in music video

  Media Magazine Theory Drop - Postmodernism Create a new blog post called 'Postmodernism in music video: blog tasks'. Read ‘The Theory Drop: Postmodernism’ in MM66  (p26). You'll find our Media Magazine archive here - remember you'll need your Greenford Google login to access. Answer the following questions: 1) How does the article define postmodernism in the first page of the article? Postmodernism takes this concept of questioning traditional structures, representations and expectations and pushes things a step further. 2) What did media theorist and Semiotician Roland Barthes suggest in his essay ' The Death of the Author '? In it, he challenged tradition when he said that a writer’s opinions, intentions or interpretation of their own work are no more valid than anyone else’s. 3) What is metatextuality? Metatextuality is where a text draws attention to the fact that it is a text. It points to the process of its own cr...
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Postcolonial theory

Wider reading on race and Old Town Road Read  this W Magazine deep dive on the Yeehaw agenda  and answer the following questions:  1) What are the visual cues the article lists as linked to the western genre?  Cowboy hats, cow print, rhinestones and fringed jackets. 2) How did the Yeehaw agenda come about?  The black community felt under-represented in modern Cowboy media even though in reality they made up at least 25% of Cowboys So, there was a push for more representation and to reclaim American media. 3) Why has it been suggested that the black cowboy has been 'erased from American culture'?  Hollywood reinforced white centred stories and rarely represented more ethnicities. 4) How has the black cowboy aesthetic been reflected by the fashion industry? Runway collections and luxury brands feature western themes with the  influence of black culture. 5) Read the section on Lil Nas X and Old Town Road. What does it suggest about race and the country mu...
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Lil Nas X - Old Town Road

  Background and cultural contexts Read  this Vox feature and podcast transcript on Lil Nas X and Old Town Road . Make sure you read the whole thing - including the podcast t ranscript - then answer the following questions:  1) What is the big debate regarding Old Town Road and genre? Wether the song should be classified as rap or country or a hybrid county rap genre.  2) What do you learn about the background of Lil Nas X and Old Town Road from the podcast transcript? He came to fame through the song going viral on tiktok and before that he was an independent artist. 3) What is the Yeehaw agenda? It's about challenging the stereotypes people often believe about the American cowboy and country-western music in general . 4) How did the story become a debate about race in America? Because it  wasn't getting recognised as a country song people thought it was to do with race and the fact that lil was x was challenging stereotypes in his song. 5) How does Charlie Har...
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Music Video introduction

  This week's work requires  Media  Factsheet #69: Music Video . You'll need to log in to Google using your Greenford Google account to access this.  Read the factsheet and answer the following 10 questions: 1) What is the purpose of a music video? The purpose of a music video is to sell products, the most obvious  of which is the song featured in the video. However, other connected  products are also marketed by a music video. For example, the  album the song is featured on, the film the song is part of the  soundtrack for, an upcoming tour by the artist and merchandise like  t-shirts. 2) How has the digital age changed the production and distribution of music videos? The development of new media technologies meant that music  videos, and the songs along with them, were more widely available  at any time. Videos could be uploaded to video hosting sites like  YouTube and viewed using portable media devices. 3) Which three major...
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'The Running Man' Film Review

Review here
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Deutschland 83: case study

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  Introduction: Reviews and features Read the following reviews and features on  Deutschland 83 : The Guardian - Your next box set: Deutschland 83 The Guardian - Deutschland 83 Pity the Germans don't like it 1) Find one positive aspect and one criticism of  Deutschland 83  in the reviews. -The supermarket scene is a perfect moment in a near-perfect series. Deutschland 83’s first episode of eight was the  most-watched foreign-language drama in UK history. - It backtracks into stereotypes. 2) Why does the second Guardian article suggest the Germans didn't like the show? By focusing the story around Martin Rauch, a young East German border guard going undercover in the west, it doesn’t just make the viewer empathise with a Stasi agent on a human level, it makes us engage with the socialist regime’s worldview, in which a military exercise in West Germany poses a potentially  existential threat . 3) Find three 'below the line' comments from either of the Guardia...
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