Textual Analysis: Tik Tok

Uses and Gratification theory

Blumer and Katz suggested that the audience plays an active role in media, in opposition to how media uses the audience instead. The audience seeks out pleasure from the text so choose to consume it. Therefore, it is an approach to understand why people seek out specific media and focuses on how people use the text. 

Pleasures and gratifications include:

Diversion/escapism - To escape from everyday issues.

Information - To find out important information such as the news or the weather.

Identification - To recognize a specific person, perhaps because of aspiration to be like them (role models).

Entertainment - For enjoyment, relaxation or emotional release. For example, a person would choose to watch a horror because they want to experience the thrill.

An example of this, is the short film 'Thinking Inside the Box'. The genre is a comedy so the audience is likely to watch it because they want to laugh.

Stuart hall's Encoding and Decoding Theory

Stuart Hall's encoding and decoding theory is how messages in media are communicated to the audience, in which it can then be interpreted by the viewer. Decoding is to translate from the original form. He believed that institutions encode a message within to suit the social, economical and political society. It can be interpreted in three different ways:

Dominant reading: To interpret the the information as how the institution intended.

Negotiated reading: This is when the audience may agree on some of the content but disagree on some part.

Oppsitional reading: The audience may interpret the text differently and have conflicting ideas. They would disagree.

This theory can apply to all short films. 

In conclusion, for the short film, I hope that the message will be interpreted in negotiated reading. This is because I want the audience to have similar views on how the main brief is communicated but I would like have an idea that would be left open for the audience to interpret themselves.

Textual Analysis: Inspire

Dominant ideology are the views, messages and values projected and held by a mainstream society.
This links with Gramsci Hegmony's theory of representation who believed that representation is unequal. In other words, this exemplifies the idea that dominant ideology is represented the most and therefore, that is what people are likely to believe. For example, minority groups are often under-represented and consequently become misrepresented. Contradictory to this, the majority are represented the most, and are able to impose stereotypes onto those other than the mainstream society. Dyer supports this argument by stating that those with power stereotype those with less power. This suggests that those higher up on the social hierarchy hold the representations.

This theory can be applied to the short film 'Inspired'. Inspired illustrates this idea through the use of sound. Throughout the film, there is a voice-over which directly addresses the audience which has many effects; the dialogue makes it more personal as the character is communicating directly to the audience. This could lead to reflection on the stereotypes of society and the prominent ideals that we have to live by, linking back to Hegmony's theory. The voice-over then follows to a close-up shot of the character talking who is directly confronting the issues of discrimination. He describes how society has learnt an association between dangers such a terrorist attacks and the consequence that is the negative stereotypes of people of a certain religion/ethnicity. This portrays the traditional representations which are often seen in mainstream media.

Furthermore, the mise en scene supports the theory of Tessa Perkins who stated "Stereotypes are assumptions we make based on a group of people." This is demonstrated through the iconography of the laptop displaying a daily mail article on recent terrorist attacks and suspects. Evidently, society identifies this with similar people and uses this assumption on the rest of the ethic/religious group, representing them in a negative light. Considering this, there are some conflicting representations linking to Perkins' statements that stereotypes are not always negative and are not always about the minority. Inspired actually contradicts this but shows the opposing sides of stereotypes to demonstrate this theory. Moreover, this also incorporates Stan Cohen's theory or representation; cultures are subject to moral panic when a group or person has become defined as a threat to societal values and interest. This links to the whole idea that society now has learnt to assume that certain ethnicity are seen as a threat to peace, thus, 'Inspired' portrays the idea that Muslims are often feared because of their religion. However, the use of cutaways then contrast this to amplify that stereotypes do not always apply to everyone, supporting Perkins' theory.

Through the use of editing techniques, bell hooks theory can be applied. There is cross-cutting throughout to show the different groups of society. bell hooks believed that skin colour is a code which the lighter the skin, the more desirable to fit into society. Each cross-cut shows a person with a different ethnicity, portraying the idea that skin colour influences the position in the social hierarchy. Inspired foretells the struggles which suggests that the minority struggle in society.

Berger stated that 'men look, women appear'. This effectively describes the media, saying that women are there solely for the objectification of men. Berger's theory can be applied to the homeless woman, where the use of camera angles and movements demonstrate this. The camera shows a close-up shot so the audience focuses on male at the back looking admiring towards the homeless woman. This also demonstrates Laura Mulvey's theory where women are seen as an object in mainstream media. The wider issues portrays the problems within media; it could be argued that it is almost supporting the patriarchy where men are seen as more important whilst women are there only to satisfy men. This could be inferred by the deep focus shot, focusing on the male rather than the homeless woman at the front. From this, it could be inferred that he is more significant as often stereotyped in society.

Inspired reflects on the lifestyle of society as a whole and exemplifies the dominant ideology, as supporting mainstream media. Showing the contradicting side to those stereotypes, Guantlett reflects on the idea that "ideas about lifestyle and identity that appear in the media are resources which individuals use to think through their sense of self and mode expression". This explores how society or individuals react to a stereotype portrayed in media rather than what the content is. Guantlett believed that media messages can be diverse so it can be interpreted differently, but it is about how people interpret it. This leads to the idea that people can construct their own identity to show what they want people to see. This can be through the use of media. Inspired also strongly supports Gary Giddens who stated that mediated experiences make us reflect upon and re-think our own self-narrative in relation to others. Again, although media has a strong influence on an individuals belief, it is about how we choose our actions towards others, in which, Inspired strongly supports.

Barthes Theory of Narrative

This is another narrative theory constructed by Roland Barthe. He stated that there are 5 codes which can be incorperated into any narrative. These 5 codes tie into Barthes Enimga code who theorised that narratives have some mystery to draw the audience in.

The Hermeneutic Code:
This is when there is some sort of mystery in the scene that is not fully explained, hence becoming a puzzle to the audience. This grabs the viewers attention because it keeps them guessing and so they would want to find out what happens to solve the problem. The answers are finally revealed near/at the end answering the audiences questions.

The Proairetic Code:
The proairetic code is when the scene builds up tension and suspense, normally in an action or event. It foreshadows the coming events and keeps the audience on edge. This ties in with the first code, linking together to develop the narrative.

The Semantic Code:
This code refers to the connotation in the narrative that gives an alternative/additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the word.

The Symbolic Code:
It is similar to The Semantic Code and is about what things connotate to and symbolise. However, it goes into more detail and deeper sets of meaning. This is used quite a lot in narrative to hint to the audience but to let them infer the answer rather than giving the answer.

The Cultural Code:
The Cultural code looks at the audiences wider cultural knowledge, ideology and morality. Typically this usually involves science or religion.

This ties in with short films as a lot of them incorperate some kind of mystery to keep the audience interested. For example, the short film 'A Thousand Words' uses the Hermeneutic Code to allow the audience to guess what is going to happen next.

Barthes also brought foward the idea that texts need to be unravelled and because of this, it can have several meanings. Texts can be opened or closed.

Open: Can be unravelled and have several meanings.
Closed: Only one obvious thread in the story.

Initial Ideas

To begin with, I created a brainstorm of all my ideas which come to mind first. From there, I picked three ideas which I thought was the strongest to develop.

1. The scene begins with close-up of a pair of a young girl's eyes. She is lying down strapped onto a table whilst a doctor is talking. Everthing is quite blurry and out of focus as the doctor puts a needle in her arm. The scene cuts to the girl waking up out of breath in what seems to be a nightmare. She finds herself trapped in a large metal box with only some random equipment at her feet, some evidently useful, like a knife, and other not so much. As she tries to escape she slowly realises that the wall get closer every minute or so and so she begins to panic. After finally breaking down and crying, she reaches for the knife, the room is now so small she can hardly sit upright. She makes the decision to kill herself rather than be crushed to death but before she is able to, the knife clatters to the floor and her body goes lifeless.The scene cuts to a science lab with her body connected with wires. There are two scientists holding clipboards. The girl is actually in a stimulation and the scientists have been experimenting. They say that the experiment is finished and so they switch off the power.

2: A young man wakes up in a very strange room surrrounded by 5 different doors with no recollection of how he got there. Each door has a single word printed on it (for example, the word honesty, greed, etc- I haven't really thought it out yet.) As there is evidently no other way out than the doors, the man decides to pick the door that said honesty as it seems like the less threatening. When he opens the door and walks through, it is completely black and when he emerges he is standing in an unknown street. Everyone seems oblivious to his sudden appearance. The street is very busy and so happens that a passer-by bumps into him, dropping his wallet on the way. The man picks it up and flicks through it. There is a lot of cash inside so the man contemplates for a while but eventually decides to hand it back. After the man thanks him, the man is suddenly transported to another location where another few scenes play out, in which, each of them, he does either the right thing or the wrong thing. Finally, he is transported to an office room. A person is sitting opposite a table, and the man is relieved to finally ask some questions. The person reveals that he is actually dead and so will need to 'transfer' to life after death.

3: This idea is from the thriller genre. The scene begins with a conversation between a couple, where the girl is moving to away with her parents for a few months due to a promotion at work. She leaves him a gift of a music box with an image of both of them inside saying that having this music box will be like she never left. The boy is filming this all on camera. As the camera is switched off, the scene changes and the boy is shown in his house a few days later watching a video message from the girl who says she is going camping with her new friends. As this is going on, the location of the girl is shown to her walking alone in the woods, she seems to be lost and frightened as it is getting dark. She is constantly hearing clicking noises as if from a camera. Her phone has no signal so unable to call for help. As she carries of walking, the clicking noises stop. She finds the source of the noise finally and the camera is lying on the path in front of her. The screen is on and displayed on it are pictures of her. As she flicks through the pictures horrified, the image of her is larger each time meaning that the stalker is very close to her. The scene ends with the stalker right behind her. At the end, the boy is again, sitting at home. He is listening to the music box when it abruptly stops working, which, in a way, signifies the girl's death.