Update on "Progress"

Progress has been slow this week, mostly just textual analysis of "frontpages" of the "Media Guardian" Still waiting on the past editions of the sun to arrive for more textual analysis. Progress on possible questionnaires and letters have been drafted to possible university lecturers for advice and guidance. Also i will need to speak to either Ms Ward or Mr White about other options and methods of gaining research. I love NMT.
Joe Carbonaro

Final Hypothesis.

My Final hypothesis is as follows.

"What impact does Media support have on political party success in Britain" ?

Let me know your thoughts.

Update on coursework...

My coursework hasn't come along quite as much in the past week as id hoped as i haven't been able to get my primary research yet. For my primary research i need to get newspaper covers to do my textual analysis. As of yet i am not too sure where i can get past newspapers if at all. I will do some research into where i can get newspaper articles and covers. To do this i am probably going to ask people, go to local libraries as well as take a trip down to the national archives to see if they have anything there. I may even e-mail some university professors of media to see if they have any information or previous studies that can offer me aid in my critical research task.

More coming soon.
Joe

The World of Politics within the Media.

Unfortunately, due to allegations of racism on my blog, specifically towards Chinese people, i have decided to change the topic of my project. My new topic will be Politics and the media. I have been looking at various different topic hypothesis. I want to go something along the lines of "What impact does printed media support have on political party success in Britain". Why not let me know your thoughts about this? I am very open to sensible suggestions without being accused of racism against Chinese people or Politicians now. I think in various different areas i will look at the media images of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and more recently David Cameron of the Conservative party. The specific area of public image through media has always fascinated me and comparing and contrasting the two Labour prime ministers with a new radical Conservative opposition will also be an interesting area of study for me personally. This topic will be aided by the fact that i also study Politics and history for A-Level. I will also be trying to focus on various issues such as regional variation in audience and asking questions such as "how does the media influence different people in different areas?" I will look at Sales figures of papers in different "political hot spot" areas. In all of these areas of study i will be very careful to not dabble in Internet opinion's or other forms of media unless its the online site of a newspaper, such as the Guardian online.

I have done some basic research into my first focus icon, Tony Blair and his influence of the printed media. Tony Blair was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield. I thought about this and wondered if this could have anything to do with the way people viewed him. He seemed to be very popular in his constituency and was viewed by the members of the community to be "a very working class man but with radical ideas" (The Guardian newspaper 1997). However i wondered if coming from such a working class, poor environment this might influence people to ask the question "is this man fit to run the country?" this question seemed, according to conservative voters, particularly prominent.

I also wondered if Tony Blair's close relationship with Rupert Murdoch had anything to do with his so found success in his early years.
"Tony Blair's close relationship with Rupert Murdoch and the reciprocated unprecedented support which he received from Murdoch's globally influential news corporation media empire, has been subject of much criticism" - (The Guardian Online 2005)

More to come soon.

Research into my World Cinema project.

So, this is my first blog looking in depth at World Cinema. Ive got to say before hand, I'm upset at leaving the topic of New Media technology. I really enjoyed this topic. However in the same sort of way i know i will enjoy the A2 level study, i am about to commence. World cinema has always been a very fascinating area to me, as i have always liked Martial Arts and Traditional oriental films. The styles and portrayal of the culture has always been interesting to me. More so, probably now than ever due to the sheer size and boom in the industry. I am even going on a trip to China in February, to discover more about the mysterious culture of oriental china. So it almost seems appropriate that my area of study will be world cinema, more so how the styles of combat reflected in the oriental films have been copied and used by western films. However its not just China that my study will be on, its Also Japan and other oriental areas such as Thai Land too. Martial arts films have become increasingly popular recently especially with the use of special effects in western films. We see such films as "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" and others such as "Curse of the golden flower" have set a benchmark for modern chinese films but i will also be comparing the impact on western film from such films as Thailand's "Ong-Bak" films. Which i also enjoyed mabye even more than Chinese and Japanese films that have huge financial backing. Overall this project for me will be about comparing Western and Oriental film and seeing how one affects the other. Martial Arts such as Karate, Kung-fu, ju-jitsu, Tai-Kwon-do, judo and even to more degree now Muay Thai and how they affect western fight scenes in western movies. Movies like transporter starring Jason Stratham are showing distinctly Chines styles. People such as Mike Leigh in his films with Mike Pope doing cinematography which happens to be distinctly Japanese. Shots showing the whole room and everyone in it are Japanese in origin. How has the different styles of Shots etc also affected the shots used in Western cinema.
More to come soon.
Joe Carbonaro

The Re-Vitalisation of Social Networking Within Gaming.

Hey everyone at Canon Palmer.
Firstly i just wanted to apologise for not updating my blog for one month.
As many of you know the exams have come thick and fast. I seem to have been dealt an especialy bad hand with all nine of my exams taking place in two days. Regardless of this i still havent forgotten about the blog, and have been researching and learning about my chosen area even whilst relaxing. By this i mean activly playing with my Playstation three. As many of you know, Grand Theft Auto has recently become the most sucessful entertainment product ever sold. There are many reasons for this. Grand Theft Auto put simply is simulating "Life". Yes, there is shootouts and drug abuse, prostitution and gambling but lets face it, most of us are living, compared to Grand Theft Auto, very boring lives. Did you know, two of the best features of Grand Theft Auto IV are the use of Niko's Mobile Phone and Internet Access. The Main Character Niko, will dial a number into his mobile phone and arrange to meet someone, who is his desired target. He will drive to the location and then our protagonist will dial numbers and watch from the top of a building, to see who picks up the phone. Then Niko will have an idea about who to assasinate as the target picks up his phone. The Use of reality and in the game is simply incredible. Everythign is as Life like as possible. It may sound crude, but in one level the known target is homosexual, who is on the fictional website, lovemeet.com. Our protagonist will sign up to the website and arrange a date with the man and then, shoothim. Talk about a "hot date".
Anyway what interests us in terms of covergence, is Grand Theft Auto's Online Multiplayer. "Liberty city", a fantastic take on the city of New York is free to roam around and cause havoc in. Complete with weapons, cars, helicopters, bikes and your best friends in character form. This is hugely entertaining with characters in the game currently being played being able to speak to eachother while playing, to co-ordinate their gameplay. There are quite a few people in Canon Palmer that have the game and playing with a big group in teams is truely fantastic. Stealing a four door car from the city, bundeling all your mates into it, and seeing them shooting out the windows, whilst your driving the car is entertaining. The gameplay is something i have never seen before and this truely opens up the world of online gameplay with social networking. The use of the in game mobile phones and internet is a fantastic feature which enables people to chat and meet, whilst in a such a real life scenario. There is nothing that says you have to run round the city causing mayhem. Its just a lot of fun, especially with the new technology that the game encompasses. If you get a chance play Grand Theft Auto, beacuse apart from being the ultimate stress reliever, the new technology incorporated into the game, is revolutionary and extremely fun.
Once again, apologies for not posting, there will be regular updates and good luck to anyone else next monday. One Love, rightous Youths....Joe

Online im Perfect...

This is the new Playstation 3 home i was telling you about. I was recently informed that i was knocked off the top spot by Raeesa, that bum! So i thought id better get my brain in gear and update. Provided you have just seen this movie? doesnt that look amazing? Just through owning a playstation3 i can have my own life, online! I think this epitomizes exactly what we were discussing in class about creating yourself in your own image. My specific area of study is the convergence between computergames and social networking. Playstation home is convergence at its best.
Let me know what you think.