How far does the platform on which they are consumed determine the construction of media products in your cross-media study? Support your answer with reference to a range of products from THREE media platforms.(32 Marks)
The three media case studies which I have studied are Ill Manors, A Field In England and The King's Speech.
The first film I will talk about is Ill Manors as it's been promoted through a variety of ways particularly using the print platform such as magazines and newspapers. The director Ben Drew (Plan B) appears on a magazine called Men's Health which is mainly targeted at a 20 to 45 age demographic of 85% Male and 15% Female. The article is based solely around the artists clothing size and how he was able to get thinner. This promotes Ill Manors as it gets the audience to relate more to the producer of the film. It also entertains the audience because it provides the audience with information regarding Ben Drew's lifestyle and his dress sense. It also shows plan B with the determination he had to have to lose weight, viewers can also learn to become more dedicated and more successful. Ill Manors has also been promoted through the way Plan b is shown in an NME article to have two middle fingers up with a cigarette in his mouth. This gives him a very strong, urban and street look in which the youth can easily relate to. The target audience for this magazine are mainly young people this is effective as it gets the core target audience to feel like they are being directly addressed and are being asked to back him up. This reinforces the dominant stereotype of young people being rebellious and this sometimes causes a moral panic because the adults and parents are not willing to see the younger generation in a different light so they are subconsciously putting a negative representation of the younger generation. Plan B is used to promote the film because he doesn't have much experience in on the film industry as this is his first time directing and making a film. He is a lot more popular in the music industry and has a big fan base which would also watch a film if he made it. He is the unique selling point of Ill Manors. Ill Manors was also promoted through newspapers, an example of this is when the The Daily Mail had wrote an article about how Ill Manors was a total disaster. This was done to support the ideologies their audience have on young people being criminals and menaces to society. This was done because print is a traditional way of reviewing films and as the newspaper's core target audience would probably be older middle class men, it would make sense to create a review based on their beliefs and assumptions. They had wrote 'Plan B is going to need to contemplate Plan C' which infers the film isn't good and an audience would be satisfied with a negative review. This unlike any of the other articles written in left wing news papers suggests that it is trying to divert a moral panic as the wrong people may take Ill Manors as a movie agreeing with rioting,vandalism and drugs.
Ben Drew’s film Ill Manors is promoted on E-media using a variety of methods to attract and maintain his audience.
Perhaps the most creative aspect of the film’s marketing was the Tag London
campaign. In synergy with the film’s soundtrack album, fans of Plan B (Ben Drew’s
hip hop/rap stage name) were encouraged to tweet their views on the state of
modern Britain using the hashtag #illmanors. A selection of these tweets were
then recreated by graffiti artists and projected on to major London landmarks
such as the Houses of Parliament and Tate Britain. This helped to emphasise the
political aspect of the film’s narrative as well as creating a visual spectacle
that generated additional media coverage for the film and soundtrack album.
This campaign was supported by its own dedicated website that offered links to
the audience to buy, watch or listen to Ill Manors-related products. This
campaign was particularly successful due to the use of user-generated content
and the feeling the audience was in control of the campaign. The graffiti and
references to ‘broken Britain’ would appeal to the core target audience of Ill
Manors of young, disaffected, urban people. However, additional ‘lines of
appeal’ (Dyer) might be ‘art’ (linking to the graffiti) and ‘glamorous
locations’ (the iconic London landmarks). This would perhaps attract and
maintain the interest of a more middle-class, left-wing intellectual audience.
A Field In England, unlike any of the other films promoted there film through there unusual methods of distribution. A Field In England's release was different to the release of a typical film release because it distributed it's film on every platform at the exact same time. This means that it was streamed online, on the TV, Cinemas and was available for purchase in stores on the same date day and time. This was a very different form of distribution because it meant that anyone with the right technology would be able to record the film and make it available for the public to view illegally. This may have been a very unusual method however it had a positive affect because it meant that no matter if someone was to redistribute the film illegally it would be futile because it has already been made available to the audience on every platform.
