Lily's media blog

Playing games: alternatives to the mainstream

fandom and active audience theory fandom- Henry Jenkins  organised and motivated people who are fans of a particular media product  fans are active participants of a product  A  fan  is different to an audience member. An  audience  may enjoy a media product. They might watch every new  Avengers  film for example. But in order to be a fan, they need to go  further.  Put  extremely simply , a fan is  somebody who actively  does something  with a media product . Fandom can manifest itself in lots of ways , but it can be evidenced in the following, non-exhaustive ways: Attending a convention Dressing up as a character from the franchise (cosplay) Getting a themed tattoo (not a good idea lol) Joining and contributing to an online forum on the topic Buying themed merchandise, for example action figures Writing fan fiction  Going on holiday specifically to visit where a film was filmed Wearing a band T-shirt Following a band on tour textual poaching - where th

Assassin's Creed and reception theory Stuart  hall- reception theory (encoding/ decoding model) producers use media language to encode meanings within media products, which audiences can then decode and negotiate in a variety of different ways. Audiences may agree with the preferred reading of the product, in other words they will agree with the ideology of the producer. The audience also may disagree with the producer's ideology and form an oppositional reading of the product. It is most likely, however, that the audience will negotiate the message of the producer, and will agree with certain ideological aspects while rejecting others.  it suggests that audiences have agency and can make their own decisions based on their own life experiences.  reception theory is an active audience theory . preferred  / dominant reading - the audience agrees with the dominant ideological perspective encoded by the producer oppositional theory - the audience disagree

videogames and the effects model   Proposed by Albert Bandura, it stipulates that  media has a direct effect on us.  assumption: Representations of violence can 'model' or demonstrate violent behaviour, and a udiences 'copy' violent and socially unacceptable behaviour they see in media products problems: not everyone who plays violent video games are violent everyone interprets and is affected by videogames in different ways  Bandura's theory is kind of limited, and is only used for the videogame industry But in everyday life,  this theory is really popular . Someone might not have a clue about who Stuart Hall or Henry Jenkins are, but they will tell you without a shadow of a doubt that  violent videogames make people violent . A blanket statement like this has  massive issues hypodermic media model- passive theory after WW2 it was believed that the German's were different in nature in order for them to commit their actions.  the