P5(d)Role of Relevant Regulatory Bodies

P5(d) Role of Relevant Regulatory Bodies

Meaning: The meaning of the role of relevant regulatory bodies are formal and compulsory instructions about the structure, conduct or content of the media. 

Purpose: In this section, I am going to show the companies that regulates or publish musics, films in media use. Also, what different symbols mean in BBFC's classification. 

Press companies Commission (PCC): An independent self-regulatory body which deals with complaints about the editorial content of newspapers and magazines and their websites.

Office of Communications (Ofcom): The communications regulator; regulates television and radio, fixed line telecoms and mobiles, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate.

Department of Culture, Media and Sport: Department of the United Kingdom government, with responsibility for culture and sports in England, and some aspects of the media throughout the whole UK e.h. broadcasting.

It also has responsibility for the creative industries ( some joint with Department for Business, Innovative and Skills) and tourism in England.

BBC Trust : Governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Iy is operationally independent of BBC management and external bodies, and aims to act in the best interests of licence fee payers.

Department for Business, Enterprise and Regularity (BERR): The department was created on 28 June 2007 on the disbanding of the Department of Trade on Industry (DTI), and was itself disbanded on 6 June 2009 on the creation of the : Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA): Self- regulatory organisation of the advertising industry. 

Non- statutory organisation and so cannot interpret or enforce legislation.

Code of advertising practice broadly reflects legislation in many instances.

Mechanical-copyrihgt Protection society (MCPS): The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) are an organisation who pay royalties to composers, songwriters and music publishers when the music they have created is sold.

This includes sales of music alone such as CDs and downloads, and also products which use the music as a part of their soundtrack, such as films and computer games. 

Performing Rights Society (PRS): When a piece of msuic is registered with PRS for Music it will allow a songwriter, composer or publisher to begin earning money when it is used. This could be when music is used on a radio station, a TV programme or advert or any business using music they’ve created such as shops and offices.

Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL): Music licensing company which license recorded music and music videos for public performance, broadcast and new media use. The income generated is then allocated and paid to their record company and performer members, often referred to as royalties or revenue payments.

British Board of Film Classification (BBFC): It is a non-govermental organisation, funded by the film industry. It is responsible for the national classification of films. It has a statutory requirement to classify videos, DVDs and some video games under the Video Recording Act 2010. 

What is classification? 

From the screenshot above, we understand that BBFC is a company that classify films in different levels by the symbols. For example, the green triangular symbol with an "U" inside shows that the film is classified that is suitable for everyone to watch. And if the movie is slightly violent or contains adultery, they will classify the film or movie as "Parental guidance", which is the yellow triangular symbol with "PG" in it. 

They use different symbols to show what films os suitable for which age group of people could watch. This could restrict people such as children to watch films or movies that are suitable for adults, so they will be less likely to be affected by the violence or unpleasantness action in the film. Which in my opinion, protects them mentally. 

        

The "U" in the symbol stands for Universal. A U film is suitable for audiences aged 4 year and over. However, it is impossible to predict what might upset a particular child, especially at this lower end of the category range. 

BBDC rates film and videos aimed at very young viewers, such as Chungginton or Ting Tinga Tales, U. However, we give them special BBFCinsight stating they are "particularly suitable  for pre-school children". Films and videos with this BBFCinsight should raise no significant issues in terms of discrimination, drugs, imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sex, threat or violence.  

"PG" stands for Parental Guidance. This means a film is suitable for general viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. A PG film should not unsettle a child aged around 8 or 9 or older. Parents should consider whether the content may upset younger, or more sensitive children. 

"12 A" symbol stands for videos that contain material that is not generally suitable for children aged under 12. No one younger than 12 may see a 12A film in a cinemas unless accompanied by an adult. Adults planning to take a child under 12 to view a 12A film should consider whether the film is suitable for that child. 

The difference between "12A" and "12" is:

"12 A" requires an adult to accompany under 12 seeing a 12 A film at the cinema. Accompanied viewing cannot be enforced in the home, so the 12 certificate remains for DVD/Blu-ray, rather than 12 A. The 12 is also simpler system for retailers. It means they cannot sell or rent the item unless the customer is over the age of 12.

This 15 symbol stands for no-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a 15 rated video. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age. 

We might see:

-Strong violent

-Frequent strong languages

-Portrayals of sexual activity 

-Strong nudity

-Brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence

-Discriminatory language or behaviour

-Drug taking

The 18 symbol stands for films that are rated for adults. No one under 18 is allowed to see an 18 film at the cinema or buy/rent 18 rated videos. No 18 rated works are suitable for children. 

In a 18 film or videos, we might able to see:

-Very strong violence

-Frequent strong languages

-Strong portrays of sexual activity

-Scenes of sexual violence

-Strong horror 

-Strong blood and gore

-Real sex ( in some circumstances)

-Discriminatory language and behaviour)

The R18 category is a special and legally-restricted classification primarily for explicit works of consenting sex or strong fetish material involving adults. Films may only shown to adults in specially licensed cinemas, and video works may be supplied to adults only in licensed sex shops. R18 videos may not be supplied by mail order.

Resource: (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705/parentalguide#certification)

Here is some screenshot I found form the IMDb website, which is a webpage that offers videos and films for audiences to watch. This website has all informations about the film below, including the date of release of the movie, the voice of the characters, and also the parent guideline of the movie. 

It listed out all the content in the movie that parents should pay attention or avoid their children to watch. 

For example, sex and nudity, violence and gore, alcohol or smoking. 

Sex and nudity might affect children because they are not old enough to understand some acts, for example Mrs. Incredibles was suspicious of Mr.Incredibles if he has an affair with other women.  This might affect how children think about the relationship between their parents or the definition of love. Also, Dash joked with Violet that she was "hungry" for her crush. This might not be noticeable however "hungry" this word is quite sexual for adults as they as understand the meaning behind, which is also not mentally healthy for children to understand as well. 

For the Violence and gore content, as this is a heroic animation, so therefore it is very normal there is fighting scenes. 

There is multiple fighting scenes that showed people being punched and beaten. 
Parents should pay attention to these scenes and stay next to their children during watching these scenes. 
Also, there is a scene that Mr.Incredibles grabbed Mirage's neck and choked her due to anger, this scene is quite dangerous for children to watch, as this act might kill a person. Parents have to tell children that this is not a right act and educate them. 

Therefore, this movie is rated as PG, which means parents guideline, that parents should stay next to the children while watching this movie. 

P5(c)Legal and ethical issues

P5(c) Legal and ethical issues 

Meaning: Media ethics are ethics dealing with the specific ethical principles and standards of media, including broadcast media, film, theatre, the arts, print media and the internet, to protect the company's right and product. 

Purpose: In this section, I am going to present different effects caused by legal and ethical issues, and also their examples.

Media influences people in positive and negative ways, in this section I am going to talk about different theories and the examples of these theories.

COPYRIGHTS 

Copyright is a legal right created by the law of country that protects the right of the creator or company's right of use and distribution, it also avoid people to steal or use the media product without the company's permission. 
I will show how Walt Disney Company protects their films and media products from being stolen and misuse. 

Using an example of The Walt Disney Company - Finding Dory

It is one of the most high grossing movie of the company. I tried to search for the full movie in Youtube. 

The first one is obviously the original copy of the movie, as audiences has to pay for the movie to watch and it has all the information from the movie, including the name of the actors, the length of the movie and when it is officially published. The Youtube account is also from Disney. 

From this screenshot, we can see clearly at the bottom line, showing the license of this video, which is the Standard Youtube License, usually only big companies such as The Walt Disney Company will show the license of the movie in order to show this movie is officially the media product of the company, but also to maintain their reputation and to show that the movie is legally published, as each movie needs a license before they are published. 

Resource: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJi6vsD2-as)

However, some people would not like to pay for the movie, and some Youtubers, in order to gain more Likes or subscribers, they would upload the movie illegally without the permission of the publisher. 

For example, here is a screenshot from a publisher on Youtube, she posted a short clip from the film, but due to the copyright, she wrote down on the description, "All rights go towards Disney/ Pixar not me", so this person does not commit the crime of stealing people's video or media product.

PLAGIARISM 

Plagiarism means taking other's people idea or work and passing it on as its own work. 
It is unethical because this is a way of stealing as the idea or product does not belongs to you. Also, this is very not respectful to others, because you did not have the permission of the person. 
Also this is not respectful to yourself too, as you do not have honest feedback and for your work, you also deny your ability too because you are not willing to try and improve your work. but taking other people's work 

Here is a definition of Copyright infringement. It basically means stealing a product without the permission of the company or a person, and they duplicate the product, and sell it to other company, this is a crime and infringement, this reduces the product's competition. 

The Walt Disney, in order to reduce copyright infringement, has done some act to avoid this. 

Here is a notice from The Walt Disney Company showing that they take copyright problems seriously, and they encourage people to report if someone who publish their videos or movies illegally and without the permission of the company. This could reduce the act of infringement. 
 Resource: (https://ditm-twdc-us.storage.googleapis.com/Antipiracy-Policy.pdf)

They also publish movies on Youtube, a very world-wide used website to watch videos and movies, The Walt Disney would apply a license for every movie or videos they wish to publish on Youtube. This license also protects the movie or video that is published from being copied or stolen from other people. If the person is found stealing the movie or video, the account will be locked and the person might receive penalty because this act has committed a crime. 

P5(b) Issues of Representations

P5(b) Issues of Representation

Mean of Media representations are the ways in which the media shows people some kind of idea, experiences, thoughts or perspectives through a media product. 

Meaning of Stereotypes are a form of representation in which groups of people are characterised by attributing to them qualities that some individuals possess, and which later become associated with the whole group.


Purpose: The purpose of this section is the present the idea of The Incredibles - The heroine idea, and how the appearance, storyboard, stereotypes, characters or even body size affect the audiences. 

This stereotype of The Incredibles is the heroine idea. The Incredibles is the story of Bob Parr, Mr.Incredible, and his midlife-crisis. Bob used to be a superhero, but nowadays super-heroics are prohibited, and Bob salves away in a dead-end insurance job... until a woman called Mirage shows up and gives him a giant robot to fight. Unfortunately, it's all a plain of Syndrome, a bad fan of Mr.Incredible, to become a hero himself, kill all other superhero, and in the end remove the idea if superheroes itself. Thankfully, Bob's family comes to the rescue, and together with his wife Elasticgirl and their daughter Violet and son Dash, the heroes save the world yet again. 

However, this is a family film, but Syndrome kills many heroes, his secretary was defeated, Syndrome himself is dragged into a jet turbine. There are many people getting killed in this film. 

Also, if we count all of the Incredibles as main characters, half of them are women.  They have small breasts, and Elastgirl has wide hips even when she's young. Of course, in the time between the prologue and the main part of the film, Mr.Incredible's physical changes much more than her. While Mr.Incredible used to be fit and muscular, to fat and huge at the end. 

Frozone is the only black character we see in this movie. He has a fairly headstrong girlfriend/ wife who is assumed was intended by the filmmakers to be black, since they portray her using a stereotype often associated with black women:  When the city is being attacked by a giant robot, she is arguing with Frozone about the dinner they had planned for the night- and not telling him where she put his suit, even when she calls her "Woman". 

I think Brad Bird is trying to say with the comments about celebrating mediocrity snd there mantra that if everybody was special, nobody would be special anymore. Still, he chooses to say this with a superhero film, which means that the elite, the ones who are special, are not special because of what they do, they are not special because of hard work - but because they are born special. In the final moments of the film, Dash runs a race, and it's comical how superior he is to his competition. He is competing with kids who are incapable of competing with him. However, this superhero thing middles the issue. 

Here is a small scene from the movie where Mr.Incredibles was fighting with Syndrome. As Syndrome came back with high technology weapons to make him a "hero", and also taking revenge on Mr.Incredibles. He used the robot that he invented to defeat Mr.Incredible, here includes some content of violence. As Mr.Incredible is being threw up and down by the robot, and at 0:21 of the video, the robot nearly cut off Mr.Incredible's head with those sharp knives before Syndrome stopped the robot.

Also there are some inappropriate words in this scene, for example at 1:23, Syndrome called Mr.Incredibles "Sly dog", which is not very nice if younger children learn this word, as it is not a good influence and it gives them an impression that dog is bad and sly. 

Also, in the conversation between Syndrome and Mr.Incredibles, Syndrome told him that he killed all other hero, created all these high-tech weapons is just to take a revenge on Mr.Incredibles, just because he rejected Syndrome's help a few years ago. It is actually quite dark for children to watch, because it makes them think once someone offended them, they could do this to others. 

P5(a)Product impact and effect on the audience

p 5(a) Product impact effect on the audience

Meaning: The definition of impact-based advertising is a form of advertising designed to have a lasting psychological effect on viewers so they will remember the product or vendor. 

Purpose: In this section, I am going to show how the storyboard or characters affect the audiences politically, mentally or physically.

Movies and media live with us, we watch movies, television or listen to the radio, they influence our lives too, even Disney movies, these type of fantasies could affect us too. 

In this section, I will analyse the influence of Disney movies - The Incredibles on how they affect people.

Walt Disney has a huge impact on children in multiple generations and is still making impacts on adults as well. Countless movies have been produced to serve different life lessons and morals for the audience to take away with them. 

In the movie The Incredibles, there are some positive and negative influences to audience in different age group.

Audience Theory

Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literacy theory and cultural studies .
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience_theory#Media_effects)

Which is basically means how the movie influence audiences mentally with their thinking. 

The audience theory is also named as Effects models. They are:
- The hypodermic needle model
-Two-step flow
-Uses and gratifications


The hypodermic needle theory means it gives out messages directly to the audiences.
The two-step flow means to give out messages to people who access the most to media, and they will diffuse the content to others.
Uses and gratifications means to use media to spread a specific message to people, however these people are not helpless victims of mass media. 

In this case, Uses and gratification is more widely used by companies, to be able to maintain audience's interest, they will do other things to attract them.

We continue to use The Incredibles as an example. It was very popular during 2004 when it was published. 

The movie was also published in IMDb, it was rated 8.0 out of 10.0, which is a very positive feedback, it also has 471.403 viewers, which is quite a large amount of audiences. 

Here above shows a comment of one of the audience, the feedback is really positive. 

In order to maintain the satisfaction of the movie to the audiences,  The Walt Disney also creates games for the movie. 

Resource from : (http://games.disney.co.uk/the-incredibles)

This game is from a website from Walt Disney. It creates games from the movie, and also fits the storyline. For the game at the left, Mr.Incredible is the good one and Syndrome is the bad guy, the game is created for audiences to fit themselves into the story and defeat the bad villain. The game at the right is more suitable for children, as it is a dun memory game, the game uses the characters in the movie as the card, and audiences match 2 identity card to win the game. 

The Incredibles is a relatively old movie comparing to the others, as it was published on 2004, however The Walt Disney Company creates games and apps for audiences for their gratification through media, here above is a screenshot of the apps that people could download on their computer or on mobile, as technology is more improved nowadays, people could enjoy and entertain with these games and apps of their favourite movie of The Walt Disney anywhere and anytime. 

Some young adults might be a fan of The Walt Disney, however they are too mature to play games, so in order to satisfy them, they could watch movies from the site and review it. This is the movie section which shows the latest movies but also they could watch the older movies as well. 

From here, we understand how The Walt Disney uses the theory- Uses and gratification to satisfy their audiences through games and websites. 

The scenes in the movie could influence the audiences positively or negatively. 

Positive influences:

-Gives positive energy to people: This movie has a lot of scene that it was negative at first, then the characters in this movie spread messages like: "Do not give up" or " Believe in yourself." Which is good to the public and the little ones.

- At first, Violet was a really shy and timid girl, but after becoming a real "hero" and also believing in her superpowers, she has became confident, and even dare to talk to the boy that she had a crush on, her changes also show that a positive attitude and confident is very important.

- At the beginning of the story, it showed the situation of The Incredibles, which they had to end their superhero life and get back to normal, when using superpowers to help the public is not right anymore, they have to hide all their abilities. Bob worked for an insurance company, he tried to help an old woman about her problems but he couldn't do it very obviously because it is forbidden in the company, also the boss stopped Bob to help a person being beaten by accusing and firing him. This reflects to real life, because there are a lot of things we are forced not to do, and might be because of the we do not have as high authority as others do. It makes the audience feel relative to them, and then the changes at the middle give them hope. This affect the mood of the audiences.

Negative influences:

(a) Inequality: This movie provides us some basic philosophy that sheds some insight into how we should honestly make sense of inequality in the real world. As we all know, The Incredibles is a story of a super-powered family. A central theme of the movie is that you should celebrate what makes you special. Mr. Incredible tells Dash that his powers are a good thing, and be different is something to be cherished, not to be wasted. This is a common thread of objectivism. According to utilitarianism, Dash shouldn't play any sports because it would be "unfair" to the other children, that they would be elicit a negative consequence from Dash's happiness.

(b) Some scenes shouldn't be seen by little children who are 8 years old or under. 

1. A man attempted to suicide and report the person who stops him. 

This could influence a children if he is not old enough to understand, because suicide is a very negative act, and they will consider the idea that if a person's life is tough and hard they could go kill themselves to set free and release the stress. The man above who attempted to suicide and reported the person who stopped him, this will make children feel people should not try to save a person when he has suicide thoughts, because he would be blamed and through this scene they will think this is not the right act. 

There is a news report on the 9th of February this year, which is about an under pressure man suiciding. This is due to they are less talking about their health mental problem because men are always considered to be appear strong. He was suffering from depression for 3 years but he hid it deep due to how society see men. 

This news in reality fit in the story a bit, because the man in the story chose to suicide because he had a tough life and would wanted to end his life, the person in the news ended his life due to the pressure he had, so they both had tough life, and chose to suicide, the difference is just on one succeed to do so and on did not. 

2. In one scene, Violet was deeply fallen in love for a guy she has romantic feelings for, which will influence the teenagers who are less that 14. 14 years old significants a very important age to children, because it means that they have became teenagers from children or kids. Therefore, they are at the stage nearer to adult and is easy to fall in love with somebody they are interested in, mostly people who are attractive, this situation happened to teenage girls nowadays who have similar age as Violet. 

3. Mr.Incredibles and Mrs.Incredibles argued loudly at the middle of night due to Mr.Incredibles hid the reason behind his wife of rescuing people who was blocked in a building that caught on fire. They appeared to discuss about divorce just because of a single argument, this gives the idea to children that marriage is fragile and parents would divorce easily. 

4. A major plot point is Mrs.Incredibles believed that her husband is having an affair. If kids are not old enough to understand what this means with their children beforehand, they should not watch this movie, because they do not understand why the father would have an affair even they are married, and it will give them the idea of marriage is not stable and they could be in love with somebody else even they are married in the future. 

5. A police officer immediately pulls out a gun when he sees 2 men he thinks are robbing a jewellery store. But a real policer officer would first talk to the robber, and if that didn't work, use pepper spray. It is only at the point that he would pull a gun, that will mistaken the children. It will give children the impression of police is injustice and threatening because they are trying to shoot people who are right and good.