A2: 'Star Wars Is A Postmodern Masterpiece'

Detailed article by Forrest Wickman, exploring the postmodern make-up of Star Wars.

It will further your understanding of pastiche and bricolage. If you know the original trilogy well it could also serve as an additional case study.

'May the force be with you, always.' ;-)

'From 'Clueless' To 'Fancy' - Pop Music Videos Inspired By TV & Film'

The relationship between film and music videos has a long history, not least due to the fact that many film directors started their careers making music videos.

The influence works both ways though and ex-media student Jess Mockler shared the following link to a post about music videos that have been inspired by films: http://www.capitalfm.com/photos/music-videos-inspired-by-film/

Click through and take a look. This is a good intro into one of the many facets of postmodern media - remember 'everything is a remix'!

Looking beyond Postmodernism

To reach the higher grades within your essay you need to present aspects of postmodernism as well as acknowledging the problems and criticism of it, in its entirety.

Places to start:

Criticism of postmodernism

Post-postmodernism

Metamodernism

New Sincerity

Articles to broaden your understanding:

What is metamodernism?

Quirky, Tone and Metamodernism

Beyond Postmodernism. Putting a Face on Metamodernism Without the Easy Clichés

The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond

Postmodernism is dead

Help with putting it all together:

Here is also a great site that will hugely help with your revision. It looks back to Modernism, to Postmodernism and forward to Post-postmodernism and compares then to each other.

Reading and annotating an article [Screencast]

After today's revelation, that some of you are not actively reading and annotating articles as part of your preparation for the Audiences and Institutions section of the exam, I decided to create a screencast to show you how I expect you to read and annotate an article. It's a bit rough and ready but it does the job!

Link to the original article: http://www.economist.com/node/21556635

AS/A2 Snow Day Work!

School is closed on Monday 21st January.

Please work on the following tasks...

Year 12

1. Continue working on your research/prep for your Magazine Industry presentations.

2. Take the opportunity to update your coursework blog.

Year 13

1. Read this article about the Coen Brothers: Coughlin, P., 2003, Joel and Ethan Coen, Senses of Cinema, Issue 26: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/coens/

2. Take the opportunity to update your coursework blog.

The Fix Factor?

An article on the Daily Mail's website presents an argument whether or not "The X-Factor" is fixed after last weekends result. This would be irrelevant unless we understood mediation and how media control the outcomes and (re)presentation of certain events. This is a small-scale scenario but this can be extrapolated to television and the news channels creating and masking the truth for their own agenda. Well worth a read.

Click here for the article - Daily Mail.

Other article - Unreality TV.

Sherry Turkle: Who Am We? (Wired)

"We are moving from modernist calculation toward postmodernist simulation, where the self is a multiple, distributed system."

Read more...

SpongeBob

A recent study carried out by the University of Virginia would have you believe that watching SpongeBob SquarePants for little more than nine minutes can result in "short-term attention and learning problems". I doubt that very much. What this study does demonstrate however is how not to do research. Read Fox News' take here and the New York Times' response here. Oh, and keep watching SpongeBob, after all it's down right hilarious!

[Update] Nickelodeon's response to the report.

Human Centipede II director angered by BBFC's 'stiff upper lip' | Guardian.co.uk

Follow the link to read an article including direct comments from Tom Six, about the BBFC's refusal to issue a certificate for Human Centipede II.

A2: BBC's Panorama gets it completely wrong!

Article from the Guardian about this evening's Panorama: Panorama discovers games addiction: did we really need to be told this?

Watch the episode here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wlmj0/Panorama_Addicted_to_Games/