An online collection of links, articles and websites relevant to the teaching of Media and Cinema Studies in the 21st Century. Designed with the needs of the contemporary student in mind, this blog is intended to be a resource for teachers and students of the media alike.
Why do all trailers feel the same? How do great trailers stand out? Let's look at the structure of trailers over time and see how they've grown, and why some are practically identical.
The familiar narrative of teens and technology is one of natural proficiency — that young people just get technology in a way that older generations don't. But research suggests that just because children feel at home using smartphones, it doesn't mean they're more aware of the nuances of how the web works. In a new report published by the UK's telecoms watchdog Ofcom, researchers found that only a third of young people aged 12 to 15 knew which search results on Google were adverts, while this figure was even lower — less than one in five — for children aged 8 to 11. "The internet allows children to learn, discover different points of view and stay connected with friends and family," Ofcom's director of research, James Thickett, told the Financial Times. "But these digital natives still need help to develop the know-how they need to navigate the online world." 31 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds couldn't identify the ads in Google's search results In the tests carried out by Ofcom earlier this year, children were shown screenshots of Google search results for the term "trainers" and asked whether the results at the top of the page were either a) ads, b) the most relevant results, or c) the most popular results. Despite the fact that these topmost search results were outlined in an orange box and labelled with the word "Ad," they were not recognised as such by 31 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds and 16 percent of 8- to 11-year-olds. Other tests showed that one in five 12- to 15-year-olds (19 percent) believed that if a search engine listed particular information then it must be true, while just under half of all children (46 percent) could say for sure that Google itself was funded by ads. More young people preferred youtube to TV for the first time This lack of awareness of the role of advertisers in the web's ecosystem was also noticeable when it came to young people and YouTube. Ofcom's researchers found that for the first time since they had conducted the annual survey, more 12 to 15-year-olds said they preferred watching YouTube over traditional TV than the other way round. Additional, more than half (53 percent) of those surveyed in this same age group were unaware that vloggers might be paid to endorse certain products. For organisations worried about the relatively unregulated world of online content these findings aren't good news. Earlier this year, for example, several US consumer watchdog groups filed a complaint to the FTC claiming that Google's YouTube Kids app blurs the lines between ads and original content. And in the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority has even banned videos on YouTube that were not clearly advertised as paid-for content. (The videos in questions featured a "Lick Race" challenge to lick the filling off an Oreo. Some of the UK's most prominent YouTube stars participated, with the videos paid for by Oreo makers Mondelez.) Although Ofcom's research only examined children's awareness of advertising with regards to Google and YouTube, other social networks — including Instagram and Twitter — have also been criticised for letting paid-for promotions slip under the radar. Instagram is especially well known for its often unofficial celebrity endorsements of products like weight loss teas and teeth-whitening oil. In the US, the FTC says that any commercial relationship between a brand and an endorser online must be "clearly and conspicuously" disclosed, but as Ofcom's tests show, children often do not recognise ads, even when they're clearly labelled as such. [via The Verge]
In his 1919 manual for screenwriters, Ten Million Photoplay Plots, Wycliff Aber Hill provided this taxonomy of possible types of dramatic "situations," first running them down in outline form, then describing each more completely and offering possible variations. Hill, who published more than one aid to struggling "scenarists," positioned himself as an authority on the types of stories that would work well onscreen.
Advertising Hill's book in a 1922 issue of the Scenario Bulletin Digest ("A Magazine of Information and Instruction for the Photoplaywright"), the manual's publisher, the Feature Photodrama Company, offered hope to screenwriters feeling stuck for inspiration who might be willing to send away for the volume:
A few hours' study of this remarkable treatise ought to make
it an easy matter to find a cure for your "sick script"; to inject new
"pep" and suspense into your story or safely carry it past a "blind
alley"; it gives you all the possible information an inspiring [sic]
scenarist may require.
Historians Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobs point out that Hill's book was part of a tradition, citing 19th-century playwriting manuals that likewise listed catalogs of "situations" that could provoke action and frame a plot. Nor was Hill the only screenwriter to publish a list of this type around this time; Frederick Palmers, whose Photoplay Plot Encyclopedia (1922) can be read on the Internet Archive, gathered 36 situations instead of 37.
From Ten Million Photoplay Plots: Master Key to All Dramatic Plots, by Wycliffe Aber Hill (Los Angeles, California, Feature Photodrama Co., 1919)
From Ten Million Photoplay Plots: Master Key to All Dramatic Plots, by Wycliffe Aber Hill (Los Angeles, California, Feature Photodrama Co., 1919)
Reading Richard Scarry books isn't supposed to be a scary experience for children- they're supposed to expose children to realistic life scenarios so kids better understand the society they live in.
Even though the people and the perils are the same as they were when Richard Scarry's books first started coming out in the 1950s, a shift in social values has changed how we describe our world.
Some of the changes seem a bit nitpicky, like removing pretty and handsome from character descriptions, but there's one change everyone can get behind- dad's cooking!
Publishers worldwide have been complaining about Google News since its launch, arguing that story excerpts appearing in search are a way for Google to capitalize on others' work. Last year, after a legal battle, Google News essentially became opt-in for German publishers: if they didn't like the way Google News was doing business, they could leave. Many large publishers in Germany didn't take Google up on the offer until two weeks ago, when about 200 publishers opted out. Axel Springer, the country's largest news publisher, is now walking back that decision. Rather than risk paying licensing fees for using snippets of Axel Springer's stories, Google removed everything except the headlines from their results. After that, Axel Springer's web traffic fell off a cliff: visitors from web search fell 40 percent; from Google News, they fell 80 percent. The company's chief executive said they would have "shot ourselves out of the market" if they'd continued with the policy, according to Reuters. This isn't a tiny company fighting a monolithic corporation, either: Axel Springer publishes Europe's top-selling daily paper, Bild.
The German law is part of a wider push to reign in Google across the EU. There was a similar stand-off in France last year, which ended with Google shelling out about $82 million USD for a "Digital Publishing Innovation Fund." As recently as last week, a similar law was passed in Spain. But if the result in Germany is any indication, news publishers may be too hooked on Google News to quit.
Publishers worldwide have been complaining about Google News since its launch, arguing that story excerpts appearing in search are a way for Google to capitalize on others' work. Last year, after a legal battle, Google News essentially became opt-in for German publishers: if they didn't like the way Google News was doing business, they could leave. Many large publishers in Germany didn't take Google up on the offer until two weeks ago, when about 200 publishers opted out. Axel Springer, the country's largest news publisher, is now walking back that decision.