Kenian Media Exam Blog

Audience 1) What game information is provided on this page? Pick out three elements you think are important in  terms of making the game appeal to an audience. - " Play in real time and control your virtual world!" - " Choose every aspect of your Sims lives " - " start creating your dream life today!  " 2) How does the game information on this page reflect the strong element of participatory culture in The Sims? - Customisation is emphasised in the app store description 3) Read a few of the user reviews. What do they suggest about the audience pleasures of the game?  Participatory culture 1) What did The Sims designer Will Wright describe the game as? -  Will Wright describes it as akin to ‘a train set or a doll’s  house where each person comes to it with their own  interest and picks their own goals. 2) Why was development company Maxis initially not interested in The Sims? -  The board of direc tors thought that ‘doll houses were for girls, and girls...

  1) Type up your feedback in  full  (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential). - WWW: this is a solid assessment that makes good points in both questions. Now we need to add the question focus and sophistication for the top levels. - EBI: q1 needed a little more on the oppositional reading - see mark scheme for ideas here. q2 starts out not focusing on the question - values and ideologies. You do then focus on it later but could discuss a wider range of V+ I such as gender, capitalism/consumerism etc. 2) Read  the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully . Identify three specific aspects from Figure 1 (the Google Home advert) that you could have mentioned in your answer (e.g. selection of image, framing and focus, colour, text etc.) - Reinforces white, western, middle-class representation of family life to the exclusion of other backgrounds (race/ethnicity, sexuality, age, class). Presents the white...

Part 1: Background reading on Gamergate 1) What was Gamergate?  - O ne of the first fronts of the modern culture wars, driven by social media, misogyny and the weaponised disaffection of young men. 2) What is the recent controversy surrounding narrative design studio Sweet Baby Inc?  -   A group with more than 200,000 followers on PC games storefront Steam, believes that Sweet Baby Inc is secretly forcing game developers to change the bodies, ethnicities and sexualities of video game characters to conform to “woke” ideology.   3) What does the article conclude regarding diversity in videogames? -  Nobody is forcing diversity into video games. It is happening naturally, as players and developers themselves diversify.   Part 2: Further Feminist Theory: Media Factsheet 1) What definitions are offered by the factsheet for ‘feminism ‘and ‘patriarchy’? -  Feminism is a movement which aims for equality for women – to be treated as equal to men socially, ...

Language / Gameplay analysis 1) What elements of gameplay are shown? - Rewards for regular playing (need to get a job). - Toilet - tasks - growing up 2) What audience is the trailer targeting? - Female target audience - more costume options when creating female Sims. 3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer? - Home store - Intertextuality - SimChef/MasterChef. 1) How is the game constructed? - You are creating a life for a Sim character. - You choose it's appearance and lifestyle and interests.  2) What audience is this game targeting? - Teens and young adults 3) What audience pleasures does the game provide? - It allows for customisation as audiences are able to personalise their interests into characters. - It also allows for a narrative to be as it lets you create your own stories and a life for a character. 4) How does the game encourage in-app purchases? - They provide limited time offers on certain rewards which can encourage this. Representations 1) How do the...

FANDOM 1) What is the definition of a fan? - A  person who likes and admires someone or something in a very enthusiastic way. 2) What the different types of fan identified in the factsheet? -  Hardcore/True Fan -  Newbie - Anti-fan 3) What makes a ‘fandom’? - A term used to apply to groups of people fascinated with any subject. 4) What is Bordieu’s argument regarding the ‘cultural capital’ of fandom? - Bordieu argues a kind of ‘cultural capital’ which confers a symbolic power and status for the fan, especially within the realm of their fandom. 5) What examples of fandom are provided on pages 2 and 3 of the factsheet? - Fan art for Sherlock Holmes the book from 19th Century  - Fan art for Sherlock the show 21st Century 6) Why is imaginative extension and text creation a vital part of digital fandom? -  Digital fandoms use technology in multiple ways and Fiske sees this as  the ‘cultural economy’ of fandoms, one that is focused not on making  m...