Critical investigation

Critical Investigation

For my Critical Investigation, I am going to be looking at the representation of Religion in the contemporary media landscape and how stereotypes of fundamentalists have a affect on this. Film texts I will look at for this will be Crash and The Kingdom, Valkyrie.

As a Linked Production to this investigation, My partner and I will be creating a opening sequence to a film lasting 5 minutes. This opening sequence will explore the issues that I have talked about in my critical investigation and will be directly linked to it through the characters acting in it.

MIGRIAN Analysis

Media Language

I will be analysing the types of camera shots used through the different movies in order to see how certain religions are looked down upon and neglected from society. By doing this I will be able to see how directors emphasize the impact stereotypes have on theses religions.
I will also be analysing the lighting in the texts. High key lighting or low key lighting on specific people or objects will show which ones have importance and which don’t.
Sound will also b looked at as in these movies I know directors use sound to influence the audiences and how they think and feel towards certain characters in the films. Weather this influence is a positive one towards certain religions or negative remains to be seen.

Institution

I will be looking into which institution produces each movie and see the differences in streotypes and representations of religions. one of the institutions I will look at will be will the Yari film group who produced Crash. Another institution I will be looking at is Universal studios who produced the film The Kingdom.

Genre

During both my critical investigation and linked production, the Genres I will look into are Drama, action, thrillers and comedy.
I will be looking at how stereotypes in drama movies are shown to see whether people are all represented the same or if they are stereotyped by their ethnicity and religion.
I will be looking at whether Fundamentalists represented as stereotypical terrorists to society, and if religions such as islam are represented as stereotypical terrorists.

Audience

For My linked production, It will be made so that information and stereotypes and ideology's of the current society will be pumped into the audiences minds. this seems to be a technique well used by most the directors of the films I will be studying and I hope to do the same. a good example of this is in Crash where the Black man is stereotyped to have a gun through out the film bye everyone.
In my critical investigation, I will look into how the audience receives information and what audiences theory's that can be applied to them. Films such as The Kingdom make good use of the Hypodermic model as the audience is constantly filled with ideas and representations for example the Islamic people are terrorists.
People of all cultures will be targeted by our linked production as it will look into the issues faced by every religion in today's society.

Ideology

I will be looking into the Ideology's created by Institutions. Newspapers may have a particular political affiliation which will make some of their articles biased to a particular view of religions such as Islam. news papers such as the Sun slaughter Islam for terrorism and bringing it to this country. this is no where near a fact but because of the Sun's power as a dominant news force it will influence people.
Patriotism is a ideology used in most American films and in my critical investigation I will look into this as this is where patriotic peoples views on other religions are shown in contrast to their own dominant religion in that particular country. A example of this is shown in The Kingdom where protagonist Jamie foxx is a patriotic figure and does everything for his country.

Narrative

Throughout both my critical investigation and linked production, I will be looking into the enigma code theory. Some movies use loads of unanswered enigma codes in order to show that a certain group of people are enigmas to society.
Another aspect of the narrative I will look at is how these texts fit into Prop's narrative theory with the hero and princess, this will show if certain religions in films are the bad or good roles or just a less significant one compared to other religions.
Binary oppositions is something that is displayed in these texts with terrorist being bad and Americans being the good. another example would be minority religions within society being shown as innocent and the dominant religion being shown as aggressive and mischievous. good examples of this can be found in Crash.

Current Issues and Debates

As part of both my critical investigation and linked production, I will be looking into Staley Cohen’s theory on moral panics as the media use terrorist to try and create moral panics about certain religions. Moral panics usually a problem which is widely reported on in the media. Good examples of moral panic created are in the news and newspapers, further study into this will show which institutions target the religions.
My critical investigation will be looking into representation of religions and how they fit into society now. Also consider how Islamic people are treated in texts and in the real world and society.


Media Theories

Audience Theory is important when looking into the representation of fundamentalists in movies for my critical investigation. I will be looking into all types of audience theory including the Uses and Gratifications theory, Reception theory and Hypodermic Needle Model.

Semiotics is also a theory that I will be looking into as it involves me looking into the deeper meanings in Drama and action movies to really understand each character. the theory will apply itself to different audiences for example passive audiences will only take on board the obvious meaning but a more active audiences will see symbols and signs and pick up on other meaning too.

My critical investigation will relate to post colonialism theory because I would need to see if there is a specific 'race' that is making the in the media. There will be many different representations of different races and for my critical investigation I would need to see if there is a certain race people that are mainly stereotypes of fundamentalist.

SHEP analysis:

Social - My critical investigation and linked production will touch on social issues such as terrorist threats or exploring how the media makes religions look like they are a threat to society to try and push through their own philology's in their own country.

Historical - Historically in my critical investigation I can refer back to 9/11 and how that has changed the world and how the media has taken a grasp on this to target Islam and blame Islam for what happened. a good example of this is shown through the mass American media and CNN news itself is very biased against Islam.

Economical - Economically the current day recession is a topic to be mentioned but is limited due to mostly no relation to terrorism or religions.

Political - The different political party's that in recent times are having their says on their morals and values and how some of these affect and offend religions. for example the BNP are driving against all religions and beliefs that are not of a Christian nature, the also are stereotyping Islam as the cause of terrorism in Britain and are a political party that could come into power and really affect the way the media represents religions in the U.K

This study fits into the contemporary media landscape as it covers an issue which is important in both society and the media. Looking into the representations of religions in the media in recent times will really show how the media can control society to an extent and use fundamentalist as a scapegoat to do this.