Week 5 - Lecture - A Tale of Two Revolutions

This lecture discussed two people; Charles Dickens and William Cobbett. We talked about their ideas, their writing and why they were the 'Champions of the Countryside/Urban'.

Here were the other topics which we discussed, relating to Dickens and Cobbett:
The French Revolution
The English became very curious with the French Revolution, they were scared that the same thing would happen to them. People have different reasons as to why they think it didn't happen in England, perhaps it was that they experienced a snippet of the potential violence at the Peterloo Massacre.
It was expensive, income tax was created to pay for the war effort.

The Corn Laws
Products from other countries became more expensive, the products from your own area were cheaper so that you would only buy goods from your own area - keeping profit inside the country. Although there were downsides to this, it made the cost of bread even more expensive and the workers wages didn't go up - so they were earning the same but having to pay more. Making the poor, poorer.
People began looking for different new jobs, a lot of people fled to the cities.

The Poor
The Speenhanland System - aimed to take away the stresses of high rising prices.
It created the workhouses; men women and children were separated and made to work all day everyday. The conditions were beyond poor, the people who ran the workhouses had worked out how much they could feed the poor to keep them alive but at the same time slowly kill them. It criminalised the poor.

William Cobbett
The Champion of the Country.
Cobbett was an anti-radical who became a radical...the plight of the farm workers was what changed him in the 19th century.
Cobbett spent 20 years away in America, when he returned to England he was shocked at the state of the country side. Due to the Corn Laws and several other reasons people have fled the country side to find jobs else where. Cobbett believed that the countryside should be filled with people/communities all the time.
He was a very passionate man, writing 'Rural Rides' at nearly 60 shows how he continued to be passionate right through his life. Rural Rides was written about the country side, he rode around the country for a long time taking in the new countryside which he was faced with.

Charles Dickens
The Champion of the City.
He was a campaigning journalist, he wrote a lot of his books in series's within newspapers (sort of the Eastenders of his time!)

'No hoods' policy unfairly enflicted on great-grandmother Peggy Harden.

Reading through the BBC News and The Daily Mail websites I came across an article which shocked and confused me.
In December 2009 great-grandmother Peggy Harden was shopping with her husband Desmond when she was confronted by a security guard in the shopping centre who asked her to remove her hood due to their 'no hoods' policy for security reasons. Peggy and Mr Harden, both of who are 84, were confused by the situation.
A spokesman for the centre has apologized to Mr and Mrs Harden but said that the banning of hoods is 'to ensure a safe and enjoyable shopping experience for everyone'.

After reading both articles from the sites I was firstly very shocked, I couldn't believe that someone could find these people threatening; they clearly weren't out to steal anything with Mrs Hardens hood and their walking sticks!
Although from another angle if the shopping centre has a 'no hoods' policy then surly it should apply to everyone? If we begin to single people out then the issue could become more complicated.

I understand that the policy is there for a reason, but it was clear to see that Peggy was not a threat to anyone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8407754.stm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234744/Arthritic-great-grandmother-Peggy-Harden-ordered-remove-hoodie-shopping-centre-crackdown-yobs.html

Week 4, seminar - Kant and Hegel

• Kant disagreed with Hume in several ways
• Kant wrote for himself? Whereas Hegel wrote for others? Nationalist?
• Does the Nuomenal world make sense? - we all see things differently anyway
• We're born with an instinct - a motherly instinct to protect and care for
• We're also born with the ability to learn from others - brothers and sisters learn differently and have different hobbies

Week 3, lecture - Kant - German Idealism

Kant

• seen as the founder of German Idealism
• supported the French Revolution
• he wrote the book 'A Critique of Pure Reason' - this was one of his most influential books which outlined his main ideas
• he believed that there are two natures; Nuomenal and Phenomenal
• he believed in Copernican Revolution - the mind shapes the universe
• Categorical Imperative - a duty

Hegel

• he believes that every idea we have contains it's own negation - an opposite
• devout Christian

Week 4, lecture 4 - Key Developments in the History of the Press

There are four versions of media history:

1. as an 'event', 'breakthrough'
2. a Technological determinist model
3. The March of the Progress
4. as a struggle for control between the powerful and subordinate

Context:

1. political
2. economic
3. social and cultural
4. technological

Week 3, lecture 3 - Key Developments in UK Broadcasting 2

History of TV in the UK

• John Logie Baird demonstrated a TV system in Selfridges in 1925
• Other companies such as RCA, Marconi and EMI spent millions of pounds on research trying to create better systems
• EMI and Baird both created good systems - on alternative weeks their systems would be used to see which one was better
• In February 1937 Baird was dropped
• Service was suspended in 1939 due to the fact that the Germans could holm in - it restarted in 1946
• By 1954 TV was being broadcast for around 6 hours a day but NOT in the evenings - this would suggest entertainment and not education
• Commercial TV started in September 1955

21st Century TV

• 85.1% of households are multi-channel
• Scheduling affected by multiple time shift technologies - sky+, free view

Under Pressure - third article for the uni paper.

For reasons that couldn’t be helped I was given less than a day to write this article; talk about working under pressure. My first thought was ‘bloody hell, what am I going to write about?!’ but after regaining my breath and appropriate English I decided to use my feeling of panic to structure the article. The way that I’d reacted to having such a short amount of time to write made me think about whether as students do we work better under pressure…or not?

I asked my friend Millie how she works best and she said “definitely under pressure, I’m lazy so being under pressure motivates me to work.” Whether this is the best way to look at it or not, it works for her and for me as well. I find it very difficult to work with no pressure at all and even though I get myself stressed out and work myself into a state, without that pressure it feels like there’s no urgency to finish my assignment! My housemate Hannah said that working under pressure is easier as you have no other choice; you just “have to do it.” This is true; I suppose there’s that feeling of adrenaline when your work has be finished and handed in by 3pm. It almost becomes exciting and that sense of relief you get once it’s done is just the best feeling!

While writing all of this, I got thinking about whether there are any other ‘pressures’ which affect us as students; big or small. I think there’s a constant pressure to do well which may possibly come from our parents but on the whole I think it comes from us; someone I spoke to said that they put a lot of pressure on themselves to work harder than they did in their A-Level’s to prove that they can achieve more. Things become more pressurized when you know that someone is relying on you; whether it’s finishing that presentation for Monday or booking a rehearsal space or even writing a decent article and handing it in on time!

If leaving your assignments to the last minute is what works for you then keep going, whether it’s the most sensible thing to do is debateable, but on the whole the people that I’ve spoken to have said that working under pressure is better for them and I agree.

Week 2 - Key Developments in UK broadcasting 1

Brief notes from my second lecture of 'Intro to Media Studies':

• Time lines are political - people have to make decisions of what to include or not include. It's their own timeline. Create their own history.
• Technological Determinism - a new thing which dominates and changes society
• 'March of Progress' - Great man - can people make history?

• Marconi invented wireless radio.
• Telegraphy = communication between two points via code
• Telephony = speech
• Wireless Telegraphy = coded messages which can be sent from a ship to land (for example)
• Wireless Telephony = speech

• Radio was originally created for the Navy, when the war ended manufacturers were worried that they would not sell anymore radios as they were not needed so they began to think about broadcasting.

• On the 14th November 1922 the BBC was born! It broadcast content to sell radios, it was funded by a share of a licence fee which was collected by the Post Office.
• The general manager was JOHN REITH.
• John Reith became the general manager at the age of 34, he was a Scottish engineer who was very religious. He "understood the importance of new media"
• He managed the BBC as a public service, it didn't exist soley to make money.
• It maintained a unified control
• Their key principles were to EDUCATE, INFORM and ENTERTAIN
  

Week 1 - Text and Context

The first lecture of 'Introduction to Media Studies' - here are just some brief notes:

• It's important to consider whether media texts such as social media, television dramas, radio, newspapers etc have been shaped in any way by the context in which they have been produced
• Is context important? - The 'stand alone' school argues that texts should be able to 'speak for themselves'
• What is context? - cultural, economic, political and social (Technological)

Historical Context
There are several different understandings of media history:

Version One

• Media history as 'events' and 'breakthroughs'
• For example - inventions
• There's a problem with this - it's not that simple, at times there are several inventors working on one thing. Another problem is that the economic and political conditions had to be right for the inventions to emerge

Version Two

• A technological determinist model of history
• For example - progress occurs when ideas are refined and developed, it's a process of smooth development
• Problem - the best technologies don't always triumph and economics can sometimes hold technologies back

Version Three

• "The March of the Progress"
• For example - the media play a role, British television grows more independent
• Problem - not much a 'march of progress' as a sense of struggle over control

• Technological Conversions = lots of different medias on one thing
• Corporate Synergy = a brand
  

Week 2, Seminar - J.S.Mill and Mary Wollstonecraft

Week 2 of History and Context, our first seminar...I think it went pretty well!
Here are the notes I took:

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Critical on men
• Her writing made her come across as strong minded, did this mean people 'believed' her more?
• Education was crucially important
• Patience and flexibility make an established woman
• Women need protection?
• Women should take control of their lives
• Reason and education are what women need
• Women mature faster than men
• Hypercritical - she preached about a certain way of life for women, yet did not live by her own 'rules'
• Some may say that she couldn't help it - she was shaped by the society she lived in
  
• Women are not inferior to men, they only appear to be because of their education
• Women are made weak by their society
• Women do not have enough to do which causes romantic fantasies

John Stuart Mill

• Live how you want to as long as it harms no-one else
• Society should not be able to control us
• Utilitarianism

Any links between Mill and Wollstonecraft?

• Mill was in 'favor' of women - being one of the first people to believe that women should have a vote
• He believed in living independently as long as no-one else was harmed
• Wollstonecraft believed that women should be independent when needed (not married) and that education was an important part of a women's life.

A small link can be found here.