Woman found dead in elevator 30 days after power cut off by building workers

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/woman-found-dead-in-elevator-30-days-after-power-cut-off-by-building-workers This article is about the quiet death of a 43 year old woman who was trapped inside an Elevator for 31 days. The elevator was cut off from power after Maintenance workers were told to check for a glitch. The Chinese government identified this as a Manslaughter and fault of the workers, the Woman was deduced to not die from malicious intent, but was filed as Manslaughter. There is relevance in this article because of China's previous history of poor workplace safety. The article lists another incident last year where a woman was swallowed by a Mall escalator. This article while not at all being relevant to the Guardian's British focus and political views, was most likely created for because of the shock value this article gives, people are more inclined to read it. The article clearly states the affair in its title, making people more likely to read it. Because of the Guardian's outsider stance, there is little clear bias to be seen within the article.

Forms of representation in Untouchable

Untouchable is a French film created in 2011. The film's story focuses around a low class man named Driss who finds himself working as a caretaker for a paralyzed rich Aristocrat named Philippe, which allows them to bond a strong friendship with each other despite coming from exact opposites of life. Because of the many themes this film touches on, there are a lot of aspects of society and types of people that are seen represented. One of the most noticeable aspects that the film represents is the look into of class. Driss comes from a very low class background, moments before he is hired he was without a home, and he had very little even before then, as we see the home containing his family is very small, and run down, such as their bath not working properly when the faucet runs, when he is hired and gets his home commodities, we see a contrast scene to the scene where his bath stops working, where we see him in a much more expensive, larger and more high quality bath. There is a somewhat positive look on the representation of class. As despite Driss' background, they hire him anyway, they even portray a difference in class realistically in that there are some characters that come up to Philippe and suggest how Driss is not the kind of person that should be taking care of Phillipe. Another form of representation that actually connects greatly to the representation of class is the representation of race. An obvious fact you can see in the film is that all of the characters who are upper are not black, and the vast majority are white, and likewise, all of the lower class characters, and characters who are flat out homeless are either black or a minority. Driss himself is a character that actually has a lot of negative stereotypes that relate to his race, such as him and his family living in the hood, he regularly steals things (Seen when he first goes to job application) and he also acts very aggressive and impulsive. The film uses these stereotypes of black people against itself however, as despite all these qualities, we see him accept the job and gladly be accepted by his co workers, like they would with any other person. So despite the predominantly white, upper class work space that Driss is working in, he is still treated as an equal, and the people Driss works with actually ends up improving some aspects of their life, such as Driss' adamant nature encourages Philippe to meet the woman he spoke to but never met before, and also encourages him to stand up against his daughter. There might be a subtext message here saying that the two vastly different walks of life interacting and meeting with each other allows them to improve each other and become better people. This is also true for Driss' case, there is a contrasting scene at the beginning and the end of the film where we see Driss ask two different people to park the car out of the drive way, in the first scene we see him aggressively pick up the person out of his car and pushes him against the wall to threaten him, but in the second scene which is near the very end of the film, we see him politely ask the person to drive out of the way. Representation of the disabled is also a very major part of the film. The film appears to have very positive representation of the disabled. The disabled man Philippe is a very normal acting character despite his complete paralysis of the body, we see that there are of course limitations to Philippe due to his circumstances, as he constantly needs someone to take care of him. However he is not completely dependant on his caretakers all the time. The film also gives a very positive representation on the disabled in the ending of the film, where we see that Philippe gets to finally meet the woman she likes, this sends a message to viewers that disabled people are not limited by their disability to make relationships. The same sort of idea comes from the friendship Driss and Philippe create, Philippe's disability has very little to do with why their friendship forms, and that shows how much of a normal person Philippe is despite his disability.

EU's ban on inefficient toasters delayed to avoid pro-Brexit press attack

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/28/eu-inefficient-toasters-ban-delayed-avoid-pro-brexit-press-attack This article is about the EU's Regulation on inefficient products such as Toasters. Officials and staff were asked to delay this ban on the equipment without any direct reason why, however an official note stated that this was linked to The British referendum. More specifically the negative press that they would get from this from supporters of the referendum. The delay did not completely stop this, such as Tweets from David Coburn. This article is relevant for the Guardian to post because it is a British Newspaper, making anything to do with the soon to be referendum important. As Readers would be interested. This article caught me interested due to the bizarre title, which due to its literal statement, made me want to know what it really meant. The guardian is a left wing news paper, this is relevant due to most left wing political parties agree against the referendum, this is related to their words on the actions of pro-referendum parties, such as calling it "negative" press, making it seem like they are giving very antagonizing responses.

National and regional identity and representation.

National identity is one's connection with their own country, and this identity to their country can be shrown through many ways such as the accent they have, and the potential culture that comes from that nation that they bring with them, the way a nation can be represented can also be used to fuel stereotypes, we get stereotypes of whole nations such as the French being cowards and the Americans being all obese. The Media can represent this sort of identification with countries in many possitive or negative ways. The first episode of Mind your language (1977) is a very good example of poor national representation. In mind your language you see an English teacher teaching their language to a people from a variety of different Nations and cultures. Mind your language plays on many of the stereotypes that can come with the represented nationallities, such as an elder Japanese man who is the head of an electronics company, and two Asian men who argue about their opposing religion, which the show suggests they could start a race war about. We see also that in this episode a joke constantly used is the lack of the foreign speaker's knowledge of English, which is another representation of every other foreign nation, that they don't know anything about english or they could be just stupid. Another example of National identity is commonly found in sports, in the 2009 Rugby World cup Sevens we see a lot of iconography in the first opening sequence, these iconographies are mainly flags that are distinct and associated with specific countries, we are familiar with these common types of representation, but it also shows more abstract things, that we are still familiar with representing specific coutries, such as a lion represents wales. Regional identity is very similar to the idea of national identity in that it is about how people are connected to where they live, but it is more focused on the different regions of a single country, and their closed culture within their own country. Such as In Barcelona using a variation of the spanish language called Catalan. We can see regional representations in specific regions in two examples, one of these examples is the only way is essex, this has somewhat poor representation of the people within the eastern region. As the characters represented are somewhat stupid and do not show a lot of intelligence, the show often shows a lot of negative traits of people such as a lot of the characters being materialistic. Another example of regional representation in the media is Geordie shore, Geordie shore represents people within the Tyneside area of the UK. Like TOWIE Geordie shore has poor representations of the region, and focuses on a stereotype that people of Newcastle are party obsessed and materialisitc.

Media report (old)

The media coursework prepared was created for a Thriller film intended for a Teenage audience, Thriller films and things in the genre in general tend to have very specific themes that revolve around them, the Thriller theme is typically very similar to the horror genre, but is still very unique. Typically the Thriller genre is in a much more down to earth setting than horror films, and has a very realistic situation and more believable circumstances that could happen in the real world, but are unlikely to occur. A theme most thriller films contain is the theme of mystery and the unknown world, in particular Thriller films look at the fear that this mystery brings. As such most Thriller films are about uncovering a mystery; this is why a lot of Thriller films are also ‘crime’ or ‘mystery’ genre too. Such as Gone girl and the girl with the dragon tattoo. To achieve the Teenage audience, the film has to have the main cast of characters be an age group that Teenagers can relate to, ranging from 16-20. Because this is a film, the coursework assets that would go with the Media product would have to be fit for a film, the assets that were chosen to fit with a Film were a Theatrical poster, a DVD cover, and a script. The idea of the Thriller film created to fit the conventions of the Thriller genre is called Black town, it was decided to be about a Teenage boy named Joe who wakes up in a mysterious house, who contains a killer inside who pretends to be his friend, his only connection to his past is another person on the other side of a phone who knows him, and tries to get him out of this mysterious town that is almost empty aside from a few more killers, and tries to discover why he is here. This film concept attempts to reach that theme of mystery and fear of the unknown by including a mystery to discover itself, but makes it seem dangerous and disturbed by including the danger of killers in this setting. ImageImageImageImageTo get information about Theatrical posters, more than fifteen different theatrical posters with a Thriller genre theme were looked at to get inspiration for the poster. For every poster, there are many typical conventions of a poster that were found that needed to be included in the Theatrical poster, One of the main things I noticed in each poster was that the title was very large and was in a noticeable or interesting font, the title had to obviously be big to catch the viewer’s eye and stick in their mind, but usually the title connoted the sort of genre the poster was for. For example Shutter Island has a Thriller poster with red text with black shadows covering some areas of it, While the red can connote murder and blood, that aspect of it makes it somewhat creepy and disturbing, while the black found on it can easily connote mystery, as the title is not completely covered, so is the film also shrouded in mystery, the font also is unifying and a bit creepy to look at. This tells me that the title is an important way to tell a viewer what kind of film this is. In Shutter Island’s poster again, we see that the actor name is a very large contrast to the Title in both font and colour, this tells me how the actor names should stand out, and also be the second or third largest font sizes on the poster. Something else seen in theatrical posters were the use of tag lines, Donnie Darko’s poster has a tagline too, the majority of the taglines found on each poster told you something about the film’s story. There are many typical things that every theatrical poster has. In particular the vast majority of film posters have a credit block that goes underneath the title at the bottom of the poster, what is important about the placement of the credit block is that it does not block anything important in the poster, and is out of the way of the main focus of the poster. Along with the credit block, logos such as universal included, these two would go to the bottom of the poster usually, and would be small and out of focus. Colours were also an important aspect of each Thriller, as colours can connote many things. Light blues were in particular a very common sight in Thriller posters, as seen in Donnie Darko, the blue colours are able to connote isolation, loneliness, and even death, all the things that blues can connote are important aspects for the themes that you find in Thriller genre, as fear is an important component, the things blue can connote can also invoke fear. Greys and whites was also a colour used for similar reasons, as you can see in Gone girl. Grey manages to connote a more serious tone for your film, as Thrillers would never be able to achieve a light hearted feeling, Grey and white colours manage to tell you the seriousness of the film. One final aspect of theatrical posters is the constant appearance of the main character or characters in the poster, as they are important, you see them in the foreground of your poster, and usually the exact main point of attention. In Donnie Darko’s poster, you see that the one light source comes from the centre of the main character, drawing your attention to him. This is the theatrical poster created for Black town, it attempts to use all the listed conventions of the theatrical poster listed above, I believe the areas I have succeeded on recreating are the colours used in the poster, the background of the town and trees was intentionally made to be incredibly dark with only suggestions of light sources in the back, this was to connote that theme of mystery, this dark setting also allowed me to easily blend into the parts of the poster that were not of focus, the credit block and the logos. At the top I focused on the use of colours, a greyish blue was used for the sky to have both of those colour’s connotations, but I also used a red around the area the phone lights up, this is important as it relates to the context of the Film’s narrative, where throughout the film, the phone and the person on the other end leads to the discovery of the main character’s past. The inclusion of the main character was intentionally made to be in a dark light to again fit with the Film’s story of him not knowing his memory, so he’s in darkness, however in doing this I missed one of the main points of showing the protagonist, in that I didn’t make him an as important aspect of the poster as he could have been, so the lighting should have been slightly altered, the actor names while may be too small, I believe fit the style of how other posters showcase their actors. Another thing I may have changed about this poster however it the amount of negative space I used, as the credit block and the logos have taken up maybe a bit much room, so I may have decreased their size, and moved the title and tagline downwards. The title and tagline were also successful I believe, as the font was strange enough to fit the genre, and also hit a certain theme they both shared. The colours too also were made to fit the black and grey motif, with red added in to highlight a keyword that is important to the film “Alone” ImageA DVD cover was also produced to go with the Poster. This means that many of the pre mentioned conventions of a theatrical poster such as the title, actor names, colour, main character, and credit block/logo can also be applied to the DVD cover, but there are some additions to a DVD cover. More commonly DVD covers have reviews of the film itself because they come out later, so that had to be included, but it’s important to note that the review text had to still fit with the look of the poster’s text. We see Age ratings on every DVD colour on either the front side or back, or usually all of them. Logos are also now seen on multiple sides of the cover. On the front as well we will see a typical DVD logo, this can also appear on other sides of the cover. On the back of the DV, key images of the film are seen to let the viewer know what they are getting into. There is also a small blurb about the film’s story that tells you what the film is about. Finally there are various setting options seen on the poster itself about the DVD such as sound settings and languages.

Woman sues London pub for £4.2m after tripping in beer garden

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/22/woman-sues-westbourne-pub-beer-garden-rope-stumble This article is about a woman who tripped within the area of a pub. The injury she sustained made her unable to stay at work for some months, and the injury had long lasted effects. Although the pub admitted fault of the injury and paid Over 150,000. The woman was not satisfied and wanted 4.2 million from them, she believes that the injury has caused her major mood swings which caused her to give up her job three years later, and it gave her scars that she felt uncomfortable with as she believed people would think she self harmed. The court denied her request for this 4.2 million pay in reparations. I think this news story is somewhat silly, and the woman is asking too much for the bar to be responsible for that wasn't really their fault directly, she appears to exaggerate her own injuries in her own quotes, saying she has permanent unsightly scars, but the court had came to an agreement that her injuries were not nearly as bad, certainly not for 4.2 million. The Guardian's left wing view would not have influenced the reasoning of why they would publish this article, but it is relevant as it is a UK news paper, so they would account UK events.

"The truth about London's air pollution"

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/05/the-truth-about-londons-air-pollution This article from the guardian is about the dangers of air pollution and the problems it causes. The title itself was chosen to draw in a particular audience that would be concerned with and be aware of the dangers of air pollution, and thus would wanna know more about it. One of the first points it brings up about the pollution is how they have an effect on children in particular, children are usually used as a backdoor to get to a wide range of people, as the vast majority of people feel safety and concern for children more than anyone else, so it draws in another audience, it also brings in audiences that would usually not be opposed to these sorts of views, this is because the Guardian is a left wing newspaper and focuses on the inclusiveness and protection of all people, this would counter act against the views of a right wing newspaper, which is all about production and business, as air pollution are a cause of businesses and are connected to methods people do to make money, this sort of issue is a lot less likely to be covered by a right wing newspaper because of its connotations that go against their view. This news article caught my attention because things like air pollution and global warming are liked to be ignored or pushed under the rug despite that they are undisputed fact, so I was interested to see that the issue of Air pollution would be brought up right now of all times when not much has changed about air pollution other than its still progressively worse and no one bats an eyelid at it. What further interested me by this article was the connotations they added in the first few paragraphs of how air pollution can be potentially killing and cause major damage to everyone.