For this activity, you will construct an advertising and marketing dossier, with many different examples for both TV shows we have studied.

These examples will of course be particularly useful to answer questions about advertising and marketing! However, they will also be extremely useful in answering questions about audience, media language, constructing representations of reality, and the economic contexts surrounding these products. This is a synoptic question, and you can and should draw together theory and examples from everything we have studied!

As you make notes on the examples of marketing included in the resources, you can also consider how this evidence can be used to answer the following past paper industry (and some audience) questions:

How far can aspects of identity be seen to affect the way in which audiences use television? Discuss, with reference to Black Mirror and Les Revenants. [30]
Television production takes place within an economic context. Discuss the influence of economic factors on The Returned. [15]
How significant are economic factors in the TV industry? Refer to Black Mirror and Les Revenants in your answer. [30]
‘Television is a global industry.’ To what extent do Black Mirror and The Returned support this claim? [30]
'Television products are significantly influenced by the contexts in which they are produced.’ How evident is this in Black Mirror and The Returned? [30]
Curran and Seaton argue that media industries are generally controlled by a small number of powerful companies whose main purpose is to create a profit. Evaluate this theory of power and media industries. Refer to Black Mirror and The Returned in your response. [30]
How much influence do economic factors have on the TV industry? Refer to Black Mirror and The Returned in your response. [30]
Explain how media production and distribution have changed in the age of streaming and the Internet. Refer to Black Mirror in your response. [15]

Click here for advertising and marketing examples for Black Mirror. This resource was created by Naamah. Thanks Naamah!

Click here for advertising and marketing examples for Les Revenants. This resource was created by the exam board. Thanks exam board!

Roland Barthes argues that meaning is constructed from a complex system of signs and myths. Evaluate this theory of semiotics. Refer to The Returned to support your answer

Roland Barthes’s theory of semiotics is extremely useful, as it helps us to break down the complex set of meanings that Les Revenants uses to confuse and disorientate it’s audiences

Semiotics - the study of meaning

Sign - anything that signals deeper meaning. For example, the dark MES of LR connotes eeriness. The show has dark MES. It is spooky!

Myths - a story that helps us to understand the world. For example, there are only two things in life you can trust: death and taxes. We joke about death to make it seem less scary. However, LR subverts this myth by exploring the afterlife.

Narrative - the episode is a classic example of a multi strand narrative. It takes many different character arcs that form one complex central narrative. In addition to Camille’s story, we have a number of side stories and B stories that all share screen time. In this sense, LR resembles a soap opera. This contrasts with BM’s single strand narrative.

Codes - proairetics, hermeneutics, symbolics, and referentiality

Polysemic: many meanings

This episode relies on hermeneutic codes to convey complex and contradictory meanings

Other theories that can help us to understand LR include postmodernism (losing the sense of what is real), Genre theory (totally unconventional for every genre), narrative theory (not conventional at all! Yet also conventional!), cultivation theory (representation, mysterious), representation (how groups are represented)
Stuart Hall’s theory of representation, including younger people, children, parents
Postmodernism and hyperreality - the response of thew characters are confusing and complex
Gauntlet and identity. Different audiences can get different things from this… teenage characters will appeal to teenage audiences, older characters will appeal to older audiences
Gender performativity!
Binary oppositions
Theories of genre, particularly intertextual relay… unconventional!

Key scene - Camille comes home

The scene where Camille comes home presents a complex system of signs and myths, which constructs a confusing, upsetting and highly unconventional mode of address for the target audience.

Claire rushes through the house in a state of panic. The use of head height, eye level mid-shot align the audience with Claire. However, this positing is highly confusing, as Claire's panicked face is both a proairetic code and a hermeneutic code, forcing the audience to ask why she is reacting like this.

The scene takes on a polysemic approach, by combining a mundane, boring slice of life narrative with the conventions of the horror genre position the target audience in a confused and uncomfortable mode of address.

Les Revenants adopts the conventions of a multi-strand narrative. This style of narrative is popular in dramas, sitcoms and soap operas. SJ adopts a single strand narrative.

The kitchen wide shot is planimetric in composition. It has a sense of symmetry that alludes to plays and stage shows, taking the audience out of the narrative, and placing them into a sense of anxiety. Additionally, the symmetrical blocking of the shot creates a tension between Camille and Claire, mother and daughter, that will confuse the target audience. Taking the symbolism further, the split outlines two separate genres occurring on screen at the same time. Camille’s narrative is conventional of a teen drama, and her performance underlines this. She is totally oblivious to her mum’s panic, and is rude, calling a cup ugly. However, Claire is very much in a horror film. The symbolism of the CU shot of the back of her neck constructs a conventional horror narrative, positioning the audience in a scary mode of address.

Through the process of intertextual relay, the horror fan audience will recognise the various conventions of the horror film. The lack of non-diegetic sound, the tracking shot, and the many BCUs of Claire’s face all construct a sense of dread that proairetically suggests a gory jump scare. However, the audience are instead presented with the unconventional MES of an average looking girl pulling out Tupperware and eating a sandwich . The audience expectation and the dull reality construct a binary opposition where multiple genres are combined in a confusing way. In this sense, this complex combination of meanings reinforces the validity of Barthe’s theory

The lighting is low key, ambient and has simultaneous connotations of ambiguity, the horror genre, yet also the relaxing and well thought out atmosphere of an upper middle class family. This is reinforced through the MES of the setting surrounding the house, with empty, leafy streets and the unlocked door suggest a sense of security and wealth .

The open plan living dining area is divided by an enormous pillar. Not only symbolising class, it also symbolises a dive between the two characters. They both support completely contrasting states of mind, with their performance styles completely at odds with one another. However, the mother is alive, and the daughter is dead, a highly depressing, bleak and confusing set of signs and meanings.

The soundtrack is composed by Glaswegian rock band mogwai, a highly unconventional choice. However, the soundtrack they produce is highly conventional. During the conversation, a discrete keyboard drone plays in the background creating a creepy and ominous and anxiety inducing atmosphere. However, as the sequence progresses to Camille having a bath, the music flips to a less subtle, and highly conventional version of the horror genre soundtrack. The percussive thumping is daunting, distressing, and resembles either footsteps or a thumping heartbeat. However, this is at complete odds with the mundane, slice of life situation.

This combination of media language constructs an ominous and terrifying mode of address in an effective and sophisticated way that can only be made possible through the complex application of semiotics

The cinematography of the sequence, specifically the long shot across the open plan kitchen not only distances the audience from this complex and confusing interaction, but also distances the two characters. The blocking of this shot is made meaningful through the MES of the huge pillar which serves many symbolic functions. It constructs a binary opposition between the reality of Claire, and the imaginative fantasy of Camille coming back from the dead.

The scene uses extensive intertextual relay to encourage the audience to expect the conventions of the horror film. The pleonastic sound of the crash of Camille entering the house alerts Claire. At this stage, there is non-diegetic sound, emphasising the diegetic sounds of the Seurat household. This continues with a tracking shot of Claire leaving Camille’s bedroom, symbolically laid out like a shrine, positioning us with the grieving mother. We cut to a POV shot of a figure moving behind the fridge. This shot is a clear reference to the horror genre, and functions as a proairetic code, suggesting to the audience that a jump scare is incoming. Instead the audience’s expectations are shattered. We are confronted with a chatty little girl eating a sandwich. This constructs a binary opposition between the horror genre, as experienced by Claire, and the drama genre as experienced by Camille. This complex interchange forces the audience to experience the overwhelming and confusing emotions of the mother.

The low key lighting of this sequence is conventional of the horror genre. However, it also polysemically constructs a comforting, warm and stylish atmosphere, further confusing the target audience

The non-diegetic soundtrack during the conversation is clearly artificial and ominous. It is saturated in reverb, and is bassy and anxiety inducing. However, as soon as Claire agrees to get a bathrobe for Camille, the music becomes dissonant and terrifying. At this stage the soundtrack becomes that of a cliched horror film. The staccato percussion resembles a heart beating quickly, symbolically encoding the panic that Claire feels. Claire’s reaction is confusing, yet is also completely understandable. She chooses in panic to lie to Camille, for fear of shattering this illusion. This complex set of codes and myths confuses the target audience, forcing them into interpreting a complex and troubling narrative.