BCM112: Not Everything Is As It Seems

Framing can be used in many different ways but the two most prominent that I have noticed is when people use it to filter their content to content that matters, and when they use it to shape a persona for themselves online.

WHAT IS FRAMING?

Framing is to take aspects of reality and to refine them to a point where an audience perceives that to be real instead. It is then making these refined parts more salient in order to draw attention to this “new reality”.

CONTENT

Content is often filtered down to only the best and most relevant information and ideas. This is so the content surrounding the core idea isn’t jeopardized by anything that doesn’t fit. The content is also used to help create the persons online persona. Framing in this particular circumstance can be used to portray events in a certain way.

PERSONA

It is often assumed that what people show on the internet, especially by celebrities, is a real representation of their life when it is usually a glossed up version of it. Not everything is how it seems and this persona is usually cultivated and carefully created by stringing together select pieces of content.

Below is an example of how I take a few of my cosplay selfies which is an example of framing:

The Picture I Took

The GIF of How and Where it was Taken

 

BCM112: A Story of Many Platforms

Transmedia stories are the stories that unfold over a multitude of different platforms. I would like to draw your attention to the much loved series of games, Final Fantasy, one in particular, Final Fantasy XV.

This was the first Final Fantasy Game that I had played and it quickly became one of my favourite games, not because of the gameplay itself but because of the depth of the story behind the events of the game and the characters themselves which was built up using transmedia tactics.

Final Fantasy XV wasn’t released only as a game, its story was started with an anime known as Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV which introduced the characters to the audience before the game was released. A stunning cgi movie (Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV) was then released which filled in the blanks on the world and what had happened while the main characters were off unaware.

After these two things were released the game then came along; the story made so much more sense because most things were already known by the audience if they watched the other stuff before hand.

Here is a Boardroom Suggestion Meme I have created to showcase the splendor that is “transmedia”:

BCM112: Legacy Media vs The Internet

When producing media content within legacy media (old style stuff like the news printed in newspapers or presented on tv) it goes through a gatekeeper who has the final say on what stays and what goes. They can stop content from being produced if they deem it inappropriate or unworthy of being published. This makes for a fragile network where everything is ordered, meaning everything can easily fall apart.

The internet however provides a space for free reign and total anarchy in the way that people create, analyse and respond to things. Take 4chan for example, a deep dark hole that I venture to very rarely. You can literally do anything there and not get into trouble… well not most times.

This meme is something that I created to represent the gatekeeper of legacy media. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the trilogy called “Lord of the Rings”.

BCM112: A Web of Opinions

With the emergence of social media, the media has moved from being centralized around one source to becoming a network of opinions where people can interact with each other. It has moved from a system of “One to many” to a system of “Many to many”.

Take a simple smartphone for example. It’s an entire newsroom completely at a person’s fingertips. You’ve got social media apps, a camera and the internet, all of which allow you to contribute and produce content which was previously only easily accessible to people who had the authority over the people that Jay Rosen says are “formally known as the audience.”

I created the Soundcloud below to represent how many different ways our society today can use social media in order to respond to something that was perhaps a “one to many” or “centralized” news story to begin with and how it can transform into that web of many opinions.