Further Reading...

This week has included a further investigation into the roles of PR, spin-teams, spin doctors and their relationships with the Media to create a manipulation and control of public opinion.

McCombs, M et al (2011) The News and Public Opinion: Media Effects in Civic life.

I began this week's theoretical investigation by looking into the phrase- public opinion. What does public opinion mean? How does public opinion situate itself? Who controls or steers public opinion? Public opinion is an opinion of a collective group that ultimately share the same knowledge and understanding of the world around them in order to assert opinions within the so called public sphere (Habermas). [public opinion within a political context and influenced by the news media].

McCombs et al describe public opinion as:- 'public opinion often is narrowly regarded as the responses that people make to pollster's questions about public affairs. The realities of public opinion are much more complex, involving a swirling, ever-changing mix of thoughts, feelings and occasional behaviour. The influences shaping this mix range from our childhood experiences to our most recent conversations. Especially prominent, however, is the steady succession of messages that we receive from the daily news' (2011: 1). This relates back to the research I conducted on Mind and Behaviour in November as McCombs et all go on to iterate: 'the consistent impact over time that the mass media, whatever the medium, have on the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that shape public opinion' (2011:5).

I also looked at the work of Louw, E (2010) The Media & Political Process (2nd edition). 

I found Louw's work extremely interesting and useful , especially in defining a public relations democracy, the role of spin-doctoring, media-ization of the political process and the spin industry:

Public Relations Democracy

'Refers to the idea that the politics of Western democracies have become so enmeshed with professionalized communication and a spin industry that democracy itself has become PR-ized' (Louw 2010)

Spin-Doctoring

'Spin-doctor is a term first used with reference to Ronald Reagan's media team in a New York Times editorial of 21 October 1984. Spin-doctors are professional Impression Managers who have become the interface between politicians and journalists. Spin-doctors are experts in 'hype' and the   arts of tele-visualized politics, i.e. they craft the 'faces' of politicians and script, stage and mange their political performances. To be successful requires that spin-doctors know how to use the media to their own advantage. This involves being familiar with journalistic practices and discourses. Ultimately spin-doctors are involved in trying to a) get journalists to see the world from an angle that suits the spin-doctor's  agenda; b) deflect attention away from issues and stories they want to 'bury'; and c) plant and leak stories. Spin-doctors are experts in using the media to 'steer' public opinion'. (2010:216)

Media-ization of the Political Process

'The media-ization has been seen as: the intrusion of public relations, spin-doctoring and hype into the political process. Media-ization is associated with the need that policy elites have to 'manufacture consent' and communicatively 'steer' the masses'. (2010:194)

Spin Industry

'Refers to the way in which spin-doctoring has been routinized in comtemporary Western politics through the widespread employment of a range of specialists who are expert in crafting televisual performances with a view to steering both mass and niche publics. These specialists include spin-doctors, public relations, consultants, minders, advertising consultants, public opinion pollsters, make up artists and speech writers' (Louw 2010).

From reading select chapters within this book it made me consider the role that the media have played in constructing my own knowledge and understanding of the world around me and the political issues and political process within it. 

This book by Dinan and Miller (2007) was extremely useful for understanding the term Public Relations. As they go on to argue: 'Public relations was created to thwart and subvert democratic decision making. It was a means for 'taking the risk' out of democracy. The risk was to the rested interests of those who owned and controlled society before the introduction of voting rights for all adults. Modern PR was founded for this purpose and continues to be at the cutting edge of campaigns to ensure that liberal democratic societies do not respond to the will of the people and that vested interests prevail. PR functions, in other words, as a key element of propaganda managed democracy'. (2007:11)

Going back to the likes of Edward L. Bernays (1928) Propaganda cited in Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy, Bernays shared the same view as the other PR pioneers- that public opinion must be manipulated by 'the relatively small numbers of persons' who understand the masses (2007:12).

Summing up Public Relations

The main charges that can be made against public relations as a discipline are:

1. It is overwhelmingly carried out for vested powerful interests, mainly corporation.
2. It is not open and transparent about its means or even about its clients and the interests it is working for.
3. It characteristically involves deception and manipulation.
4. It does not engage in democratic debate, but rather seeks to subvert it in the interests of its clients.
5. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and other 'ethical' activities are all subordinated to corporate strategy.
6. PR has played a crucial role at the cutting edge of corporate power in the neoliberal revolution.  

(Dinan and Miller 2007:12)

'Living in a society which nearly every moment of human attention is exposed to the game plans of spin-doctors, image managers, pitchmen, communications consultant, public information officers and public relations specialists'. (2007:19)

So despite a small amount of theoretical research I've uncovered that under the umbrella phrase and role of spin-doctor, the following titles are suiting:

• Speech writer
• Policy maker
• Communications Officer [Director of Communications]
• Image Managers (this is my favourite)
• Communications consultant
• Public information officers
• Communication Strategist 

and so on... 

My next step is to watch these guys or 'special advisers' in action [interviews etc]:

• Alastair Campbell
• Peter Mandelson
• Charlie Whelan
• Andy Coulson [although resigned]
• Craig Oliver

SCRIPT REDRAFTING...

So the believability factor isn't there in my previous script so I'm going to redraft it and work with my VO to create audio that resembles natural speech as much as possible. I wanted to develop the script so that they script works towards revealing the protagonist's realization of what he's actually participated in. I'm also going to work on the language used within the script as currently the language is quite blunt. I want to create a scenario where the audience realize that the protagonist is a spin doctor without needing to be completely obvious and state he is one. These will be my next steps to improve the script:

• Watching and taking notes on interviews with director of communications for the government e.g. Alastair Campbell

• Looking at language used such as communications, strategy, speech writer etc

• Rework the script by going through and speaking it

• Work with my VO to read the script naturally 

The script needs to work really well for the whole project to come together. Eventually the audience will learn of the protagonist's main role as director of communications (or as an outsider, the more common title: spin doctor) for Medicorp. The protagonist is Medicorp's enforcer and ensures the public all follow Medicorp guidelines, usually in the form of spin. Through the protagonist, the audience will gain an insider account where the protagonist is taking a step back and looking back in to his actions and purpose e.g. an insider on the outside looking back in. 

Basically, the project will undoubtedly be satirizing the inner workings of British government and its relationship with the Media. 

Batch TESTING in PS

Using the batch action in Photoshop, I was able to record the effects and apply the effects to a set of test images within a click of a button! This is going to save a lot of time, particularly compared to in PS opening individual images and applying the effects that way and also applying the effects in FCP which would add a lot of rendering time!

Here are the BATCH TEST IMAGES:

Treated Images with Effects

Here are examples of images within the motion comic, complete with effects:


The filters used to treat these images are:

• Sharpen
• Fresco
• Poster edges

Character Profile and Analysis

This is an entry analyzing my decisions in;

- Location and Set
- Costume and Appearance
- Developing my project from the initial pilot to the final project

Location and Set

After finishing my pilot, I felt that I was too restricted to using found images [and the added work of chroma key and green screening]. I decided that I would rather have a plethora of images that I took myself and had control over which would enable my project to incorporate different shots within the motion comic as I was running the risk of the motion comic becoming aesthetically boring using the same shot [as in the pilot]. I'm extremely pleased with the photo-shoot shot at a office complex in Cardiff as it created a sense of verisimilitude that would have been quite difficult to create myself.

Costume and Appearance

A lot has changed since the Pilot as I have already mentioned in previous blog posts. Here I will talk about my decisions regarding costume and appearance of the protagonist within the motion comic. Within the Pilot, I felt the costume for the protagonist didn't really suite that of a spin doctor as the costume was quite casual. I decided to do research into a variety of roles within the Media to get a feel for the appropriate clothing:

Media Moguls

Top 10 media moguls of 2011

To look at examples of media moguls dress, I looked at the above link... Below are the images from the website...

Steve Jobs (Apple)

Simon Cowell (SyCO)

Rupert Murdoch (News Corporation)

Sir Martin Sorrell (WPP)

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

Mark Thompson (BBC)

Larry Page (Google)

Jeremy Hunt (UK Government)

James Murdoch (News Corporation)

Evan Williams (Twitter)

TV Dramas- In the Thick of It [Malcolm Tucker]

Great influence [dress sense rather than attitude].

As you can see, it's either a turtle neck or suit [work dress]. For my motion comic, I've decided to mix it up with using smart casual dress as I didn't want the protagonist to dress too formal in a full suit as it wasn't fitting to the protagonist's role for him to do so. So from the waist down, it's jeans and shoes, waist up, shirt, tie and jacket for shots in the office. At home, extremely casual with tee , trainers and jeans.

I decided to go with the colour light purple as it is a neutral colour and isn't as aggressive as a deep red or deep blue shirt. It was quite interesting researching into the colours of shirts as subconsciously we semiotically read a person by the colour they are wearing. Here's a few examples of the connotations of the colour purple:

http://www.kmb-designs.com/colors/purple.html

http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html

Production Schedule... The end is in sight!

Here's my production schedule that goes up to the hand-in date for my project (+ this blog). So basically, I'm completely organized and can crack on with what I need to do and when, plus giving myself plenty of time for any technical glitches!

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE
W/C 9th April	Audio edit (VO, homepage sound etc)
W/C 16th April	FCP construction of chapters. Editing and Effects
W/C 23rd April	Convert .mov to .fla and embed in website. Last run through check, peer review and burn to disc
3rd May- HAND IN	And rest…