London Riots 2O11

The weekend long riots which have been taking place in Tottenham, London, have been made worse by the use of social media by the locals, reports, police and even Members of Parliament have said. A very brief back story for those of you who may be less aware, Thursday 4th August, a man, Mark Duggan, was shot dead by police in a raid. What started off as a peaceful and law abiding vigil for him turned into mass hysteria, riots and looting with hundreds of arrests and mass amounts of damage inflicted over London.

The argument is, that social media was used intentionally, and unintentionally, to spread inaccurate or completely fabricated tales to the online community. People were Tweeting and Facebooking stories and events "as they happened" whether they were known to be true or not. They were even Tweeting just to cause a stir and make things seem worse than they were. Or to make others believe that the riots were a good thing. They were even looking to recruit new rioters and chaos.

The problem with social media, is that it is freely and easily available to the public, and people reading these updates may have been taking them at face value and being inspired to join the riots. Whether they agreed with the cause or not. Or, at the very least, these networks offered a portal for gossip, lies and rumours to be spread and cause problems.

What's worse, is that people were using these social networks not only to encourage riots, but even to belittle and laugh at the events. A quick look over the profiles and hashtag searches revelaled some worrying tweets of people using Twitter and social media to add fuel to the already raging flames. For example, one tweet read:

"Heading to Tottenham to join the riot! who's with me? #ANARCHY".

This tweet was then followed by:

Hang on, that last tweet should've read 'Curling up on the sofa with an Avengers DVD and my missus, who's with me?' What a klutz I am!"

This sort of tweeting is arguably harmless, but it can be seen as a childish, rude and inappropriate use of social media when it's seen to be playing a prominent role in a volatile situation. Belittling a situation where thousands of people have taken to the streets, burnt down public buildings and even family homes, is completely unhelpful and disgusting behavior. Don't forget, this whole event started because of a death by shooting. A little respect for the people who have been innocent victims and families of those involved in these events would not go a miss.

QUOTES:
'People were Tweeting and Facebooking stories and events "as they happened" whether they were known to be true or not '
> This quote shows the media knew that social networking was not always encouraging people to go out and perform these actions, it shows the audience using social networking has been helpful to those not apart of the riots, allowing them to get easy information to what has happened. However as it says "whether they were known to be true or not" connotes the audience is also producing inaccurate information. Understandably, the social networking sites where being monitored- the audience using the social networking sites was either perceived as either being involved, passing on information or allowing the police to know what was going to be targeted next.

' Belittling a situation where thousands of people have taken to the streets, burnt down public buildings and even family homes, is completely unhelpful and disgusting behavior'

> The police, who monitored social networking is shown as being frustrated by the description of the people mocking the riots by saying "unhelpful and disgusting behavior". By the police advertising the fact of mocking the riots is "unhelpful" encouraged the audience to increase the mockery to wind the police up in a discrete way. I believe the police wanted the situation to be seen as very serious but not understanding that people who 'belittled' the situation could have been giving a message to those participating to notice how pathetic and useless there doings are to the community.

The argument is, that social media was used intentionally, and unintentionally, to spread inaccurate or completely fabricated tales to the online community
> The police seem to want to be believe that social networking helped spread 'fabricated tales' but do not wish to believe it could be the truth, they wish to hide from. However, they
recognise both sides by mentioning 'argument' and 'unintentionally'. which connotes the social networking is not fully to blame for the riots. They believe that it also informed people and keeping them safe. On the other hand, they do not show fully they believe the benefits because by saying 'unintentionally' it showed that people who was advertising the riots as a good thing where also asserting people to stay away from those areas, yet without realising.

Summer - A movie "The Rebound"

The Rebound

 A suburban mother who seems to have it all - a sprawling suburban home, cheery kids, fast broadband connection- until she discovers that her husband has been cheating on her. She decamps to New York, where she does things she's never thought of doing before: namiley working. She also goes on dates with hygienically challenged men who insert dirty fingers in her mouth.

The women, the protagonist, stars of being shown as domestic and organised in life, once her relationship with her husband falls apart she begins to be represented as a vulnerable middle aged women who is in desperate for another man in her life.  With her ex-husband, she was the domestic one and represented as a dominant character, and her husband is shown as the weak one who cheats on her by having sex with about women. Once they divorce the ex-husband becomes weak and in need of a women in his life, begging for her to re-enter his life again.

The women is seen desperate by her best friend, as her best friend would persistently talk about having another man in her life, which connotes the protagonist as being gullible and believes her friend is correct. To an extent the representation of the protagonist is correct as once a woman is divorced they seek a man’s presences in their life, and it can be seen as fair because people want to be loved. However to an extent the representation is incorrect because the protagonist seems confident and stable by herself.

As the film goes on, she meets another man and realises she has fallen for him, however as hears she is not pregnant with his baby, she realises that he is not for her, and wants to break-up with him. This is self-representation as she shows that she no longer needs a man in her life. As they go their separate ways, the woman gets promoted in her job and the male character goes travelling around the world, which connotes that they did not need each other.

The significance of having text connotations is that it allows the audience to feel a specific way, as...

The mise-en-scene of this movie is basic setting in New York, at their apartment and a coffee shop. This connotes that the movie has a realistic feel to and allows the audience to identify themselves with the characters, as there is no green screens used. The audience would feel as if they could identify with them because it is not an unrealistic storyline. The coffee shop is a casual place where people tend to be laid back, therefore also making the plot realistic.  The clothing represents the high budgeted Hollywood movie but it also shows the simplicity of the characters and the make-up is low key to connote the facial expressions more as the audience are not being distracted by the make-up.

The camera positions shown is point-of-view shot, to allow the audience to feel connected and draws the audience in; there is also medium long shot views to allow the audience to get a feel of the surroundings and feel comfortable in that setting. Some edits used is dip to black but mainly jump to leave the audience at the edge of their seats. The sounds used is parallel, manly romantic.

The narrative throughout the movie is mainly third persons view, but we get to see some views from the protagonist point of view for the first half of the movie, but as the second man gets involved the narrative gets a feel of both the prospectuses. When they show both of their views after the break up, they use jump shots to allow the audience to feel as if they are with both of the characters at once and the audience feels as if they are up to date with the current affairs in both their lives.

The male character is delineated by being very mature for a 24year old, and he is shown to be a family person, as he gave up career to babysit for the women he fell in love with. But as they split, he became more independent and travelled the world by himself.  The woman is also shown to be independent, but still seeks male’s presence in her life. Using propps theory, the protagonist is the princess and her ex-husband is the villain and the new male character is the hero/helper, as they argue that he was the rebound and he also started off with helping her out by babysitting her children. She is seen as the princess as she needs help from her past experience, and her ex-husband is the villain and he hurt and destroyed the women, and is impolite towards the women and the new male character.  After this scene, the husband is alienated from the children and the women. Alienation is also shown when the break-up occurred, the male character disappeared from the women.

The themes shown from the narrative is love and betrayal and this is shown by the protagonist watching a birthday movie which had two parts two, the second part of which had the husband making love to another women, from then she realised she no longer wanted to be with him. After a while, she falls in love and is broken hearted to realise that he is younger than her, and she feels as if it wasn’t meant to be.

The main reason for why this movie falls under that category of love is because of the music, the type of camera angles used: which are medium long shot, long shots, occasionally, which connoted alienation, and also over the shoulder shot to connote identification.

To an extent the audiences expectation was not fulfilled, because we do not know if they get back together at the end, and you wouldn’t expect them to fall out over nothing, the audience would have thought the ex-husband would have got in the way, but didn’t; the plot of them not having another partner does fulfil the audiences expectation.

The targeted audience is aged 18-27 middle classed, BC2C1. I have chosen this gratification because of the maturity of the movie and the situations involved are not very common for ages younger than 18, and because it is a Hollywood movie class D and E would feel as if that is the ‘ideal lifestyle’ as in the setting, therefore they could be there secondary audience, and the reason for BC2C1 is because the characters are based in that socio-economic group.

From watching the movie, i read and evaluate the movie as a typical love/romantic movie because of the other movies, due to my age i couldn’t really identify with them, however you can understand how the woman felt as she saw her husband cheat on her, is like a relationship in high school, and it teaches us about the realities of life that something/ people don’t grow up and some mature faster, don’t judge them on their appearance nor their past.

Rotten tomatoes shows views of us the audience, and they express their views by saying ‘ its the reality of life shown with two wealthy people’

IMDb shows also the audiences views of the film. The reviews are a good view for the director and also the actors because feedback for them is vital for the next movies they will produce or star in and everything always needs improving.

The guardian has said: 'getting a tooth wrenched out without anesthetics. On entering the cinema and seeing this movie on offer, my advice is to rebound in the opposite direction' 

The rating from the telegraph is only, a shocking, two star saying 'rom-coms have always been about massaging women's fantasy nodes, but this one presses a little to hard. In case we worry that sandy might be robbing Aram of his carefree youth, she tearfully renounces him as too young' an they believe it is a rom-com and a heart-tugging drama, and is too short on laugh or honesty to fit either bill.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009980-rebound/

http://thecia.com.au/reviews/r/images/rebound-production-notes.pdf

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205535/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jul/22/the-rebound-film-review

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/7904822/The-Rebound-review.html