VCE Media: Unit 4

1. Outcome 1 – Social Values VCE Media: Unit 4

2. Social Values • All media texts are constructed. As a result, they often reflect the social values - the views, attitudes and beliefs - of the period in which they are produced. • Although there are many values that do not change - we all believe that murder is immoral, for example - many of the other values that we hold are in a state of constant flux. As noted in the VCE Media Study Design: "...the values of a society are in a state of constant evolution, and tension always exists between the dominant set of values and different or emerging social values.”

3. In VCE Media, social values can be described as dominant, emerging, oppositional or alternative. • Dominant. Those values held by the majority of people in a society. • Emerging. Beliefs or attitudes held by a growing number of people in a society. When studying historical texts, these values may eventually become dominant. • Oppositional. Values and beliefs which are in direct opposition to those held by the majority of people in a society. • Alternative. Values that provide an alternative to the beliefs and attitudes held by the majority without challenging or opposing them directly.

4. Examples of our values (Australia, 2010): • Dominant value: • Emerging Value: • Oppositional Value: • Alternative Value:

5. ALIENS (1986) Our task for this Outcome is to describe how Social Values of the production period have shaped and are reflected in the text (Aliens). Production period: AMERICA, 1980’s Specific Date of Production: 1986

6. What is the Production Context? • When writing about your text, it is important to identify the production context. • Who created the film? • Directed by James Cameron • When was the film made? • 1986 – It’s really important not to confuse the production period with the setting. While it is set in the future, the film is presenting the Social Values of the people in America in1986. • Where was it made? • United States of America

7. Writing about the production period • It is extremely important to research the production period and write about it authoritatively. The examiners will be looking for well-informed responses, so evidence and strong examples are very important. Research ideas: • Journal articles • Statistics • Newspapers • Encyclopaedia entries • Internet research

8. Example of a well-informed response: • "According to an article featured on the Organisation of American Historians website: "The late 1940s and 1950s witnessed a sharp reaction to the stresses of the Depression and war. If any decade has come to symbolize the traditional family, it is the 1950s. The average age of marriage for women dropped to twenty; divorce rates stabilized; and the birthrate doubled...democratization of the family ideals reflected social and economic circumstances that are unlikely to be duplicated: a reaction against Depression hardships and the upheavals of World War II; the affordability of single-family track homes in the booming suburbs; and rapidly rising real incomes.'"

9. That's a much more confident and authoritative description of the production period. Statistics, encyclopaedic entries and other evidence is a great way to show that you understand the period in which your text was produced and how that might have influenced its construction.

10. Identifying the Social Values of the Production Context • Once you've developed a clear understanding of the time and place in which your text was produced, start to think about the values that it embodies. Watch Aliens a number of times. What values, beliefs and attitudes are reflected in the narrative? Which characters are the audience encouraged to identify with? Which characters are represented in a positive way? Which characters are represented in a negative light?

11. Writing Appropriately • Social values are complex. They cannot be reduced to single words, like ‘love’ or ‘equality’. If you want to successfully identify a social value, you will need to explain it more carefully in a way that clearly identifies values, attitudes and beliefs held during the production period. • When writing on social values they should always appear as “that” statements. • That is, they always begin with “that…”.

12. EXAMPLES: • Aliens reflects the dominant social value in 1980s America that there should be greater gender equality, that men and women are capable of performing the same roles. • Leave it to Beaver supports the dominant social value that there should be a clear distinction between gender roles, that women should take care of the family while men earn money to support it. • Produced in the 1950s, following the devastation unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Forbidden Planet reflects the emerging social value that technology has the potential to be a significant threat to humankind.

13. Structure of Study: • There is a lot to cover in the Social Values course, as there are many different aspects of the study. This is the structure we will follow in order to complete the course effectively:

14. Timeline: • 1:Introduction of key terms • 2: Viewing of key scenes from Aliens • 3: Research production context: events and subsequent attitudes of America 1980’s • 4: Identify the social values in Aliens • 5: Look at representations of these social values in the text (codes and conventions, production elements) • 6: Second viewing of key scenes from Aliens • 7: Look at the types of values: dominant, emerging, etc, and whether the film supports or challenges the values (representations) • 8: Social Values Practice SAC • Social Values Final SAC: Examination format, short and extended response questions.

15. Social Values SAC Date: • FRIDAY AUGUST 12TH • (week 4 Term 3)

16. SAC Details: • Short and Extended Responses examining how the social values of 1980’s America helped influence the content of the text Aliens.

17. Performance Descriptors: • To get an B+-A+ result: “Insightful and thoroughly substantiated understanding of the relationship between social values, the production of media texts and the representations in, and structures of, such texts. Perceptive and detailed analysis of a media text revealing an understanding of the ways in which media texts are shaped by social values. Comprehensive description of social values held in society during the production period of media texts. Perceptive and comprehensive analysis of the relationship between representations in media texts and the social values of the production period. Insightful and effective analysis of the extent to which media texts support and/or challenge social values”