Josh's A-Level Media: March 2019

Tuesday, 26 March 2019

The Big Issue

General facts:

started in 1991
niche magazine
slogan 'a hand up not a hand out'
seller makes £1.25 per sale
100,000 copies sold each week
2000 Big Issue venders in the UK
hybrid genre - entertainment and social issues
similar papers in more than 120 countries
100 people approach the big issue foundation every week

Big Issue aims:

help homeless people (financial)
gives them confidence
gives them experience and training
allows them to have a real job instead of beg and steal.
improves public problems.
'ethical capitalism' - John Bird - making money the right way.

Analysing a Big Issue front cover:

Masthead - the title of the magazine.
plug - text that 'plugs a feature that will appear inside the magazine.
puff - main story on the front cover
cover star
anchorage text - text that anchors the main image and gives it meaning.
banner - text that runs across the bottom of the cover.
skyline - text that runs across the top of the cover.
CLAMPS
CLIFT
DRCAGES (representation)
social, cultural, political

Thursday, 14 March 2019

Minecraft is an open world sandbox game created by Markus ‘Notch’ Persson in 2009. A sandbox game is one where it is completely open and there are unlimited possibilities. These include exploring, building, and playing with friends. The structures you can build are made out of 3D cubes with different textures, for example grass, dirt, water and more. There are other aspects and game modes, for example creative mode and survival mode. In creative mode the resources are unlimited and there is little combat, and in survival mode you begin with nothing and you have to collect materials in order to craft weapons, armour and other structures. One of the reasons Minecraft is and has been so popular is due to the flexibility of the gameplay, so casual players who want to create structures and build can play creative mode, and players who want a challenge and more intense gameplay can play survival mode, so they have to try harder to gain the same amount of possibilities as creative mode, as they have to explore and collect all of the materials they need to build and craft.

Minecraft has been a huge commercial success, getting bought by Microsoft for $2.5 billion, and having over 90 million players every month, which is an increase of 20 million from the previous year. One of the reasons of the huge success and continuous player base is the variety of platforms it is available on. At first, it was only available on the PC, but over the years, as more consoles came out the game was adapted and made so that these new consoles can support them. The game is now available on PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox one, PS3 and 4, Nintendo Switch, PS Vita, iPhone, androids, tablets and Macs. Therefore, due to the amount of devices it is now playable on, that means that almost everyone has access to it, so their audience keeps increasing year by year, due to the vast availability of the game.

Other ways it has grown in popularity is social media presence. For example, many big YouTubers including Ali-A have played the game and uploaded it to their channels, which makes people watching want to play it and learn more about the game and how to play it and get better at it. This influence of social media has allowed the community to grow, with people creating famous buildings and sharing them with others, for example someone recreated the entire Stranger Things town.

Another way it has grown has been the conventions that started back in 2011. Minecon is 90 minutes long and is streamed on YouTube and Twitch. There is information, Q&A panels, and the community generally comes together to celebrate Minecraft, with a lot of fans dressing up, and bringing props such as a foam pick-axe, and cardboard box helmets.

Minecraft has also been a huge critical success, being the second most successful game of all time, having a 93% score on Metacritic and a 9/10 score on IGN. The reason it has been popular with the critics, is because it doesn’t have a specific genre, so is tailored for anyone to play, no matter what they are into. For example, Minecraft is a survival, building/construction and an action and adventure game. This means it is difficult to write bad reviews about it, as it doesn’t have to do just one thing to a high standard, as it does so many different things to a high standard.