Media News: Two Star Legend

This week, we are looking at the genius of film posters, clever marketing and media manipulation.

The Guardian, 2015

Legend was released last week. In it, Tom Hardy plays both legendary British gangsters, Ronnie and Reggie Kray. The film has met with four- and five-star reviews from many, but The Guardian's Benjamin Lee gave it only two - calling it 'cartoonish' with a 'lack of atmosphere' (Lee, 2015).

Despite this, the film distributors included his star-rating on the poster of all reviews - placing it front and centre, in a spin that Lee himself call 'movie marketing gold'.

Read the original review HERE and the response to the poster HERE. Think about the following questions:

• How is this relevant to our understanding of media marketing?
• How is this an example of the need for us all to be media literate?
• How true is the saying, 'No publicity is bad publicity'?

Meme Project: A2

A2 students have been exploring what they think it means to be media literate. We have looked at traditional ideas of literacy, as well as more contemporary new literacies, such as digital literacy.

www.quickmeme.com

In exploring what it means to be digitally literate, we are looking at remix culture and web 2.0 ideas of creating rather than just consuming. As part of this, learners are undertaking a MEME PROJECT where they will conduct some independent research on memes then use this knowledge and understanding to create their own. They will share their meme on social media then analyse how the concept could be used as part of their advanced portfolio.

Projects will be shared on their blogs next week. Click on the A2 learners blogs to see their viral work!