Video Games.

Grand Theft Auto V

This game is a action and adventure game which has a lot of aspects to it which some people may view quite negatively. This is an open world game which you can explore or you can follow the story to unlock more weapons or car upgrades and things like that. You play as three characters which you will switch between throughout the whole of the game. You encounter other important characters for the story line which you can't play as and their is random civilians that don't play a big part of the game unless you're feeling like killing people randomly. The goal of the story changes a lot because the characters have their own goals apart from they keep on getting dragged into jobs which they won't always approve of. 

This game does have a MMORPG aspect to it when you go online and play with friends or random people online and the longer you play the better your character gets and the more things he/she can buy to use. You can do different missions and challenges to improve your character.

GTA V was made by Rockstar who has also made some other big games such as all the previous Grand Theft Autos, Red Dead Redemption, Midnight Club games etc. Rockstar is owned by take two interactive and the owner of that is is Strauss Zelnick. It is said that Rockstar ended up selling 85 million copies of the game making it one of the best selling games out there. The Grand Theft Auto franchise has always kind of been the same with open world exploration and missions to do to unlock more things but they have all done quite well when it comes to sales and a lot of the reviews will be positive gameplay wise. Whenever a new GTA comes out it will usually come out on the current generation of consoles and then up to a year later they will bring it to PC. Most negative reviews on GTA 5 that I have seen is just bad game optimisation or that people just didn't really approve of the game overall because they thought it was to violent.

The target audience for this game I think is 14 years old and above for both males and females. Even though the game is labelled for 18 years and above that doesn't stop anyone from buying it especially buying it online where you may not be turned down. 

As much as I like this game and others do as well this game does have some ethical and moral issues which has been mentioned above and most people know what they are and that is that the game includes a lot of violence, aspects of drugs in it and prostitution. The negative views on this is that some people believe that if we play this game a lot and get used to seeing all of it we may have the view in real life that all of this is acceptable. In my opinion I don't think that it does affect people because everyone knows what's legal and what isn't so if they make that choice to do things like that in real life then that is on their hands not the fault of a game. 

One theory that you could link to this is Gerbner's theory that if someone was to carry out these kind of actions it could be because they have seen it over and over again on the screen that they now think it is okay to do things like this. 

Weekly news No.11

Three teenagers killed in a car accident in West London.

The three boys all aged 16 died at the scene where the incident happened at 8:30 pm on Shepiston Lane. The man driving the Audi has been arrested and taken to hospital for treatment. The article doesn't state but I assume the Audi lost control and crashed the car which then caused the unfortunate cause of the three boys losing their lives.

Police have stated that this is not being treated as any kind of terrorism but just an unfortunate and unlucky event that happened. The lead investigator Deputy Sergeant Jane Shaw has said "There are horrific circumstances that have resulted in three young people losing their lives".

As early stated the source doesn't say whether the driver crashed his car or that he didn't see the boys till the last second but I think if he didn't crash his car as it was late in the evening and it would have been dark he may not have seen them or he may not have been paying enough attention as he should have when driving in the dark.

After looking at some websites like gov.uk and some news articles (BBC news and The Metro) it seems like every year there is an increase in car accidents and deaths each year. More and more people are being seriously injured or killed and it is a hard issue to solve because you can't control everyone behind the wheel and accidents happen right there and then so most cases they are hard to prevent.

Overall, I think it is quite upsetting that 3 boys ended up losing their lives due to another mans fault whether he crashed his car or not. I doubt that this incident happened on purpose and that the man had an accident not a planned event.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-42843841

Weekly news No.10

German school attack results in pupils death.

One pupil aged 14 who hasn't been named near Dortmund was stabbed to death by another student aged 15 years old who also hasn't be publicly named. The attack happened at 8:00 local time to Germany so this would have been at the beginning of the school day assuming they start at the same time as most schools in the UK.

The police haven't released much information of the investigation yet and I think this is due to the incident being a youth crime and the investigation may not have enough evidence to start stating names.

Germany in 2015 had the death rate increase by 6.5% when 925,000 people had died (449,512 where men and 475,688 where women). Germany's current population is around 81 million people and per 1000 people roughly 11.7 people usually die which equals to around 947,700 deaths a year. In the UK there was roughly around 525,048 deaths which is a lot less however there is an estimate of around 66.5 million people which is a lot less compared to Germany. 

Knife crime in the United kingdom has recorded the highest amount of knife crimes yet in the UK with 114 crimes per 100,000 people which would equal out to 75,810 knife crimes a year. However compared to Germany they had an average of 300 crimes a month or 10 stabbings a day however if you compare the two figures Germany's knife crime is a lot lower than in the UK.

Overall, even though there isn't a lot of information about this case it is upsetting to hear that a student has died and it is quite unnerving to think that it could happen to anyone and with the high figures that was mentioned above it is shocking to see that there is that amount of crimes going on however it is a hard crime to stop because you can't really predict when it could happen.





This is the only photo they have released so far of the crime scene.









http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42788849

Weekly New Re-Do

Woman beater caught for the death of his wife.

Sinead Wooding age 26 found dumped in the woodlands just outside of Leeds on the 14th May. The husband Akshar aged 27 was the man convicted for her murder by stabbing her, beating her with a hammer and then burning her body. His "accomplice" Yasmin Ahmed who helped Akshar commit the murder has denied anything to do with the murder but they both were convicted after a trial at court. Akshar has had a history of domestic violence which made the trial a bit easier to solve.

Later in the trial they heard that Sinead was struck while kneeling, which one of the men must have admitted. They were also found trying to clear any evidence by sweeping and wiping down all the walls and the floor. One person who lived next door managed to see the two men carrying a body that was wrapped up and put in the trunk of the car. The body was then found a day later by some people walking by.

Sinead had previously called the police 4 days before her murder which one can only assume due to Akshar's domestic behaviour.

Akshar's mother and brother have both denied assisting Akshar with a vehicle and by not assisting with the disposal of the body however a Vicky Briggs aged 25 has been found guilty for helping the two offenders clean and burn any evidence after the murder and all three will be sentenced very soon.

Abuse in England does happen more than it should for example 1 in 14 kids experience physical abuse and from 2016 to 2017 around 6000 children have needed protection/ counselling from them being physically abused. 4.4% of males and 7.7% of females have experienced some sort of physical/ sexual abuse. This equals to around 716,000 males and 1.3 million females however when asked from the age of 16 and above the figures grow rapidly. In this case it is 4.3 million females and 2.2 million males.

Domestic abuse and sexual abuse is a crime which is very hard to stop because no one may know it is going to happen until after it has already happened and even then a lot of people may not say anything about previous times of being abused. There is some characteristics of people most likely to abuse others such as natural aggressive behaviour or if they are always very physical. Characteristics of victims could be very shy or very jumpy around other people.

39,355 rapes recorded, which is an increase by 13%. 32,448 knife crimes recorded which is an increase of 14%. These statistics are from the year 2016 so they may have even increased more.

Overall, I think it is very sad for Sinead's family because in this case they haven't said why Akshar had murdered her in the first place which leads us to believe that because he has a history for domestic violence he probably got to angry one night and ended up murdering her which is not justifiable at all so I think him and his colleagues being sentenced is the right thing however Sinead's family must be very emotional losing her out of nowhere. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-42689957

Weekly news No.9

Woman beater finally caught guilty for his wife's murder.

Sinead Wooding age 26 found dumped in the woodlands just outside of Leeds on the 14th May. The husband Akshar aged 27 was the man convicted for her murder by stabbing her, beating her with a hammer and then burning her body. His "accomplice" Yasmin Ahmed who helped Akshar commit the murder has denied anything to do with the murder but they both were convicted after a trial at court. Akshar has had a history of domestic violence which made the trial a bit easier to solve.

Later in the trial they heard that Sinead was struck while kneeling, which one of the men must have admitted. They were also found trying to clear any evidence by sweeping and wiping down all the walls and the floor. One person who lived next door managed to see the two men carrying a body that was wrapped up and put in the trunk of the car. The body was then found a day later by some people walking by.

Sinead had previously called the police 4 days before her murder which one can only assume due to Akshar's domestic behaviour.

Akshar's mother and brother have both denied assisting Akshar with a vehicle and by not assisting with the disposal of the body however a Vicky Briggs aged 25 has been found guilty for helping the two offenders clean and burn any evidence after the murder and all three will be sentenced very soon.

Overall, I think it is very sad for Sinead's family because in this case they haven't said why Akshar had murdered her in the first place which leads us to believe that because he has a history for domestic violence he probably got to angry one night and ended up murdering her which is not justifiable at all so I think him and his colleagues being sentenced is the right thing however Sinead's family must be very emotional losing her out of nowhere. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-42689957

Weekly news No.8

Michael Douglas denying sex claims before they're even made public.



Michael Douglas has decided to tell the media that these sexual assault claims that weren't made public yet are not true at all. He told the media that "this is a complete lie, fabrication, no truth to it whatsoever".

I can see why Michael Douglas would have made this statement because he is being accused of sexual assault which is one of the worst accusations to be made as it can rightly so destroy anyone's carer. I don't know much about Michael Douglas so i couldn't say whether i feel like he is innocent or not however to make these defensive statements before they were even made public either shows that he is innocent or he is trying to seem like a good person when in reality he isn't. However back when Harvey Weinstein was being accused it took him about a week or two before he said anything public about it unlike Douglas.

Douglas did say that he "felt the need to get ahead of the situation" which shows that he is organised and ready to defend himself from such accusations. I quote "no skeletons in the closet" and "It's extremely painful and the situation is a nightmare". I believe that this is true because I think being accused of sexual harassment is one of the worst things to happen to a person.

He also said that he was surprised that these allegations are coming out 32 years later and that he is "hurt and offended".

Overall, I think that because of all these sexual harassment accusations being made I don't feel sympathetic as it seems to be everyday news on the media and it is something which is being shown over and over again which ties in with Gerbers theory that something being shown so much we start to either get used to it/ start to believe it.

Theory work

Semiotics.

The semiotics theory is being able to analyse how messages/meanings are constructed through the use of signs and symbols. Signs and symbols will be used because creating adverts can be very expensive if the advert starts to become long so the producers will use certain signs and symbols so the audience understands the message without it having to be said. This can save money as it reduces the overall time of the advert. Signs can be composed into two different elements which are The signifier (an image or a sound) and the signification (the actual meaning itself). 



The signifier in this picture is that by using dove men products to shave you'll feel and look much better. The other signifier in this image is the man smiling and looking happy due to him using the product and the audience may see this and think that by buying the product we will all feel as happy as him. The signification is that using this product will make you feel better as you are "taking better care" of yourself.

Ferdinand De Saussure was the man who came up with this theory in 1916. Some Pros and cons with this theory is that it can save time on adverts to save money by using signs to get the message across instead of having to explain the message. Semiotics also makes the advert more interesting because it won't go on for so long. Some cons will be that the audience may not understand the message so they probably wouldn't like the advert. 

In my opinion I think this theory is helpful because most people will associate signs to meanings to get a better understanding of the advert/ image. It allows the audience to decode the advert and get the message that was encoded.

Stuart Hall

This theory is very similar to the semiotics theory however Hall believes that signs and symbols are used for representation instead of just in general like in semiotics. Hall also believed that the people stereotyping reduces people and social groups. He believes that stereotypes seem to happen when there is a inequality of power. This theory helps to analyse adverts and music videos because it makes us, the audience ask about stereotyping in the advert/ video and how signs and codes are used to build what the advert is showing.

Hall also had another theory called the reception theory which states three different ways in which the audience will decode the message inside of the advert:

• Dominant position - the audience understands the the meaning inside of the product/ advert.
• Negotiated position - the audience understands the message but may argue about what the message is but will usually accept the message.
• Oppositional position - the audience understands the message but will disagree with it.

David Gauntlet

This theory is about identity which shows relevance to both marketing and advertising. He believes that the media gives the audience "resources/ tools" that we use to build up our own identities. An example of this would be a fashion advert and if there is certain aspects of that advert you can relate to yourself then that advert has connected to you which can make you want to buy that product as you relate to it. A few examples of certain things we can try and relate ourselves to is celebrities and icons that we think we are similar to. 

Gerbner

Gerbner believes that if something is repeated over and over again it can cause a pattern which we may end up believing or falling into because it is what we are being shown by the media. He said that it can "shape and influence" the way we see different things. An example of this would be during world war 2 women were usually at home cleaning whilst the men went out to work or went of to war. So this resulted in cleaning products and other similar products being aimed at women because for a long time women were just said to be at home cleaning and that's what everyone was being told by the media and that's how our perspectives were created back then and today if we are being told something by the media and they keep repeating it then we could start seeing and believing what they want us to believe.