80's Germany Research

Historical Context 

• The Berlin Wall was built to represent the splitting between western and eastern after the second World War
• The west was capitalist, modern, free owned by the UK and US
• the eastern was communist under the ruling of the soviet union and it was controlled using the secret police "The Stasi". 
• East Germany was also called GDR ( german democratic republic) 
• the wall was almost 13 feet high and distanced 28 miles. 
• GDR were famous for their political jokes. You could get three years for telling the joke and anyone who laughed would get two years. 
• For the first 7 years after the split, people were allowed to travel between the borders which let many people in the east move to the west 
• In August 1961, the border closed splitting Berlin, splitting up families and 87 miles concrete wall was build to divided the two sides, there was 176 watch towers making sure people dodn't cross. 
• There was a space between the wall called the death strip were people would be shot dead if entered, 
• There were several checkpoint that people could cross between, mostly UK and US people. 
• It stood for 26 years but in the 1980s many started to criticize the wall, in a speech from Ronald Reagan. 

Economic Context 

• Salaries were very low life essentials were subsidized and were very cheap 
• Unemployment was non existent.

Social/Culture Context

• over the 28 years it was up, 100.000 people tried to climb over the wall
• Only 171 people died in their attempts 
• roughly 600 border guards escaped to West Germany
• some people jumped over the barbed wire fencing, some dug tunnels underneath the wall. 

What was life like?

• there was a lot of surveillance and most people lived double lives. 
• poverty was also a big thing as people could only afford the bare essentials. 
• people weren't allowed past the Berlin well into the west so many tried to sneak into the country but many failed resulting in death. 

What did young people do for fun, like, listen to? 

• music was heavily censored as authorities, reviewed lyrics for hints of dissent.
• many young people joined youth groups were they would come together to learn socialistic views. 

What was education like?

• instead of being taught English as it is a world language that is usually taught in school across the world.
• many classes included socialism views which taught children basic etiquette and how to work together. 

Why was there so much tension and suspicion?

• many east Germans were put under surveillance if the stasi thought they were being rebellious by associating themselves with western culture.

Why did people want to escape to East? 

• the east was heavily run by the government which meant that people had a lack of freedom in how they lived their life. 

Why did people like and respect the public? 

• there was no unemployment as they didn't believe in the concept therefore was no benefits and workers were the safety of their jobs as they couldn't be fires unless they committed a serious ofende.
• they offered free health care, free places to kindergarten and school had affordable housing. 

What was the relationship between the citizens and the government/stasi nearing the end of the cold war? 

• the stasi which was the largest network of ecret police in history were able to infiltrate every facet of society and it estimated that one in five adults in the country were directly connected to them. 

How did they view the West?

• the west contained midern ideas with the allied countries of the US and UK. This meant they had popular culture such as western music, fashion and ideas. deals. 

Stranger Things Essay

What meanings are created in the sequence you have studied and what do they tell us about narrative, character development and genre?  1000 words

·            Using appropriate technical terminology, and with some reflection on the meaning their use creates, you will annotate when we see different technical elements in the sequence.

To complete this successfully you will need to:

1.          As you play through the sequence, annotate when you see examples of different camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scène features. In your annotated analysis you must identify:

a.           which technical elements are used (using correct terminology)

b.          when they are used (give a time code)

c.           what meanings they create and what they tell us about the sequence in terms of:

                             i.           plot development/narrative/genre

                            ii.           the characters

                           iii.           how we should respond to the sequence at that moment as a viewer.

There are many conventions in which allow you to identify a long form TV drama. Some of these include mystery and strong soundtracks. Within the sequence which we studied, these conventions are obvious along with others. You can identify these within the six minute clip which was studied, and they allow the audience to entice themselves into the drama move, as the scene ends on a cliff hanger. The final scene in which the group of boys find Eleven, allows the audience to see the themes, see a development in the storyline and also proves the genre is sci-fi. 

Throughout the sequence we have studied, we see the fragmented narrative through the use of multiple parallel plot lines such as the boys looking for their friend Will, Nancy and Steve's relationship and Eleven's escape from the government. This structure of narrative helps create enigmas for the audience who have to figure out connections by piecing the story together and seeing how they all crossover eventually. This is answered slightly in the end of the sequence where we see two of the narratives crossover with the 3 shots of the boys looking for Will shining their torches into Elevens's face whilst she is running away from the social services. The sequence contains many features of a long form tv drama with the start showing an idealistic world between Benny and Eleven eating together looking happy but is quickly interrupted by a loud off screen diegetic knocking at the door creating a disruption in the narrative as this leads to Benny, who is represented as innocent, being shot by the social worker. Later in the sequence, it is clear that the social worker is linked in with the government as we see Brenner, the lead antagonist, by her side. This is a clear sign of the disruption in the narrative which helps the audience engage more to the story. Throughout the sequence I have studied, we see the fragmented narrative through the use of multiple parallel plot lines such as the boys looking for their friend Will, Nancy and Steve's relationship and Eleven's escape from the government. This structure of narrative helps create enigmas for the audience who have to figure out connections by piecing the story together and seeing how they all crossover eventually. This answered slightly in the end of the sequence where we see two of the the narratives crossover with the 3 shots of the boys looking for Will shining their torches into Eleven's face whilst she is running away from the government. Later in the sequence, it is clear that the social worker is linked in with the government as we see Brenner, the lead antagonist, by her side.  

Stranger Things has a diverse range of characters within its omnipresent narrative, allowing us to watch the plot unfold through many points of view instead of us just following a single protagonist. This lets the audience empathise with certain characters which they find relatable. Teenagers are a main representation within Stranger Things showing two groups: the pre teens and the older teenagers. We see the group of boys develop over the sequence as in the beginning they are portrayed as typical type boys playing Dungeons and Dragons but develop in the end to be brave. We also see a change in the older teens where we see in the beginning of the episode where Nancy is shown to be studious with her geeky friend Barb whilst Steve is portrayed as the stereotypical arrogant jock. Nearer the end we see a development as Steve is shown to be caring as he helps Nancy study but we see that Nancy has become rebellious as she gets distracted from studying to be intimate with Steve as we hear the contrapuntal sonf Africa connoting the romantic mood. 

In conclusion, within the sequence there are many meaning which show the genre development, characters and narrative. I think that the main scene is the end in which there is loud non-diegetic sci-fi music when the boys find Eleven. Alongside other meanings which highlight the themes of sci-fi, mystery and crime throughout the whole episoe which make the audience want to continue watching with hints of future themes and the mystery in which the audience want to find out what is going to happen. 

Regulation and Long Form TV Drama: Fact-finding

Stranger Things Fandom

Textual Analysis Miss Brookes

Textual Analysis Mrs Field

• explore the way that different groups of people are represented in Stranger Things and Deutschland 83

   -  audience
   - media language

• P: In Stranger Things, we see a counter typical of women representation (especially considering the 1980s setting) in that we see empowered women  
• E: we see the "social worker" murder Benny, Eleven kills two men, and although Nancy isn't aggressive, she does control the scene with her and Steve. 
• E: It is an interesting subversion of stereotypes - the 1980s setting lead us to expect submitting powerless women, but the 21st century construction transfers ideologies and values and empowers the women. 
• CEMS: when we first meet the social workers we view her from a high angle shot, from the point of view of Benny. This reinforces the patriarchal hegemony which track us into thinking that she is a typical  submmisive woman. However, when she shoots Benny, she is elevated onto an equal level with the other government official, and is even empowered through a low angle shot.  This is reinforced by the editing - the screen time she is given compared to the (silent and nameless) male officials is significant greater, therefore empowering her. 
• A: This shocks the audience, which is important for the narrative, but the Duffer Brothers are also trying to highlight the everyday sexism in society, even though we are a modern audience, we feel into the trap of putting sexist assumption onto the scene. 
  

Netflix and Technology

Stranger Things Representation Essay

How are different social group represented in the sequence you have analysed? What role does the use of media language, signs and signifies have in constructing and presenting these representation a real?

In the first episode we can see so many different social groups represented like teenagers, government and parents. Some of this social groups fits with the typical stereotype and others portray as counter type as they don't fit the usual representation.

There are two group of teenagers represented: the pre-teens and the older teens. From the start of the episode, we see that the group of boys are typical nerdy type characters as they play the board game. This signifies that they may not be the most popular kids at school as they would much rather stay in for long periods of time to play a board game rather than go out. Whilst playing the board game, we see how emerged they get themselves within the game by the slow moving panning extreme close ups of the boys facial expressions., completely concentrated in their role within the game. This representation is further shown with the boys knowledge of comic books. Stereotypical, a nerdy character is represented as quite weak and feeble however, they boys are portrayed a strong and confident. Mike is portrayed as the leader of the group, the one who makes the decisions. Dustin is portrayed as confident as when faced with the bullies, he stands up and defends himself. Will is also shown has brave when being chased by the monster.

Another social groups that we see a lot of throughout the first episode are the government and the police. Dr Benner is the main portrayed we see of the government. When first meeting him, he is portrayed as quite mysterious, suspicious and authoritative. This is reinforced when he exists a car and the camera oans up slowly from his feet to his face therefore we slowly are introduced him but only see his face last.
Later in the episode we see that the government are portrayed as malicious as we see that the kind caring social workers are actually from the government and kills Benny, an innocent and kind man. We know that she is part of the government as we see Brenner walk in afterwards. They don't feel bad for murdering someone showing that they are villainous. The police force in the episode are portrayed as the stereotypical lazy cops, this is shown by their actions in first minutes of the episode, playing cards, completely distracted. But during the episode we can see that Hopper is not a bad person but is really caring and we can find out about his deceased daughter.