Frontline (2 Viewers)

[timmii]

haha gilly...i've finished hsc

 

[GillyBean]

Originally posted by timmii
haha gilly...i've finished hsc

im jealous ...but you did get a band 6 in Advanced didnt you, DIDNT YOU!? hehe and a 90 something uai im sure....
I just want this all to be over I dont CARE what i get anymore...

 

[timmii]

Lol Gilly i remember feeling like that, but don't give up - it's soooo soon until its all over and then u can be as cool as me and still hang out on hsc forums You're so close to the end. Think about what you want to do next year and how great it can be...and just keep trying And keep posting q's, if i can help i will

 

[GillyBean]

thanx. i just took you up on your offer and sent you a pm

 

[Leanne]

timii, i cant wait to feel like that~!

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Originally posted by timmii
Talk about how verisimilitude is established with grainy footage, a handheld camera and seemingly behind-the-scenes, exclusive insight into the personal lives, conversations and stories behind the show broadcast each night. The format of a "documentary" of a current affairs program also adds integrity to the perspectives being depicted since it makes it seemmore real and plausible than if the team were to merely just *tell* you what's wrong with current affairs programs.

Talk about methods of portraying "the truth" used both within "frontline" and 'frontline' - since remember, advanced wants to know *how* meaning is conveyed, not only *what* is conveyed.

Good advice.

Incidentally, there's a good quote in the documentary 'Behind The Frontline' about that very issue.

We wanted to make it look like a documentary-Tom Gleisner.

What makes it even more useful/ironic is the line in Playing The Ego Card; What's vision without a reporter? A documentary., which in itself makes a compelling point about the nature of the media, that they're not reporting the 'truth' many viewers expect and believe, it's instead being manipulated to their expectations of viewer behaviour (As seen in 'We Ain't Got Dames'.).

In discussing the realism of Frontline (Thereby heightening the satire), it's also worth mentioning the extensive use of intertextuality, as seen in the use of real personalities and references to actual programs. (A subtle example of this is seen in 'The Siege', with the Time headline reading "Has The Media Gone Too Far?", a 1992 TV special that was a stimulus for Frontline, in that while promising to question the media, it instead presented the manipulation of 'Truth'. This is also mentioned in 'Behind The Frontline'.)

Although this has been said above in another form, I think the key point of Frontline's 'realism' is that it's a satirical appropriation working on multiple levels to generate meaning, and as such, it highlights this 'truth' to multiple disperate audiences, based not only on their familarity with current affairs programs, but the notion of 'truth' in the abstract, and their inter-relation.

I think that there's a lot of potential supplementary material for this topic, beyond news reports and what-not, if you focus upon 'truth' with the media merely as a front[line] for contemporary discourse. For this reason, I'm personally using writings of Michel Foucault and Edward Said as my supp.texts, commenting not only on 'knowledge' as 'truth', but on the relationship between 'truth' and 'power', theoretically (Foucault), and it's use to subjugate 'other' peoples (Said.). This links quite nicely into 'Smaller Fish To Fry' and the concept of a hierarchy of truth, highlighted by the same arguments being repeated by Farmer, Brian and Mike (Incompetently Almost as good as Yeah, but what if you multiply that by a million? ). Additionally, this links well into the current coverage of the war in Iraq and whatnot.

And to briefly comment about Frontline on a entertainment level; Does anyone else find it hillarious whenever Mike is shown trying to gauge whether Elliot's songs are funny, followed by his usual comically overdone reaction? I think it's great.. [Even when I've seen the episodes multiple times, I can't help but laugh.]

Ha-ha, he's done it again.. He's a national treasure.

 

[timmii]

gregor's got it right!

Especially that part about intertextuality - they merge so many "real life" references and personalities into the episodes you don't know what's real and what's note - there's no clear demarcation between Frontline the fictional show and the real world. As such, again verisimilitude is created and by being unable to discern truth from fiction you as the viewer are manipulated such that you are inclined to believe it all.

hehe last year it was classic. The Cheryl Kernot affair came to light *just* as we were learnng about Frontline, and it was just so fantastic to know that during the same period as she was saying the lines "I'm so lucky I have a really supportive husband" she was cheating on him!!! Ahhhhh frontline was so much fun!

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Originally posted by timmii
gregor's got it right!

Especially that part about intertextuality - they merge so many "real life" references and personalities into the episodes you don't know what's real and what's note - there's no clear demarcation between Frontline the fictional show and the real world. As such, again verisimilitude is created and by being unable to discern truth from fiction you as the viewer are manipulated such that you are inclined to believe it all.

Yay!

*Gets serious*
The realism of Frontline can be seen in that when it first aired, there were many people who took it for an actual current affairs program. True story. (And to relate my class to it, we've had quite a few people stating that they wish Frontline had a laugh-track, so then they knew when to laugh. )

At least for this year, we got that fun Mike Moore 'interview' in the Herald.

 

[timmii]

Hehehe a girl in my class last year asked me if Cheryl Kernot was a real person or not (and she was ranked first in english at the time!)

 

[GillyBean]

Originally posted by Gregor Samsa

And to briefly comment about Frontline on a entertainment level; Does anyone else find it hillarious whenever Mike is shown trying to gauge whether Elliot's songs are funny, followed by his usual comically overdone reaction? I think it's great.. [Even when I've seen the episodes multiple times, I can't help but laugh.]

Ha-ha, he's done it again.. He's a national treasure.

*Raises hand* Yessss! and then they juxtapose (now theres a word ive heard too many times) Ha-ha, he's done it again.. He's a national treasure. with he's shithouse!
I love it.

 

[GillyBean]

Originally posted by timmii
Hehehe a girl in my class last year asked me if Cheryl Kernot was a real person or not (and she was ranked first in english at the time!)

Thats very sad. But it's memories like those that wont be forgotten hehe
When someone asked our teacher about aussie venacular when studying 'Cloudstreet' he replied with the example 'How the shit are ya?' ... now that quote is written in perminent marker on the wall above the door of the classroom along with 'Porn isnt hard to spell. P - O - R - N.' - from frontline among others.

 

[ND]

Originally posted by timmii

I also had a "children overboard" article - which i related to how truth was at the mercy of those who had the power, and there is no single objective truth, but merely several subjective truths - which one is publicised however is determined by power, politics and money....

Would you mind explaining this notion of universal truth vs subjective truth? All my essays to date have only really dealt with the way the truth is manipulated by the media in order to increase ratings, and by the powerful to conceal information. Really shallow stuff...

 

[timmii]

Hehe not so shallow - after all that *is* what your text is about, and you're not exactly going to have time in the exam to go into an extensive discussion on existentialism and the meaning of truth.

All you really need to be aware of is that "truth" is highly dependent on who is perceiving/interpreting events. Who are you or I or anyone to really determine what is *the* truth, we merely see different versions of it - many "truths" as it were. In addition to that you then have the deliberate/implicit manipulation of the presentation of "the truth" in order to present a specific truth. For instance, in "This night of nights" Frontline portrays the "truth" that Telecom is a wonderful company etc, choosing to suppress the "truth" that it is bugging its customers phones.

Or even, the Cheryl kernot interview, the "truth" she wants to talk about is that of the cross-media laws, (i think...damn my bad memory), while they're more interested in her "balancing home and work"...

Think about a dangerous situation like The Siege. Frontline doesn't lie when it says the gunman may have been a war veteran - he may have been - but he also may not have been! Think of how the "truth" of the whole piece is then interpreted, does he seem more dangerous? Is the tension heightened?

 

[pigs_can_fly]

Originally posted by GillyBean
im jealous ...but you did get a band 6 in Advanced didnt you, DIDNT YOU!? hehe and a 90 something uai im sure....
I just want this all to be over I dont CARE what i get anymore...

more like a 99.6+ uai
don't u do law at usyd timmii?

 

[timmii]

shhhh pigs. I'm not saying. IF you're that curious you can trawl through the 2002 UAI threads hehehe

 

[ND]

Originally posted by timmii
Hehe not so shallow - after all that *is* what your text is about, and you're not exactly going to have time in the exam to go into an extensive discussion on existentialism and the meaning of truth.

All you really need to be aware of is that "truth" is highly dependent on who is perceiving/interpreting events. Who are you or I or anyone to really determine what is *the* truth, we merely see different versions of it - many "truths" as it were. In addition to that you then have the deliberate/implicit manipulation of the presentation of "the truth" in order to present a specific truth. For instance, in "This night of nights" Frontline portrays the "truth" that Telecom is a wonderful company etc, choosing to suppress the "truth" that it is bugging its customers phones.

Or even, the Cheryl kernot interview, the "truth" she wants to talk about is that of the cross-media laws, (i think...damn my bad memory), while they're more interested in her "balancing home and work"...

Think about a dangerous situation like The Siege. Frontline doesn't lie when it says the gunman may have been a war veteran - he may have been - but he also may not have been! Think of how the "truth" of the whole piece is then interpreted, does he seem more dangerous? Is the tension heightened?

Ah i see what you mean. Thanks alot.

 

[allyteaded]

Hey - we're forgetting one part of the rubrick - How truth can be defined by power structure. The media is a power structure in a sense that people assume what ever is represented on news is fact whereas news programs synthesise and construct an interpretation of the truth, thus variations of the truth is told.

Aih.. I'm so insomniated... can people elaborate on this?

 

[emily]

i don't get it? power structure?

i thought this was the simplest module - various people manipulate the truth, here's why and here's how, with a bit of supplementary crap chucked in.

bugger, i think i'll have to go over this...

 

[timmii]

Power structure ---> Who determines what truth is presented?

The interesting thing about the power structure is that the viewer is both at the top *AND* bottom of the chain of power.

Consider this: The viewer is fed a distorted/manipulated truth based on what the producers tell the reporters to emphasise. This is based on what those in power want (i.e big business like telecom or banks, or the politicians like John Howard's puff piece).

However, in another twisted way, it is the viewer who has the power. What are they all aiming to achieve? *RATINGS*. What are ratings? People watching! Thus the truth presented, on one level, is merely the truth the viewers want to see. Cheryl kernot pieces about family rather than politics, sex & sport ("sex rates, sport rates, put the two together you've got dynamite"), danger (the siege....) etc etc...think of ur own examples.

 

[freaking_out]

hey, just to sum up, i wanna know for every single frontline exam question u've seen, what r they basically gonna ask...