Screen-based content’s power of delivering new realities and perspectives to    unwitting audiences is undisputable.  Society has benefited from the diversity of people, their backgrounds, and experiences, shaping a cohesive collective which makes up the population of the UK.

Despite this, there are still concerns about the lack of representations of people who have disabilities on our screens in the mainstream context.  Paradoxically, none of the broadcasters and content producers are doing anything “wrong” either, they just need to go a bit further.

What do I mean by this?  Well, almost all TV dramas featuring a ‘disabled’ character make the disability its main narrative focus.  As with current affairs and the entertainment genres, it is rare to see a presenter with a disability presenting or fronting a programme which does not focus on a ‘disability’-related issue.  We don’t usually get a sense of the personality of that character or presenter, as they are usually labelled by virtue of how they are portrayed on screen or what they feature in.  Content producers now need to start incorporating these characters and presenters into mainstream programming.

This kind of approach applies to most of the other underrepresented groups of people on screen.  I’m just using ‘disability’ because I’ve just successfully made a film featuring me but without making a fuss about my so-called ‘disability.  By the way, I recognise that this article could be seen as being a paradox as it labours this very point and in turn could be seen to emphasise the ‘disability’ element.

Nevertheless, we need to move away from tokenism in the representation of difference.  In a way, paradoxically, for it to work, we need to move on to representing the personalities rather than ‘the difference’ when portraying people labelled as ‘disabled’, ‘gay’, ‘black’, or whatever other labels we want to use.

We are moving forward though.  For example, channel four is now looking for new presenters to host 150 hours of their live coverage of the Paralympic games in 2012.  This is fantastic as it will increase the representation off those who have a “disability” on-screen.  However, the presenters will still be fronting content to do with “disability.”  I hope that these presenters will then move on to fronting more mainstream programmes.

When making custard, you need to mix the custard powder into a paste to slowly introduce to the milk constantly whilst stirring.  If one puts the powder into the milk straightaway, you will end up with lumpy milk.  To attain that full thick vanilla goodness, you need to mx the paste in carefully and at a constant rate.  The same applies to diversity on TV – the ‘mainstream’ needs to be constantly introduced to new concepts and cultures, but a tokenistic quick approach only emphasises the gap of ‘difference’

Sources:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/09/channel-4-paralympics

I support the idea of democracy and freedom of expression. However, I find it challenging when I see the UK press attacking and mocking people in the public eye because of their private issues.

I am of course writing this in response to press stories about William Hague’s alleged “inappropriate relationship” with his male advisor, Christopher Myers. Now, the press have a duty to report issues which have public value, helping to stimulate growth and diversity within society. With this duty comes the freedom to report on anything which can sometimes put politicians in an uncomfortable position. Need I remind you that politicians’ spending is now high up on the agenda because of press reporting the scandals? This is good for society.

However, when the press start discussing the private lives of individuals which have no relevance to how they contribute to society, that’s going a bit too far and is actually damaging to society and our culture.

It was perfectly justified for Guido Fawkes’ blog to scrutinise Christopher Myers appointment to being one of William Hague’s advisors considering is apparent lack of experience. This has public value as it was seeing whether there was any wrong-doings in appointing government officials in an undemocratic way.

But the angle from which the reports have been written gossip about William Hague’s sexuality. This in turn encourages the public to gossip and get angry which subsequently reinforces prejudices on homosexuality and, in a wider context, the concept of ‘difference’. There is a lot of work being done to help people accept difference, but this is countered when the media mock the private lives in the public spotlight. Where’s the public value in that?

The other issue with reporting on private lives of politicians, in particular, is that it could create a culture within politics where politicians have to put on a false persona. This would damage the very fabric of politics by forcing our MPs to behave synthetically, thus reinforcing the distrust between the public and the politicians.

We seem to forget that politicians are also people who have feelings. William Hague was forced to make a deeply personal statement about his marriage after the rumours came out. This was unfair and will probably make him more aware about how he behaves and what he says in the future.

By the way, this is not a pro-Conservative or a pro-William Hague article. The media is a vital component of our democratic infrastructure, but feeds on our lust for anger and gossip. It accentuates but also dictates public mood and related zeitgeists. Often, this involves evoking anger out of the British people. Therefore, there may be a need for tighter regulation of the press, because, if Star Wars taught me anything, it taught me that anger will destroy you!

Any thoughts welcome…

This year sees the exit of the Big Brother cult with the final seriesof the programme finishing this summer.  I for one am not too upset about it – so far, I have had no inclination to watch Celebrity Big Brother.  But why is this?  I would have been hooked into it two years ago.  This has got me thinking!

I suppose I am bored with caring about what other people are doing – I log on to Facebook everyday keeping up to date with other people’s dramas!  Facebook also provides me with a platform to enhance my own identity by joining groups and playing games and pretending to be a pirate.  However, I have tried to avoiddoing this and therefore moulding an online identity as I feel this would make me vulnerable to getting offended should anyone criticise me for joining a group or commenting on my status detailing my life at that time.    Rather, I prefer to concentrate on my internal identity to improve my self-worth rather than my self-image (or my external identity)!

The other reason I keep my interaction to a minimum on Facebook is my experience of seeing other people moaning constantly to seek some kind of sympathy and therefore approval from other Facebookers.  This is where Facebook and Twitter has destroyed the popularity of Big Brother.  Instead of enjoying the opportunity to criticise housemates on the screen to re-affirm our identities, people have now gone the other way and started seeking approval to enhance their egos.  It is my opinion that people are now more than ever striving to be accepted into an online community.  This hardly encourages self-improvement as people are moulding their external identities for them to ‘fit in’.  At an emotional level, we are becoming reliant on what other people say of think about us for us to be content.

However, this phenomenon has been great for marketers and campaigners – Facebook and other social networking sites have been platforms for issues to be brought to the fore.  Campaigners have used people’s lust for forming their online identities as a tool to recruit support for campaigns, thus improving society.

So, at an individual’s level, you could say that social networking detracts from self-improvement, but on a macro level, it has provided a way for new issues to be thrown into the public sphere.  Itself a social paradox – self-improvement has given way to improving society.  Whether this is for the better or not is yet to be realised!  But in the meantime, I’ll stick to improving myself and keep questioning my values.

Product placement has been a contentious issue between broadcasters and regulators – arguing whether legalising this to in the UK would benefit our nation or destroy editorial standards. Product placement has been legalised in America, as well as in Europe, for a long time and has contributed more than $7BN in revenue to the US Broadcasting landscape.

We are now expecting the ban on product placement in the U.K. to be lifted (which is to be announced this week).

I’ve been on-the-fence about this issue for a long time now following extensive research I conducted for my minor degree project. I am warming to making product placement legal in the U.K. as it will indeed start to re-vitalise the broadcast industry; pumping up to £ 125m into the commercial broadcasting sector in the next three years, according to the Media Guardian.

Andy Duncan, Channel 4 Chief executive, points out that “ relaxing the rules would deliver a marginal commercial benefit” to production companies. This therefore sets the challenge of creating legislation which would avoid producers creating content specifically for product placements.

We will wait and see what Ben Bradshaw says in his speech to the Royal Television Society this week.