The 20th century also known as the new media age or digital age has brought about a change in the way we absorb and obtain news. The notion of getting pre-packaged news from the government is almost completely over. The phenomenon of citizen journalism or participatory journalism has greatly contributed in the new age of media and freedom of speech in the community (Wilding et al., 2018, p.13). Technological advancements made in recent times such as the smartphone and social media have naturally allowed the phenomenon of citizen journalism to expand and grow (Wilding et al., 2018, p.18). The introduction of social media has provided people a way to post their content that they can use to push an agenda and political viewpoint for free for people across the world to see. 

Allowing the general public to capture moments in real time with their smartphones allows for new frames to be captured in the making of a story. New corporations are no longer able to frame their stories entirely to suit their desires or hide a key factor in the making of a story without the risk of being exposed by the general public (Zhongdang Pan & Gerald M. Kosicki, 1993). Jay Rosen’s quote “people formally known as the audience ” (Rosen, 2008), perfectly sums up the revolution in that the people are no longer the indefinite consumers of the packaged product they have become produsers (Bruns, 2006) as they are involved in the creation of the content produced. 

However there is a reason why training and work needs to be done in order to become a journalist. Due to the fact that the general public are not trained in journalism some stories provided by general public members can include false information and be distortions of reality (Vanderwicken, 2020). Citizen journalists mostly upload their content to platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube with barely any context to the situation leaving the viewer to have to decide their viewpoint on the story based on the information provided by a random citizen. 

There are some countries however that heavily restrict participatory journalism and journalism in general. Journalism in Syria is extremely dangerous and very tricky because the media there is predominantly controlled by the government. The world press index ranked Syria the 177th out of 180 countries and has been named the deadliest country for journalists (Hassan, 2020). Syria president Bachar Al-Assad has been named media freedom enemy and predator and for good reason (Portrait of Bashar Al-Assad, 2020). During the civil war of 2011 Al-Assad banned foreign journalists from entering the nation and police tracked down and attacked anyone who posed a threat to the regime’s interests. Since the conflict in March 2020 over 200 participatory journalists and trained journalists were beaten and killed for trying to expose the truth of the situation.  

After the Syrian government cracked down on professional citizens journalism was relied upon to fill in holes in the media and gather information about what’s happening in Syria. In 2016 over 300 journalists from Syria fled up-broad to places like Lebanon and Turkey (Deutsche, 2020). Christoph Dreyer of Reporters Without Borders Germany said, “Many ordinary Syrians simply started providing information, initially by filming demonstrations or providing information in social media about demonstrations to inform the outside world about what was happening, ” The problem however with relying on only citizen journalists to prove information is that they aren’t trained so the media don’t like publishing stories written by untrained journalists as they are considered untrustworthy. 

In 2014 a bunch of citizen journalists formed a group called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently which was created for posting videos and photos on human rights abuses by the Islamic state. The group has been successful in creating an audience as half a million people follow their Facebook page to keep up to date. The RBSS journalists have to work undercover all with fake names to gather their information which can be extremely dangerous (Baraniuk, 2016). Since no domestic journalist can get access into the city of Raqqa the groups effort has been highly praised by the media as it provides them unique insights. The RBSS was awarded the International Press Freedom Award in 2015, from the Committee to Protect Journalists.  

Bibliography

Baraniuk, Chris. “Citizen Journalism Is Playing a Crucial Role in Aleppo – but It Comes at a Cost.” WIRED UK, WIRED UK, 2 Nov. 2016, http://www.wired.co.uk/article/syrian-citizen-journalists. Accessed 29 Aug. 2020.

Bulkley, Kate. “The Rise of Citizen Journalism.” The Guardian, The Guardian, 10 June 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jun/11/rise-of-citizen-journalism. Accessed 29 Aug. 2020.

“Citizen Journalism | Britannica.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2020, http://www.britannica.com/topic/citizen-journalism. Accessed 29 Aug. 2020.

Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com. “Crisis of Credibility for Citizen Journalists in Syria | DW | 20.06.2017.” DW.COM, 2017, 

http://www.dw.com/en/crisis-of-credibility-for-citizen-journalists-in-syria/a-39335775. Accessed 29 Aug. 2020.

Hassan, Majdoleen. “Starting Up in Syria: Investigative Journalism in One of the World’s Most Dangerous Countries – Global Investigative Journalism Network.” Global Investigative Journalism Network, 18 July 2018, 

Hassan, M., 2020. Starting Up In Syria: Investigative Journalism In One Of The World’S Most Dangerous Countries – Global Investigative Journalism Network. [online] Global Investigative Journalism Network. Available at: <https://gijn.org/2018/07/18/starting-up-in-syria-investigative-journalism-in-one-of-the-worlds-most-dangerous-countries/&gt; [Accessed 4 September 2020].

“Portrait of Bashar Al-Assad | Reporters without Borders.” RSF, 31 Dec. 2013, rsf.org/en/predator/bashar-al-assad. Accessed 29 Aug. 2020.

Rosen, Jay. “The People Formerly Known as the Audience.” ResearchGate, unknown, 2012, http://www.researchgate.net/publication/291188722_The_People_Formerly_Known_as_the_Audience#:~:text=For%20Rosen%2C%20the%20people%20formerly,who%20today%20are%20not%20in. Accessed 29 Aug. 2020.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. 2020. HOME. [online] Available at: <https://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/&gt; [Accessed 4 September 2020].tugg

Wilding, D., Fray, P., Molitorisz, S. and McKewon, E., 2018. The impact of digital platforms on news and journalistic content. NSW: University of Technology Sydney.

Pan, Z. and Kosicki, G.M., 1993. Framing analysis: An approach to news discourse. Political communication, 10(1), pp.55-75.

Bruns, A., 2006. Towards produsage: Futures for user-led content production. In Proceeding of the 5th International Conference on Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication (pp. 275-284). School of Information Technology.

Vanderwicken, P., 2020. Why The News Is Not The Truth. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: <https://hbr.org/1995/05/why-the-news-is-not-the-truth&gt; [Accessed 4 September 2020].

Committee to Protect Journalists. 2020. Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, Syria – Committee To Protect Journalists. [online] Available at: <https://cpj.org/awards/raqqa-is-being-slaughtered-silently-syria/&gt; [Accessed 4 September 2020].

For this semester I decided to switch up my digital artefact from BCM112 and start a new project. I have created an Instagram called the Earth is Annoying where I will post photos and videos things that are annoying in life.

My main goal for the page is growing it as big as I can to try and reach a large audience of people that enjoy the content that I post, that being people that find little things in life annoying. To reach an audience I have used the instagram hashtag generator to create hashtag tags that relate the content that I am posting.

So far I am extremely happy with how the page is going considering that I thought it would be an indefinite fail and I would have to undertake FEFO. I have spoken to a few people that have said they enjoy my content and look forward to the future which I am stoked about.

Follow my instagram https://www.instagram.com/theearthisannoying

When being asked what popular culture do you consume it makes you think about what exactly even is popular culture?

The term popular culture is hard to define as it is such a broad concept. Breaking down the term popular culture, John Storey provides 3 definitions of what culture is, one of them being, ‘a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group’. (Storey, J. 2015) Skateboarding is a perfect example of a culture that has overtime grown increasingly popular due to new media development, globalisation and cultural proximity. 

Marshall Mcluhan’s concept of the ‘The global village’ suggests that people of the world can be brought closer together by the globalisation of communication no matter how far apart we may actually live. (O’Shaughnessy, Stadler and Casey, 2012). Skateboarding as a culture has spread rapidly to other parts of the world since it first became popular. There are now estimated to be 100 million people in the world that skateboard (Vee, 2020). The way that skateboards are presented in the common media has made skateboards a symbol for freedom and resilience. Many shows and movies such as mid90s and street dreams show skateboarding to be associated with rebellious acts, teenagers, parties etc.

This appeals to a specific audience which includes teenagers who are related to the scenarios in the films and get inspired to pick up skateboarding. This idea ties well with Thomas B. Ksiazek and James G. Webster’s notion that cultural proximity is the intuitively appealing notion that people will gravitate toward media from their own culture. (Ksiazek and Webster, 2008). When teens watch skateboarding footage, they are more inclined to go out and skateboarding than possibly obey their original morals and rules set by either their parents or culture. 

In the past cultural proximity has been operationalised by ‘hard facts’ such as geographical distance. (Trepte, S. 2008) The development of the internet has allowed for people of different interests to connect with one another from across the world in their deep culture. Skateboarders are able to connect online without ever seeing them in person. It is extremely easy to get recognised as a skateboarder as all you have to do is post a video of yourself on instagram skateboarding and immediately you will attract other people that skate to like and share your posts. Sitting on my phone I constantly find myself browsing Instagram and looking at the endless amount of amazing skateboarders that you can find. Previous to the expansion of instagram and other media platforms you would go to  a skatepark and you would only be exposed to skaters who often skate the same park as you or if you buy a DVD to watch other skaters (Mersom, 2020). Instagram has created a whole new world for skateboarders, there are now thousands of skateboarding pages that post different skaters everyday which can be accessed in seconds and for free. You can now go onto any one of these pages and you will be likely exposed to hundreds of new skaters that you likely would have never seen before. Skateboarding has now become a trend on Tiktok as its growing popularity has influenced a lot of people to start skateboarding.

References

Trepte, S., 2008. Cultural proximity in TV entertainment: An eight-country study on the relationship of nationality and the evaluation of U.S. prime-time fiction. Communications, 33(1), pp.1-25.

Storey, J. 2015, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture : An Introduction, 7th ed., Routledge, New York. ISBN 9781138811010 Chapter 1 What is popular culture?

Ksiazek, Thomas B. and Webster, James G.(2008)’Cultural Proximity and Audience Behavior: The Role of Language in Patterns of Polarization and Multicultural Fluency’,Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media,52:3,485 — 503

O’Shaughnessy, M., Stadler, J. and Casey, S., 2012. Media & Society. 5th ed. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. p.458.

Vee, R., 2020. 52 Skateboard Statistics And Facts You Didn’T Know About | Skateboardershq. [online] SkateboardersHQ. Available at: <https://www.skateboardershq.com/skateboard-statistics-facts/&gt; [Accessed 5 September 2020].

Dixon, V., 2020. Understanding The Implications Of A Global Village. [online] Inquiries Journal. Available at: <http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1681/understanding-the-implications-of-a-global-village&gt; [Accessed 5 September 2020].

Mersom, D., 2020. Instagram Famous: How Instagram Is Changing Skateboarding. [online] Kingpin Magazine. Available at: <https://kingpinmag.com/features/articles/instagram-famous-instagram-changing-skateboarding.html&gt; [Accessed 5 September 2020].

In this week’s lectures we explored the key differences between closed appliances and general platforms. We looked at the differences between Apple and Android as an example. When a creator releases their software to the public they have to decide whether it should be open sourced or closed sourced. From the start CEO of Apple at the time Steve Jobs made it clear that Apple would have ultimate control over the Phone.

“We define everything that is on the phone.” This quote by Steve Jobs insinuates that the iPhone is designed to filter all content that can be accessed by users. A walled garden of apps is used within the iPhone. The iPhone is a great example of a closed appliance as it does not allow users to interact and modify code within the software. Apple has complete control over the platform, the content and the users. 

The android phone however is an example of a general open platform in which anyone can access and modify the code. Android contains an open garden of apps and has various places you can download apps from which have nothing to do with the developer. As a result of this there is no control over the platform and there are less filters for the apps. 

The main difference however between the two companies is that the iPhone is sold as a product, a commodity for users. The product of an android is connectivity and not the hardware itself. 

2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/technology/12apple.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/technology/12apple.html> [Accessed 21 May 2020].

How does the government use their media ownership to fake a sense of reality and manipulate the public into siding with their political views?

Introduction

‘Controversial issues are, by their essential nature, unsolvable to everyone’s satisfaction.’ (Kuypers, 2002.) These issues are always controversial and are open to debate and discussions. We often seek out the views of politicians and aristocratic figures. However, it is not often that we consider the message who brings us our information. The information provider and publisher control the way in which the audience perceives the story as schema. This is what is taken advantage of by governments and politicians trying to gain respect from the public. They use their media ownership to create ideal situations and scenarios to push their political viewpoints. The way in which they do this is by creating frames which governments use to create propaganda. Frames propagate a particular point of view. In legacy media the framing and event stages of the story are closed, and the public are unable to obtain accessibility into the story. The public is given a coherent story packaged as a product to be consumed. To survive the legacy media model has to literally stop the audience from acting as a publisher. This is why in order for the audience to side with a government or a politician they need to be able to control every aspect of the content that is being visible by the public. 

However, in the new day and age a new format of media emerged. People don’t want to respond to inert content they want to engage and challenge the content. The audience is now introducing their own frames into the story which again repurpose the meaning behind the story and can expose the government’s intentions of framing the story. “The people formerly known as the audience” (Rosen, 2006) were now interacting with all stages of production of a story which has strongly contributed in lowering the government’s media ownership control over the frames in which people perceive reality.

Discussion

A terrific example that highlights the government taking advantage of their media control and ownership can be seen in the children overboard incident which occurred in 2001. “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.” (Howard, 2001) John Howard gained a lot of popularity from this famous quote in that people were willing to support someone that would make a stand against asylum seekers who were framed to be dangerous to society. To support this statement John Howard along with defence minister Peter Reith and Philip Ruddock did everything in their power to demonise the asylum seekers. Reith released photos of children being rescued in the ocean by the HMAS and published them saying that the refugees had thrown their children overboard. This news of asylum seekers putting their children at risk framed them as being callous, threatening and dangerous. As well as this it caused an immediate media frenzy and the photos of the children had been seen by an immense amount of people.

The reality of the situation was that the result of the children being in the water was the boats they were on had sunk due to the extremely poor conditions the boats were under. Only hours after Reith had released the photographs his office was informed that the statements, he had made were false. Despite this Reith didn’t make any attempt to correct his statement and inform the public. Former prime minister Bob Hawke said, “The lie had created a climate of hatred towards asylum seekers and an atmosphere Mr Howard thought was conducive to his re-election.” (Hawke, 2004) The government only corrected the record after an inquiry into the situation was made after the election. 

As with the children overboard case, the government didn’t allow asylum seekers any degree of human context. This was done in an attempt to further demonise the asylum seekers and not allow the public to empathise with them. When publishing media to do with Asylum seekers Former defence PR chief Jenny McKenry said, “We were told that there was to be nothing in the public forum which would humanise these people.” (McKenry, 2011). The government only allowed photos of asylum seekers to be long shot; they couldn’t be shown to have any emotion.

In August 2014, four corners released an episode called Australia’s Shame which exposed on the darkest moments in juvenile justice history. The episode explained that in juvenile detentions in the Northern Territory, kids as young as 10 were being locked up and kids at just 13 years old were being put into solitary confinement at the Don Dale juvenile detention centre. After 1 boy managed to escape from his cell due to a guard not locking his door, the Don Dale management team informed the media that a riot had just broken out and 6 boys had escaped and were armed and dangerous. “There was a deliberate effort to misinform the public as to what occurred” (Sharp, 2016). At the time the general public had no idea as to the circumstances that the boys were being kept in and how they were being treated. The NT legal Aid Commission is pursuing a lawsuit against the government, claiming racial discrimination and human rights abuses still continue to occur within juvenile detentions in Northern Territory despite a royal commission handing down a report on the condition in 2017. This incident further implies that the government often abuses their media ownership in order to paint to the public that they are setting a great example for the country.

Conclusion

Controversial issues are unsolvable to everyone’s satisfaction. As we absorb information provided to use by the government, we process it as schema which then determines the way in which we perceive reality. The government uses their media ownership to create the ideal world which will benefit their political opinions. The children overboard affair became of the most controversial focuses of the 2001 federal election campaign and some even say Howard won the election due to this event. Again, with the Don Dale juvenile detention centre, the government hid the fact that these kids were being punished in unhuman ways are were being kept as animals to protect their image to the public. To help prevent these sorts of issues from occurring in the future the Australian public needs to be constantly proactive and not believe everything that the government is telling them.

Annotated Bibliography

Worthington, E., 2020. Evidence Of ‘Torture’ Of Children Held In Don Dale Detention Centre Uncovered By Four Corners – ABC News. [online] Abc.net.au. Available at: <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-25/four-corners-evidence-of-kids-tear-gas-in-don-dale-prison/7656128&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

In this article the author provides extensive information as to the reality of the situation which took place in the Don Dale juvenile detention centre. The article talks about how the media blatantly lied about the 6 boys escaping and causing a riot. Only 1 of the boys escaped out of his cell and even though he escaped he was still in the premise of the building.

Kuypers, J., 2002. Press Bias And Politics. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

This book written by Jim Kuyper’s gave me some incredible inspiration as it contains a lot of amazing quotes regarding the current problem in that hardly anyone check to see who it is that is publishing the story they read. The book also talks contains statistics about the ratio of people that actually believe everything they read is true on the internet.

The Conversation. 2020. From Tampa To Now: How Reporting On Asylum Seekers Has Been A Triumph Of Spin Over Substance. [online] Available at: <https://theconversation.com/from-tampa-to-now-how-reporting-on-asylum-seekers-has-been-a-triumph-of-spin-over-substance-66638&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

In this article the author provides a lot of different quotes from politicians and their viewpoints about the children overboard scandal. The article also examines the effort the government went to, too demonise the asylum seekers and not humanise them in any way.

Web.archive.org. 2020. They Sank The Boat, Howard Says – Howard In Power – Breaking News 24/7 – NEWS.Com.Au. [online] Available at: <https://web.archive.org/web/20060313072341/http://www.news.com.au/story/0%2C10117%2C18282114-28097%2C00.html&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

In this Article George Megalogenis talks about the extent in which John Howard went into defending himself from the media. The article examines that even after the public knew about the truth of the situation Howard blamed the refugees themselves for sinking the boats. The authors purpose is to challenge John Howard and to alert the public about how wrong he was in his statement.

References

Shame, A., 2020. Australia’s Shame. [online] Four Corners. Available at: <https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/australias-shame-promo/7649462&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

Zillman, S., 2020. Don Dale Mistreatment Continuing Alongside Major Gaps In Mental Health Treatment, Court Documents Allege – ABC News. [online] Abc.net.au. Available at: <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-20/gaps-in-don-dale-mental-health-treatment-court-documents-allege/10634228&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

Worthington, E., 2020. Evidence Of ‘Torture’ Of Children Held In Don Dale Detention Centre Uncovered By Four Corners – ABC News. [online] Abc.net.au. Available at: <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-25/four-corners-evidence-of-kids-tear-gas-in-don-dale-prison/7656128&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

the Guardian. 2020. Don Dale Teenager Given Four Years For Riot In Which Inmate’s Cell Was Torched. [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/17/don-dale-teenager-given-four-years-for-riot-in-which-inmates-cell-was-torched&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

Beder, S., 2020. Media Manipulation And Public Relations. [online] Documents.uow.edu.au. Available at: <https://documents.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/mediachap.html&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

Archive.pressthink.org. 2020. Pressthink: The People Formerly Known As The Audience. [online] Available at: <http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr_p.html&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

Abc.net.au. 2020. The World Today – Tampa Revisited 07/07/2011. [online] Available at: <http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3263187.htm&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

The Conversation. 2020. From Tampa To Now: How Reporting On Asylum Seekers Has Been A Triumph Of Spin Over Substance. [online] Available at: <https://theconversation.com/from-tampa-to-now-how-reporting-on-asylum-seekers-has-been-a-triumph-of-spin-over-substance-66638&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

Web.archive.org. 2020. They Sank The Boat, Howard Says – Howard In Power – Breaking News 24/7 – NEWS.Com.Au. [online] Available at: <https://web.archive.org/web/20060313072341/http://www.news.com.au/story/0%2C10117%2C18282114-28097%2C00.html&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

Pitt, V., 2011. Leaky Boat. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ccKArhv28U&t=163s&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

The Age. 2020. Children Overboard The Most Despicable Of Lies: Hawke. [online] Available at: <https://www.theage.com.au/national/children-overboard-the-most-despicable-of-lies-hawke-20040825-gdyiky.html&gt; [Accessed 17 May 2020].

Academic Sources

Marr, D. and Wilkinson, M., 2003. Dark Victory.

Goldberg, B., 2002. Bias. Washington: Regnery.

Kuypers, J., 2002. Press Bias And Politics. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

Today we explored in depth the notion of copyright from its history and role it places in today’s society. Prior to copyright the notion of property related to only scarce resources for example land. Anyone could modify, sell ideas to others, content creators had no property claims on their intellectual work. Ideas were considered public commons. The content industry argues that a world without intellectual property would be a world without new ideas. 

In this day and age anything not under copyright is in the public domain and can be remixed, modified and copied by others. Digital rights management is a systematic approach to copyright protection for digital media which first appeared in the 90s. The aim of the DRM was to restrict and control how people use content and prevent unauthorised redistribution of the content. They control how you use content, where you use content and on what terms. DRM uses spyware, invasive software and encryption to do this. 

SearchCIO. 2020. What Is Digital Rights Management (DRM)? – Definition From Whatis.Com. [online] Available at: <https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/digital-rights-management> [Accessed 13 May 2020].

This week’s lecture explored hyperreality, simulation and spectacle and it was probably one of the most confusing topics for me to wrap my head around. Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist who created the concept of hyperreality. Hyperreality is a premise in which modern reality is mediated by images. TThis concept revolves around the idea that the audience viewing photos perceive the reality of the situation in the photo. Simulacra is a large part of the concept of hyperreality and is where something pretends to be the real. 

The phases of a sign are;

• reflection: represents a basic reality [ a copy] 
• mask: covers up a basic reality [ perverted copy]
• illusion: substitutes the absence of a basic reality [pretending to be a copy] 
• simulacrum: bears no relation to any reality [simulates a basic real]

I found a good example of the topic of simulacra is the movie Spiderman: Far from home. The main villain in the story uses illusions to make people think that he is actually performing stunts and that he has superpowers when in actual fact he is just a normal person. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEEPnFaNsTY

Another example of simulacra is the website called This person doesn’t exist, which is a website where faces are created by artificial intelligence to look real and appear to be real but are not.

The Shining is a horror movie directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1980. Some people over time have said that The Shining is the best horror movie ever made. This is due to Kubrick’s excellent use of visual and audio techniques that he uses throughout the film. Kubrick’s goal was to make it obvious when something dramatic and terrible was about to happen and to keep the audience on their seats throughout the entire film. The way he did this was through the reoccurring technique of inevitability. Through the use of dramatic irony and editing he was able to achieve this. He was also able to achieve this as he had complete control over all elements of the set which he made everything intentional, nothing in the film was an accident. The music that is played throughout the movie was done by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind using analog synthesizers. Using these analog synthesizers the sound team were able to create an unnatural recurring theme throughout the movie.

The scene starts with Danny riding his tricycle down the hallway towards a corner. As Danny is riding his tricycle the cameraman follows him with an extreme long shot. The cameraman following Danny moves much slower than Danny rides his tricycle which creates the illusion that he is getting smaller. As Danny is riding down the hallway about halfway the hallways colour scheme changes from red to green. This is done as the colour red is often associated with darkness and evil. Combined with the non – diegetic music getting more intense and louder, is used to foreshadow that something terrible is about to happen and show that Danny is increasingly becoming more vulnerable the further he goes down the hallway. The music is purposely designed to resonate with the audience’s schema as being associated with traumatic experiences. The loud noises of Danny’s tricycle are also designed to further reiterate Danny being alone in the hallway and that no one is there with him. Right before Danny turns around the corner, the gradual increase in the high pitch music is interrupted and comes to a stop following a trumpet like noise. This conveys to the audience that whatever is around the corner is dangerous and that he is in trouble. The sudden stop of sound and Danny being out of the frame creates another dramatic effect and creates suspense which makes the audience feel alarmed, shocked and worried for Danny. The trumpet like sound continues after Danny leaves the frame to further emphasise the fact that he has entered dangerous territory. 

In the next shot, the cameraman once again follows Danny as he rides his tricycle down the corridor. There is another gradual increase in the pitch and volume of the music. This builds up tension and suspense to try and make the audience pre determine the fact that danger lurks around the corner. Just after the climax of the noise and Danny turning around the corner a clashing of symbols play that are extremely loud. This immediately alerts the audience and entices the audience to believe that it’s too late for Danny. After Danny sees the two girls he comes to an immediate stop. Without saying anything it is clear that the two girls are dangerous and have an unnatural feel to them. This is brought about by the previous build up of suspense to get to the moment. The girls are purposely dressed up like dolls as dolls are a common fear among people and are said out to be evil by many. The audience’s attention is then brought to the 2 red objects on the left hand side of the wall and the exit sign in red on the right hand side. This once again resonates with the audience as the colour red symbolises evil and darkness. The clashing of the symbols then fades to a low ominous hum. Kubrick uses this noise as a let motif throughout the movie. Whenever the ominous hum plays there is footage of the shining and what previous happened inside the hotel. Kubrick then uses an extremely wide shot which shows the two girls in the distance from Danny’s perspective. The girls say ‘Hello Danny’ in which their voices are very soft and echoed. This is followed up by extreme close up of Danny’s face which he appears to look paralysed and hypnotised by the magic of the Shining and the girls. The second time the girls say the phrase ‘Come play with us Danny’ a sudden silence is built. The silence creates tension and suspense as the audience inevitably knows something bad is about to come. A Loud piano tune plays which follows a shot of the two girls dead on the ground after being killed with an axe. The Tempo and pace of the scene increases as there are constant cuts between the shot of the dead girls and the girls repeating the phrase ‘and ever, and ever.’ Kubrick slowly draws the cameras closer and closer to the girls with each cut to make it feel like we as well as the audience are getting hypnotised by the girls and the magic of the Shining. The fast past music is designed to match the increasing high heart rate of Danny. This can also be shown in the close up of him opening his mouth shivering in fear. The fast past movement on the screen and the jump cuts between shots is juxtaposed by the slow talking of the girls which creates a very ominous element. 

The music throughout the shots is in sync with Danny’s movement after he puts his hands over his eyes to cover the horrific sights. Before Danny covers his eyes there was another build up of suspense which was conveyed by the increase in volume and pitch of the music. Immediately after he covers his eyes the music stops. This tells the audience to believe that whenever the loud intense music is played there is danger. As Danny slowly pulls his hand from over his eye the intensity increases once again and is kept loud and intense which tricks the audience into believing that a calamity could occur and that the girls would still be there. After one of his eyes reveals the music then fades away.

References

Interiors. 2020. The Shining (1980) — Interiors : An Online Publication About Architecture And Film. [online] Available at: <https://www.intjournal.com/0613/the-shining> [Accessed 5 May 2020].

Wyman, B. (n.d.). Come Play with “The Shining.” [online] The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/come-play-with-the-shining.

Kapelanos, A. (n.d.). The Bomb Theory – The Elements of Suspense. [online] cinemalanguage. Available at: https://cinemalanguage1.wixsite.com/cinemalanguage/single-post/2017/06/20/The-Bomb-Theory—The-Elements-of-Suspense [Accessed 5 May 2020].

Unknown (2013). AS Film Studies: The Shining: ‘Come play with us’ scene. [online] AS Film Studies. Available at: http://katieryanfilm.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-shining-come-play-with-us-scene.html [Accessed 5 May 2020].

The Shining Analysis – Tension, Atmosphere & Mystery. (2017). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWn6csp8SKo.

Kubrick, S. (2011). The Shining (1980) – Come Play With Us Scene (2/7) | Movieclips. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMbI7DmLCNI [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].

‌

‌

‌

‌

‌

‌