Human Traffic questions

1. How can Human Traffic be considered a socialist realist film? You may wish to consider how the film makers technically communicate a social realism, what issues are raised and how they might affect the audience.

Many aspects of the film try to portay 'realistic' british culture. These aspects include camera shots and angles to social stereotypes and in some cases truths.
The story is based on the 1990's club scene, which in itself begins to make it a socialist realist film. The film takes events that have happened within this time period and try to recreate some of it.
Often cameras are pointed directly at main characters, and they talk straight to the audience. This both positivley and negativley effects the realism. On the one hand it gives people an insight into the thought proccess of people at the time, and on the other hand shows its just a fictional film, and not a filming of 'real life events'.
The charatcers themselves are very plain and somewhat boring people by day, with believeable jobs and personailities ( realistically, they all have flaws) and are quite relatable too.
The film also takes ideas that we still hold true in modern society. In the film two of the main characters are asked to answer some questions for a t.v show, and they answer very sarcastically, 'Oh yes, us young people need the media to tell us what to do, and when it does we just do exactly as it says' is along the lines of what young people today would say. This is a social issue that is often rasied, and is just as quickly shot down by people saying it has no effect on them. The film challenges this.

2. How does the youth culture depicted resist or subvert mainstream
society?

The film refers, and mostly focuses on the idea of ' Living for the weekend'. The charatcers put up with their average lives during the week in order to have a great time all weekend. Heavy drinking and drug use depicted as being a social norm.

3. How can you consider this film to be British?

The settings and characters are all completely british, and the events depicted are based on real events that happened within the UK at that time. The Youth culture is reasonably well displayed in my opinion. England is now renowed for drink and drug binges, all night parties and generally living for the night life.

4. To what extent are the characters in Human Traffic unable to express their identity?

To begin with, all the characters are extremely paranoid about one thing or another. This makes them very worried about revealing certain things about themselves and being open with other people, even their own friends. To counter this the characters use drugs in order to alter their personalities. This change seems to be the only one which allows them to open up and be themselves. This shows how unable they are to express their emoitions in a healthy way.

5. How is the social-realistic verisimilitude created in the text?

This is first created by the opening scene. This shows real footage of events that occured in the UK around the time this film was set. This gives us an idea of England at the time. Later on in one of the club scenes, a news reporter begins to start a serious report which then transpires into him becoming part of the scene himself. To begin with however he is telling the audience some of the going ons of the club.
Thoughts of the charatcers are often portayed to the audience through monologue to the camera of their imagined situations on screen such as Jip's re-written national anthem.

6. What anxieties does each of the characters have? Where do these anxieties stem?

Jip's anxieties range from sexual paranoia to fear of how other people see him. His Anxiety stems from bad experiennces in his past (mainly with women) and also because of his backround. His mother is an 'escort' and this presumably gives Jip a connection between Sex and his own mother, which would obviously put him off. His mothers situation also causes him more obvious worry for her saftey and wellbeing.
Moff's anxiety is not created from his backround directly. He is brought up with a middle class family who are wealthy, well mannered and have upstanding jobs. Moff's distaste for this lifestyle drove him to begin taking drugs and this is where his paranoia stems. Moff takes such a huge amount of drugs his mind begins slightly warped and becomes extremely paraniod and anxious.

7. In consideration of the effects and uses and gratifications model, does Human Traffic promote drug usage?

The film gives a very balanced view of drug taking. On the one hand while the characters are taking drugs and on a high, they constantly reinforce how great their lives re and how good they feel. They also suggest how it makes their lives bearable and 'everyone does it'. This may well encourage drug use.
However, they also depict how thr after effects are awful, and the 'come down' becomes almost too much. The drugs are also shown to make them to some degree even more paranoid, especially in the case of moff.
The film is reasonably balanced in this way, however it could wel encourage drug use. If people know the ups and downs and decide the good outways the bad, they may well try it.

Models

The Hypodermic Needle Model

The hypodermic needlec (syringe) model is a model of communications suggesting that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver. The model is rooted in 1930s behaviorism and is largely considered obsolete today.In short this theory suggests that if someone see's something in the media they will take in the message and / or replicate actions based on this. The ideas are 'syringed' straight into your head.
The "Hypodermic Needle Theory" of direct influence effects was not as widely accepted by scholars as many books on mass communication indicate. The Hypodermic needle theory was not based on empirical findings from research but rather on assumptions of the time about human nature. People were assumed to be "uniformly controlled by their biologically based 'instincts' and that they react more or less uniformly to whatever 'stimuli' came along".

Two-step flow

Also known as the Multistep Flow Model is a theory based on a 1940's study on social influence that states that media effects are indirectly established through the personal influence of opinion leaders. The majority of people receive much of their information and are influenced by the media secondhand, through the personal influence of opinion leaders

Uses and Gratifications model

With the rise of mass media in the last century, critics worried that its power could destroy freedom through manipulating consumers. Different approaches to the study of mass media offer support or fail to offer support for these fears.

Uses and Gratifications Theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication. The theory places more focus on the consumer, or audience, instead of the actual message itself by asking “what people do with media” rather than “what media does to people” (Katz, 1959) . It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs.


( information sourced from wiki)

Location visit

Me and Jamie are planning a visit to our first potential location in the coming week. From this visit we hope to gain a few pieces of informaiton. Namely – ownership of the building, wether or not the neighbours will go mental if we use it and finally if the building will fall on top of us ending in our untimley deaths ( although perhaps producing an awesome and realistic music video in the process ). We'll take a camera along and post whatever we find out on the blog!