'Compare an episode of 'Spooks' with 'Casino Royale'. To what extent do both rely on racial and other stereotypes?'

The TV series 'Spooks' and the film 'Casino Royale' are very similar, even though one is a film and one is a TV drama. They both are about some kind of agents and and a department that are there to protect their country from people such as terrorists. In both the film and the TV drama they display patrism, they are a good example of the elite, they represent a certain social class and they portray gender and different ethnic groups.
To do this job all the characters in both spooks and casino Royale all display patrism, which is love for their country. They care about the country and the people in that country, this is displayed many time in both casino Royale and spooks. Example of this is in Spooks they had to sacrifice one of their own in order to stop a terrorist attack and a lot of people dying. An example in Casion Royale is James Bond doesn't think twice about killing someone and going to extreme lengths in order to save his country or the people. He's not a malicious killer and he doesn't do it for fun or for pleasure, but for the benefit of his country also because he kills a lot of people who are a threat, this means that he is also under threat from emotions such as revenge. The fact that Jame Bond puts himself under that threat of getting killed and the fact that in Spooks one of the agents sacrificed themselves and died rather than many people shows that to do this kind of job and protect the country is an extremely unselfish job.
The portrayal of social class and the elite can easily be linked in together. To do their kind of job takes a lot of skill, training and qualifying. This means many of the character agents in Spooks would have gone to top Universities, paid a lot of money for training for example. James Bond would also have gone under a lot of training and qualifying before doing the job that he does, this kind of training costs money and the people who do the job wouldn't have those types of opportunities if they weren't of a higher class. Another example of this is in Casino Royale, James Bond goes to a lot of expensive bars and properties, he wears expensive and swanky suits, usually more than one outfit a day, he goes to a lot of countries abroad, drives a nice car and stays in the most expensive hotel. This may be because he is payed well, but the lifestyle he leads shows that he is of a certain class.
Gender is an important factor in this kind of job, and is portrayed well in both Casino Royale and Spooks. The biggest difference between the two is in Spooks, a man is in charge and in Casino Royale a woman is in charge. These TV dramas and Films, if there based on British people today are representing Britain. The fact that some have women in charge and some have men show that the equality that we have in Britain today, or the equality Britain wants opposed to other countries. Another big representation of gender is, James Bond is known for having the famous 'Bond Girls' the girls that are the prettiest and the girls that James Bond will almost always seduce. This is an old fashioned view of women in Britain, you have the main character who is James Bond then you have the beautiful women he is interested which are almost put in the film to make Bond look good. This is the total opposite of Spooks which have women doing the same job as men and having the same authority as men. They both represent Britain at different times.
They both rely on racial and other stereotypes as in both Casino Royale and Spooks they both are protecting Britain from people such as terrorists, all of these are from different countries because they are representing Britain and protecting Britain and they can't have actually British people threatening Britain. In Casion Royale they also have the stereotype of James Bond as the protector, the charmer and the hero. He then has his love interests who are beautiful and sometimes are taken under threat, almost like a 'damsel in distress' role in which Bond will then save them. This kind of set up mirrors old black and white films in which the woman would be saved by the hero. Whereas in spooks they represent more modern stereotypes such as a woman that is intellectual, independent and have their own professional careers. The woman in Spooks aren't and don't need to be saved and protected like they do in Casino Royale.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants article

• The article being about how today's students are no longer the people that the educational system was designed to teach.
• Today's kids have spent there whole lives being surrounded by and using computers, video games, music players, mobile phones and all other things from the digital age.
• they have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading. 10,000 hours playing video games and 20,000 hours watching T.V. Today's students think and process information differently from the people teaching them.
• Students today now being referred to as Digital natives - being 'native speakers' of the digital language.
• Being compared to Digital immigrants the people who process and think differently to digital natives. The older folk were socialised differently to their kids and are now learning a new language. Scientists say a language learned later in life goes into a different part of the brain.
• Examples of the digital immigrant accent are printing out an email, physically bringing people in to see a website instead of sending and URL and phoning someone to ask if they received their email.
• digital immigrant instructors are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.
• digital immingrants dont think their students can learn from tv or music because they couldnt. and they dont think learning can or should be fun.
• The assumption that the same methods that worked for the teachers will work for their students is no longer valid.
• should the digital native students learn the old ways, or should their digital immigrant educators learn the new? but the digital natives
• smart digital immigrants accept they dont know anything about their new world whereas not-so smart digital immigrants just complain about how good things were in the 'old country'
• Methodology - the teachers today have to learn to communicate in the style and language of thier students.
• Legacy content - the traditional curriculum: reading, writing, logical thinking and arithmetic.
• Future content - includes: software, hardware, robotics. also includes: ethics, politics, sociology and other things that go with them. But how many digitial immigrants are prepared to teach it?
• CAD software - games where the learner must employ to build toolds, fix weapons and defeat booby traps.
• Marc Prensky invites teachers and professors to suggest a subject or topic and he attemps to invent a game or other digital native method way of learning it.
• Prensky says it is lazy and dumb of educators to believe the digital immigrant way is the only way to teach, and that the digital natives' 'language' is not as capable as their own . He believes digital immigrants will have to change.

Birth of the internet - Web 2.0

Examples of web 2.0 include:

• Web based communities


• hosted services


• web applications


• social networking sites


• video-sharing sites


• wikis


• blogs


• mashups


• folksonomies

Web 2.0 sites allow its users to interact with other users instead of being limited to passive viewing.

Critical perspectives on "media 2.0"

Are there any distinct 'media institutions' in the era of convergence? you can now share music on facebook on face, download music for free and watch videos on YouTube. now the questions is, is there such a thing as 'audience' in this postmodern 'we media' age?

• university of Westminster said they would no longer offer degrees in media studies. They will offer them but they will be more specialist - this come from the idea that media is no longer a subject that can be taught in such a broad way, it is too fluid, toocomplex and too different.
• websites like Facebook, Myspace and YouTube have been labeled 'web 2.0'.
• People dont get represented by the media anymore, instead they make their own media and share it with the world.
• Media students need to move away from the 'media 1.0' way of doing things and do things creativley such as facebook and myspace.

Media 2.0 will be more about people and less about the media. With people writing in the form of blogs it looks specifically at 'citizen journolism' meaning web 2.0 enables ordinary people to participate in politics and the news.

But in 10 years time?

• Playback - using websites such as YouTube to reach ambitions and goals bt posting videos.
• Britney 2.0 - that idea that Britney spears has ceased to be considered a human being by the public and now is understoof primarily as a 'news commodity'.
• Fan culture - sharing stuff online, and fans can upload their own versions of material wihthin hours of the official broadcast.
• Tardisodes - instituions such as the BBC offering tardisodes which, like vodcasts can be accessed through subscriptions and viewed on a mobile.
• Club penguins - an online world where you can live as a penguin. netowrking with other penguins, getting jobs and taking part in activities.

How can you be a media 2.0 student?:

• Guantlett argues that media can create an image of indentity.
• life is complex, culture is complex and so is media studies - or whatever they decide to call in in the future.