Black Mirror Analysis

Genre - a type of media product

Sub-genre - a genre within a genre

Hybrid genre - a combination of two or more genres

Genre conventions - typical things found within a media product in a genre

Conventional - things often found within a genre (e.g a convention of the horror genre is screams)

Unconventional - things not common within a genre (e.g a scream in a romance film)

Steve Neale argues genre is all about the process of repetition and difference

Intertextual relay - the range of production and marketing materials that are used by products

Montage - a combination of shots to create a deeper meaning

Montage of fashion clips - songs

• Girlfriend in a coma - The Smiths 1987
• the lyrics are representative of the fact a character is in a coma
• utilisation of this music functions as a proairetic code (a code which foreshadows what will happen in the future)
• Yorkie's glasses similar to Morrisey from The Smiths
• intertextual reference - also found within conversations
• Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds 1985
• works as a proairetic code
• doesn't want Kelly to forget about her
• intertextual reference to The Breakfast Club
• Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer 1985
• intertextual reference

• Intertextuality and intertextual relay is a complicated process
• audience members can utilise intertextual relay in both an explicit and generalised manner
• polysemy is predicted on an intertextual relay
• different audiences will have different experiences based on their own media literacy
• you can enjoy the media product in your own way based on your own media literacy (e.g you don't have to understand the intertextual references to enjoy the episode)

How important is music to this episode?

• music is used to rehabilitate people with diseases, for example, people with Alzheimer's
• helps retains audiences
• music is associated with memories and creates meanings

How important are video games to this episode?

• escapism - escape to reality
• references to Outrun
• constructs a sense of nostalgia
• Kelly's car?
• creates a perfect view of America
• outsiders fantasy of what America looks like? Created by a British creator
• symbolic in the video game as you don't die

Outrun is the ultimate example of Liesbet Van Zoonen's Male Gaze theory as the audience is assumed a heterosexual male

• this episode subverts this heterosexual couple by showing a lesbian relationship

Allegory - a story about something else, a metaphor which makes a broader comment on society (e.g Lord of the Flies is about mans inherent evil)

Zeitgeist - time ghost. The spirit of time. Captures the time in which it was made

Fear of technology consuming our life, after life - what is there (conspiracy's),