No Offence CSP Research

Media Language

No Offence is a mainstream television series in which the codes and conventions of the police procedural crime drama are intertwined with aspects of social realism. Detailed analysis of this media form including the process through which media language develops as genre will provide students with an opportunity to understand and reflect on the dynamic nature of genre.

Analysis Includes:

Mise-en-scene analysis:

• Costume: Dinah is seen first wearing pink which demonstrates that she is quite girly and probably has other stereotypical feminine features. Then in the second scene she is dressed very formal which presents her as a more serious person. After the first scene all the women are covered up and are therefore respected.
• Lighting: Often in this series when there is a bad situation it is usually at night. The chase scene was filmed late with the stereotype that everything bad happens at night. The scene where they find the girl in the river is also filmed in the dark.

Semiotics: how images signify cultural meanings:

• Caution tape, siren signifies danger
• Office wear signifies serious and dedication
• leather jacket signifies rule breaker
• cake splat signifies guy run over

Narrative

• No Offence appear to use Propp, Todorov and a multi-stranded narrative techniques to engage the audience. There is one clear hero that the audience follows through the episode, Dinah. The audience automatically side with her and relate to her problems. There is also a set damsel in distress that is being looked for throughout the episode and is finally found at the end and just in time too which causes the audience to favour the hero even more as she looked after someone as innocent as the damsel. At the equilibrium, Dinah is shown to be quite rogue which excites the audience yet during the disruption she appears to follow the rules whilst making quite fair leaps which excite the audience as they are unaware how it will end up. In the new equilibrium, Dinah, is back to being her rogue self as she inappropriately goes against her boss to get the damsel to stay with her. This excites the audience as they will be willing to see her consequences. Throughout the episode there are a numerous amount of obstacles which Dinah goes through which gives the audience constant entertainment.
• Numerous narrative conventions of crime drama is used to intrigue the audience and also give them somewhat knowledge so they could presume outcomes. It is based in a city so the audience assume that there's high crime rate which is shown through the multi dilemmas shown in episode 1. The title is also called 'No Offence' which is a police term which shows that they don't stray away from the police procedural during this series. The types of characters also make it easy for the audience to assume outcomes such as head police officer and standard police officers also criminals.
• No Offence follows a multi strand structure where there is multiple ongoing stories which gives the audience a lot of entertainment. We see a small dilemma of an old lady accusing her grandson which can be quite humorous to the audience. There is also a down syndrome couple who talks quite inappropriately about his sex life in a serious matter which presents disabled people in a different and more realistic way. There is also humour at the very beginning on Dinah's date with a guy in crutches where she makes him walk home.
• In the equilibrium of episode Dinah is having a tough morning at work and is presented as a bit of a rogue rule breaker from her previous night. The disruption is that she realises that there may be a problem with a certain case of missing down syndrome people. The recognition is when she realises that there is a man after down syndrome people and she investigates it. The attempt to repair is when she saves the girl from the river who is no actually got down syndrome and the new equilibrium is Dinah getting into trouble again and being up to no good.

Genre

• Conventions of tv drama: mystery, resolutions, question of morality, debates of innocent and guilt. This appeals to the audience as even though there may be clues throughout an episode, the audience are never fully sure of the outcome. Knight prolonging of the inevitable.
• No Offence is a hybrid genre as it belongs to drama, social realism and crime genres.
• Neale suggests that genre is instances of repetition and difference. This especially occurs in hybrid genres as their is numerous features from different genres. They have a female boss which subverts the feature of a male lead detective.

Media Representations

No Offence provides a wide range of representational areas to explore; gender, place, class, ethnicity, race etc.

• No Offence positively subvert stereotypes to show that girls can be in charge and work hard just like men as they have a female boss and the introverted and insecure worker got a promotion. The female boss is also not that feminine as she says inappropriate things and is also seen cleansing herself not in a lady like way.
• No Offence consists of dominant female characters; the boss Dinah and the innocent officer.
• Manchester is seen as quite a cramped area and not hygienic. It does not look nice and sunny or very positive.
• They include quite unusual issues which are not really used in police procedurals as in series 1, one of the main issue is the disappearance and murder of children with Down's Syndrome and raises questions about attitudes to and treatment of people with disabilities as they are quite normalised in this series.
• The producers are trying to equalise people by generalising them in one way but the audience could decode it as inappropriate and possibly offensive.

Media Industries

The central way into an institutional approach is to consider No Offence as a Channel 4 programme and to examine how it can be seen to fulfil the demands of its Public Service remit. No Offence can be studied in the context of Channel 4's commitment to be innovative and distinctive.

• No Offence is an AbbotVision production, an independent company founded by the writer Paul Abbot who also wrote Shameless.
• No Offence was a critical and commercial success in the UK, it was a also a ratings success in France where it was shown on the national broadcast channel, France2.
• Channel 4 uses series such as No Offence to add value to the channel through the availability of the 'box set' on All4.

Media Audiences 

Issues of audience are also relevant throughout the other theoretical frameworks. In media language, the use of different formal structures to position the audience to receive and interpret meaning is central, while the study of representations has at its heart the reinforcement of social and cultural values for audiences. The study of institutions is also indivisibly linked to the need to define and attract specific audiences.

• The production, distribution and exhibition of No Offence shows how audiences can be reached, both on a national and global scale, through different media technologies and platforms, moving from the national to transnational through broadcast and digital technologies.
• No Offence was broadcast on Channel 4, can still be accessed on All4, it was also broadcast in France.
• The way in which different audience interpretations reflect social, cultural and historical circumstances is evident in the analysis of No Offence which is explicitly linked to contemporary issues.
• They use audience alignment as the camera follows Dinah's life throughout the episode. She is presented as morally ambiguous.
• The advertising campaigns for the series demonstrate how media producers target, attract and potentially construct audiences. Previously spoken about through the media language sections .
• Gerbner suggests that the more time people spend living in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality aligns with reality portrayed on tv. In No Offence they use social realism and therefore it is quite realistic which could be relatable to real life. The audience may feel like the crime is more realistic than said which creates more awareness.
• Hall reception theory of encoding and decoding.

Social, Political, Economic and Cultural Contexts

No Offence deals with a range of social, cultural and political issues arising from contemporary contexts. The Manchester police force is used as a microcosm of society through which to examine changing gender roles, the focus of the case which features children and adults with Down's syndrome examines the position of people with disabilities in the wider society. The economic context can be explored through patterns of ownership and production and how the product is marketed nationally and globally.