The only way to do school work for John Masefield Media Studies students. Keep checking it to see if your teachers have posted anything new, or if there is anything that you need to do.
I will be in the lesson tomorrow and I would like you to spend today ensuring that you know as much about the newspaper industry as possible. The exam this year is print, so it's possible they will use a newspaper. Therefore, spend today researching the following newspapers, and looking on Mediaedu to see what you can find in terms of articles about newspapers and news stories.
Below is a news theory I want you to get your head around as well. We will discuss this tomorrow.
Can you research and find out the following things about the newspapers you have been assigned:
Readership figures
Political bias
4 examples of front page headlines
Scandals they are involved in (Levenson?)
Who owns them.
Once you have done this, I would like you to answer the question 'How does the newspaper represent violence?' about the front page below. Time yourself for about 13 minutes.
Sam - Daily Mail
Cara - Times
Harrison - Guardian
Calum - Telegraph
Joey - The Mirror
Galtung and Ruge (1973) believed that our perception of what constitutes an event is culturally determined and not a natural occurrence – but they also believed that it related to ‘human culture’ and therefore should not vary too much globally.
Their theory argues that the more an event accessed these criteria the more likely it was to be reported on in a newspaper (although the individual factors are inter-related, not independent of one another).
An example: in the Western world we are obsessed with celebrities and their lifestyles. David Beckham splits with Posh Spice and on the same day five children are killed in a minibus accident. The tabloids will carry the Beckham’s story on the front page because we as a society have decided that celebrity gossip is more interesting and news worthy than the other story.
These are 12 of the ‘most significant’ news values from the work of Galtung and Ruge: 1.Frequency — short-term events like murders are preferred over long-term developments like a famine 2.Threshold — basically the size of an event indicates his importance 3.Unambiguity — events do not have to be simple but they must be accessible to the public - i.e. simplified by the media 4.Meaningfulness — divided into two categories after Galtung and Ruge’s‘Familiarity’: a) cultural proximity in which the event agrees with the outlook of a specific culture; b) relevance where events will be reported and discussed if they seem to have an impact on the ‘home’ culture, especially athreat 5.Consonance — or ‘correspondence’ where the familiar is more likely to be thought than the unfamiliar 6.Unexpectedness — or ‘surprise’ where it is the rarity of an event whichleads to its circulation in the public domain; Dutton notes that the ‘newness’ of the event is usually processed through a familiar context. It has to work with 4 and 5. 7.Continuity — once a story achieves importance will be continued to be covered for some time 8.Composition — this is to provide a sense of balance, gloomy news with good news, foreign with domestic. 9.Reference to elite nations — events are more likely to be reported if they occur in the developed world; the threshold system would apply for developing countries’ events to be reported 10.Reference to elite persons — the famous and the powerful are more newsworthy than ordinary people 11.Personalisation
— events are seen as actions of people as individuals; an institution may be personalised by reference to a prominent person within that organisation 12.Negativity — bad news is good for the press and TV news; the threshold is much lower for bad news than for good news A lot of these appear to be fairly obvious to say the least, but you'll need to think about them and refer to some of the points in your exam in relation to the evaluation of your practical task and its relevance to audience.
The need to target a ‘specific audience’ is a key issue for the ‘magazine industry’. Magazines are heavily ‘subsidized by advertising’ and the key to attracting a sustainable ‘portfolio of advertisers’ is the creation of a product that is desirable to their ‘target market’.
As a consequence, within the magazine industry as a whole, there are many magazines aimed at similar audiences because that ‘demographic’ is lucrative for advertisers. For example, there are lots of titles aimed at teenage girls (Bliss, More, Cosmogirl etc) but not so many aimed at single mums! The reason for this is that teenage girls have much higher ‘disposable income’.
Though titles within a certain ‘sector of the market’ may be very similar, each will have a unique ‘selling point’ designed to appeal to a specific ‘target audience’. Kerrang!, for example, competes with Metal Hammer and Terrorizer. However, one of its ‘unique selling points’ as a ‘passion title’ is its ‘brand credibility’: the magazine has been around since the early 1980s and is intimately connected with the evolution of the ‘Metal genre’.
That said, the magazine industry operates in ‘volatile market’ and while the title Kerrang! has remained consistent, the magazine has changed ‘ownership’ three times in 28 years.
Ownership
In targeting a ‘specific audience’ one of the key issues for Kerrang! is that of ‘media ownership’. Originally launched in 1981 (as a heavy metal ‘supplement’ to United Newspapers’ Sounds) the magazine was picked up by EMAP in 1991, eventually becoming the music divisions ‘hero brand’ of the ‘digital age’. However, in spite of its success, Kerrang! was sold to BAUER along with all other EMAP ‘consumer titles’ (Q, Mojo, FHM, Zoo and Empire etc) in February 2008. Kerrang!’s position as one of a ‘portfolio’ of titles is, therefore, both a strength and a weakness when it comes to targeting a specific audience. On the one hand, the magazine has a specific ‘niche’ and it benefits from audience research done into other ‘sectors’ of the market. For example, sharing information about audiences with other BAUER music titles (like Mojo and Q) is extremely useful in sustaining Kerrang’s ‘position in the market’.
Though Paul Brannigan is the editor of Kerrang!, BAUER’s music titles are managed by one senior ‘editorial director’, Stuart Williams, who is able to co-ordinate the editorial direction and make sure they do not ‘encroach’ upon the ‘target audience’ of another magazine.
On the other hand, this consideration of the ‘bigger picture’ is sometimes a problem in trying to target a ‘specific audience’. For example, Kerrang! has to be careful not to duplicate the editorial content of Q and Mojo. Equally, there is a need to please advertisers who sign ‘contracts with BAUER’ as opposed to individual magazines. For example, recent campaigns by Nintendo and Wella found in Kerrang! are also featured in both FHM and Zoo. This ‘wholesale selling’ of advertising space can lead to editorial compromise and an incoherent brand identity.
Synergy and Convergence
Kerrang! is an interesting case study in the ‘magazine industry’ because it was one of the first titles to exploit cross media ‘convergence’ in targeting a specific audience. EMAP had experimented with TV and radio during the 1990s with the purchase of both Kiss FM and the cable TV channel The Box. However, with the ‘deregulation of broadcast media’ at the end of the decade, the publishing house decided to take things one stage further by developing ‘print based’ music titles as ‘multi-platform brands’. EMAP’s first venture into the ‘synergized’ world of digital media was with Kerrang! 105 a digital and FM based radio station.
Though the radio station modified the core brand ‘brand values’ of the magazine, playing tracks by more ‘mainstream acts’ like Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Oasis, it was an immediate success and in 2001 EMAP followed this up with Kerrang TV!
While this strategy was repeated on other EMAP titles, like Q and Smash Hits, the key to Kerrang!’s success was that it was not a ‘mainstream brand’.
With a well-defined ‘community of consumers’, the ‘brand values’ of Kerrang! were ideally suited to the ‘niche market’ business strategies of the digital age. In many ways the magazine could be said to exemplify Chris Anderson’s mantra in The Long Tail: that ‘the future of business is selling more of less’ (2006).
For the magazine this ‘marketing strategy’ worked very well during a time in which many other music titles had to close (Select, Melody Maker, Smash Hits). Indeed, throughout the period 2000 to 2007 Kerrang!’s sales were consistently strong (around 80,000 copies a week): due in no small part to the ‘omnipotence of the brand’ across several ‘media platforms’.
Technologies
While the digital age has certainly aided the ‘marketing’ of the Kerrang! brand, the development of ‘new technology’ has also had a profound effect on the ‘production’ of the magazine. Digital photography enables art directors to work on the layout as soon as a photo shoot is over. Though Quark used to be ‘industry standard’, today the magazine uses Adobe InDesign, allowing for much better ‘interfacing’ between Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat.
Acrobat is particularly important, allowing ‘high-resolution’ pdfs to be sent directly to the printers. It is also now standard for printers to use digital technology rather than the ‘lithographs’ of old. Likewise, the ‘transfer of data’ can be down via ftp sites as opposed to the physical transfer of a CD. All of which conspires to ‘speed up’ the process between ‘editorial meeting’ and the finished copy hitting the shelves.
Like all forms of ‘print media’ Kerrang! is still very dependent on traditional models of ‘distribution’, with ‘over the counter’ transactions accounting for 95 % of sales. However, while retailers of the magazine like WHSmith continue to stock the magazine, the title has been hit by the decline of high street music retailers like HMV and Our Price. The year on year ‘ABC figures’ for 2008/2009 are down by nearly 30% with sales sliding from 75,937 to just over 52, 272.
Web 2
No doubt the magazine, which retails at £2.20, has also lost out to the ‘proliferation’ of ‘social networking sites’ like Facebook and MySpace during 2007/8. The effect of these sites on a ‘niche market’ magazine like Kerrang! is perhaps more pronounced as the information that the magazine was previously the ‘gatekeeper’ to is accessible either directly from bands or other fans. It is uncertain, therefore, whether the success the magazine brought EMAP will be replicated at BAUER.
In the past one of the ways in which Kerrang! was able to withstand the ‘proliferation’ of the Internet was not only by having an ‘online edition’ but by encouraging the reader to be ‘interactive’ in the production of the magazine. For example, it has long been a strategy of the magazine to use its online forum to find out who the readers would like to see in the magazine and ‘test’ front covers. Likewise, readers are able to request the stars whose posters they would like to have included in the magazine.
Ironically, it is the inclusion of the traditional ‘pop poster’ that is at the core of the magazine’s ongoing appeal. As Stuart Williams has said ‘you can’t put j-pegs on your bedroom wall’! Music fans can be fickle, however, and clearly advances in ‘digital production’ are pivotal in keeping up with the whims of Kerrang!’s target audience.
That said, in spite of innovation in magazine ‘production’ and ‘marketing’, increasingly the print title is becoming an ‘anachronistic subsidiary’ to both Kerrang’s MySpace page and online edition.
Hardware
It is without doubt that the success of Kerrang! in the digital age is down to the fact that it has embraced the ‘proliferation’ of new digital ‘hardware’ since the turn of the Millennium: specifically digital production processes and use of the Internet and digital TV and radio to extend the range of the brand.
This relationship with technological ‘hardware’ is not unique in the history of the music press. For example, Smash Hits’ success reflected the ‘proliferation’ of home VRCs and satellite television in the 1980s (MTV). Likewise the rise of Q was connected to the proliferation of compact disk players amongst a ‘demographic’ of affluent older music fans in the 1990s.
However, just as that success did not go on forever, the question remains as to whether the tide has turned for Kerrang! While the magazine has been able to embrace ‘initial transformations’ brought about by the Internet and digital technology, recent changes to the way in which people ‘listen to music’ is threatening to erode the ‘financial viability’ of the magazine.
In particular the proliferation of mp3s, the iPod and online music players like Spotify, mean that the music industry has come to rely less upon the sales of recorded music to make a profit. Consequently, record company spending on print -based advertising campaigns has been cut dramatically. Kerrang! has, of course, embraced this in the form of its MySpace and web-site, which is hyperlinked to online ticket sellers, Kerrang! 105 and its TV channel. As a consequence, however, it could be said that the online version of the magazine has more to offer the target audience than its print-based namesake.
Technological Convergence
While Kerrang!’s success in targeting a ‘specific audience’ can be attributed to the way in which it has embraced the ‘convergence of technology’, ultimately that process challenges the concept of the ‘magazine industry’ as a ‘discrete media institution’.
Exemplary of this is not only the number of magazines that have closed since 2000 but the way in which those that have survived have developed as ‘multi-platform brands’.
In this respect Smash Hits (a running partner of Kerrang! at EMAP) is an interesting ‘point of comparison’.
While the ‘print title’ closed in February 2006, the brand name continued as a TV and radio station.
Indeed, when BAUER purchased EMAP’s Consumer Media Division in 2008 they also bought the rights to Smash Hits.
Portability
Projecting forward then, the ‘long-term viability’ of magazines depends very much on the proliferation of ‘portable hard-ware’ that allows us to view text and image. While notebook computers are becoming more common, Stuart Williams argues that magazines have a future as ‘premium brand product’: ‘because people appreciate the tactile quality of the paper and the pleasure associated with possessing visually seductive artwork’.
It is interesting to note also that while the music press has declined over the past ten years, other sectors of the market are thriving. ‘Top end women’s glossies’ like Vogue and Cosmopolitan, for example, remain strong sellers: in part because their readers have been slower to uptake digital media forms.
In this sense, while the ‘convergence of technologies’ has meant the end for some titles, the music press could be said to be at the ‘forefront of the digital revolution’. And, for ‘strong brands’ like Kerrang! the future looks very promising.
Whether or not Kerrang! will be here as a magazine in ten years time is not certain: however, it is unlikely that the web-site, TV and radio stations will disappear. In this sense, as Smash Hits proved, convergence offers a ‘digital after life’. While this may no longer embody the traditional targeting of a specific ‘magazine audience’, the ‘brand values’ of Kerrang! (pioneered by the print title) are likely to remain the same.
Targeting an Audience
For a magazine like Kerrang! understanding it own ‘brand values’ is central to the way in which EMAP and subsequently BAUER have targeted its audience. While it is possible to ‘profile the audience’ in terms of age, race, sex and class, for a ‘passion title’ it is important to have a ‘core ideology’ about the topic with which the reader can identify.
Central to that ‘ideology’ for Kerrang! is a nuanced understanding of the metal genre in terms of both the ‘contemporary scene’ and its ‘historical antecedents’.
The ‘forms and conventions’ of the magazine are also very important: Kerrang!’s ‘written style’, for example, is very celebratory; unlike NME, the magazine tends not to be critical of bands but ignores what it does not like.
Likewise, the ‘visual style’ of the magazine is key to the way in which it targets a ‘defined community of consumers’. The ‘dark-house style’, for example, is reflects ‘sub-cultural style’ of the Metal and Hard-core music scenes. That said, BAUER is quick to acknowledge that the ‘core audience’ for the magazine is predominantly white and ‘more middle class’ than generic lifestyle titles like Zoo or Bliss: arguably for Kerrang! readers the rejection of the mainstream is dependent on already belonging to it!
Most interesting, perhaps, is the ‘inclusiveness’ of Kerrang! in addressing male and female readers. Unusually for a ‘teen-orientated title’ the magazine has ‘55/45 male/female readership split’. In the past this has had a direct effect on the way in which the content of the magazine has been conceptualized. For example, ‘received thinking’ at EMAP was that the magazine should feature predominantly male stars: whom the male audience regarded as ‘heroes’ and that the female audience could view in a more ‘objectified way’ as ‘pin-ups’.
In recent months, however, this has changed, with the inclusion of more female stars in sexually provocative poses and ‘editorial’ focusing on relationships and fashion. Whether or not this will be enough to stave off the decline of the title is unclear. However, clearly the magazine is moving more towards the ‘mainstream world’ depicted in magazines like Zoo and Bliss.
This shift also reflects the magazines unique position in the UK publishing market as one of only two weekly music titles. When Kerrang! was launched the ‘mainstream market’ was more competitive. However, the closure of Melody Maker, Smash Hits, Sounds, Record Mirror etc has potentially left a very ‘lucrative gap’.
Personal Opinion / Wider Trends and Patterns
From my own ‘personal experience’ as a media consumer I believe changes in the way in which Kerrang! is targeting a specific audience reflect ‘wider patterns and trends’ of ‘audience behavior’. While the ‘digital age’ has been characterized by ‘niche marketing’ and ‘narrowcasting’ the ‘proliferation’ of ‘social networking’ has encouraged ‘youth culture’ to form more of a ‘consensus view’ of popular culture.
While the iPod is a ‘solitary experience’, online playlists, which users post on Facebook and MySpace pages, encourage audiences to be ‘collaborative’ in the ‘formation of taste’. Equally, the direct ‘interaction’ between artist and audience, which sites like MySpace facilitate, has challenged the role of the music industry as an ‘intermediary/gatekeeper’.
As a consequence, while the ‘contemporary music scene’ may be characterized by high-levels of diversity there is, ‘in my view’, a much stronger sense of the mainstream.
It is ‘my opinion’ that a shift towards the mainstream by Kerrang! is, therefore, an attempt to pick up new readers exposed to cross-over acts enjoying chart success.
While the magazine is by no-means a ‘pop magazine’ in the sense that Smash Hits was, increasingly it seems to embody a very ‘pop sensibility’ in the way that it talks about the ‘discrete genre’ of music it covers. Whether or not this ‘strategy’ will be successful remains to be seen and that depends to a large extent on how bright you view the ‘long term prospects’ of ‘print media’ in general.
However, in view of these ‘shifting trends’ and ‘wider patterns’ it would be interesting to know if BAUER have considered re-launching Smash Hits!, a magazine whose ‘brand values’ are perhaps more in keeping with the carnivalesque media landscape of our time.
In your opinion, who is responsible for censorship of the Media?
A social network site allows friends, or people with shared interests to
build relationships and communicate openly with one another.
These sites allow people to share photographs, videos and contact
information, and many allow users to let each other know what they're doing or
thinking.
The most popular social networking sites in the UK include Facebook, MySpace,
Bebo and Twitter, but there are hundreds more available.
Most social networking sites only allow people over the age of 13 to sign
up.
Social networking sites are popular with adults and young people, but
everyone needs to be very careful to keep themselves safe by not giving away
their personal details.
Some people have recently begun to question the safety of social networking
sites due to reported cases of cyber bullying and online predators.
Bebo recently added a 'help' button to allow young people to contact
specially trained officers to get advice if they are being bullied online, or
are worried about someone's intentions or behaviour. Other social networking
sites are now under pressure to add this help button to their sites.
How do I get my students to reach the top grades? This is a question which we all ask.
Examiners and moderators often see work by students who aren’t perhaps in the top ability bands yet manage to reach the higher mark bands because they REALLY understand what is required of them.
Below are some ideas and strategies which have been proven to help raise achievement in both exams and coursework modules. These are focused on the AQA Media Studies AS level course, although much of the advice could be adapted for other awards.
MEST 1 | Unseen Text
(There is more information available on this site, including exemplar responses to a past question with brief commentaries. See ‘Related Resources’ at the bottom of this article.)
Read the supplied information
Do teach the students to read the information on the question paper, highlighting relevant areas. They’ll be given a few minutes to do this at the beginning of the exam, as well as the time as they wait for the DVD to start if they’re given a moving image text. This will give all sorts of helpful information, including institution, audience, etc.
For example: In one previous paper, students were told that an advert for Xbox was placed in the Guardian Weekend Magazine in November. The information given included that this was aimed at middle class families and produced in the run-up to Christmas. By reading this carefully, students could add their understanding of the newspaper market so start their exam responses knowing that this was aimed at an ABC1 audience, older age group, and that the institution was aiming at the Christmas market. Using a Sunday supplement meant that audiences have more time to read the advertisement, so it could afford to be fairly text-heavy. All of this information could be deduced before the advert itself was even looked at!
Once they looked at the text they could then see how the models used reflected this target audience, (middle-class family; well dressed) allowing audiences to self-actualise; how the text was used to appeal to this particular audience, etc.
Candidates who ignore this valuable information often waste time speculating about the text ~ this type of (often irrelevant) supposition when they’ve already been given purposeful information can prevent them from actually getting down to answering the question – therefore preventing them from reaching the higher mark bands.
Keep focus on the question
Make sure they keep referring back to the question in each of their responses. Be really explicit about this. So, if for the media forms question candidates are asked how an advert is made to look like a trailer then they need to keep identifying features of the advert and saying how they are made to replicate the features of a trailer.
Similarly, when asked to consider the representation in a text, they could be taught to start each paragraph with a reading of the representation:
Eg. “Technology is represented here as cutting edge… [then give an example from the text to support this reading.] It is also represented as a necessary addition to the audience’s lifestyle ….”[again, you must include a specific moment from the text to support this].
The Institution question isn’t really difficult!
The institution question is often the one students feel most shaky about. From a teaching point of view, I’ve found it works best by coming to it via their own experiences:-
A good starting point is to discuss with them which “institutions” they / their friends work for, and consider the brand-values of these institutions. Those who have Saturday jobs in Waitrose will be able to talk about different brand values than those who work in Morrisons; those who work in New Look vs. those who work in Ralph Lauren…
Then get them to think about the institutional values of your school / college, (value hard work; politeness; good timekeeping; respect) and give specific examples of where these values are promoted – such as posters on the walls, school planners, sixth-form brochure, website, rewards systems, etc.
By this time, they should have a good understanding of institutions and can now move on to the main media institutions. Here they could look at BBC and Channel 4’s Mission Statements, choosing texts from across all three platforms which these institutions produce to support these statements.
For example, BBC includes “educate” in its statement: can students find an example of where they are fulfilling this – not just the obvious ones, such as news and current affairs ~ look at a copy of BBC Wildlife magazine; how many “science” programmes in one week’s BBC TV listings, etc? A previous institution question asked how well a trailer for Channel 4 promoted the channel in line with its values, (which the candidates were told in the information section of the paper – see above!) It was perfectly acceptable for students to make some criticism here – top mark candidates demonstrate critical autonomy in their responses.
Other institutions to research could include the BBFC, Press Complaint’s Commission and the Advertising Standard’s Authority. A good homework here can be to set students to research one/some of these, making sure they always give specific examples from the institution’s promotional material to support their understanding of the institution and its values.
Having done all of this, they should be ready for more abstract institutions – a previous MEST 1 paper asked about the institution of Hollywood (see exemplar on this site for potential response to this).
Theory
Adding theory will help students gain high marks, but not if it is just thrown at the exam paper for the sake of it! Candidates often seem to believe that by mentioning a theory they will get credit, regardless of its relevance. Higher grade candidates start with the text – if you think, when you analyse it, that a particular theory is relevant, then use it, but don’t try to impress your examiner with a list of theories which you don’t then go on to use to analyse the text / answer the question.
The most popular theories to use, but also to “misuse”, are Propp and Laura Mulvey! Propp was writing, in the 1920s, about generic features of fairy tales, which he felt invariably involved some kind of quest, prompting a journey and written using 31 stock functions and 8 stock characters. As soon as they see a character doing anything heroic, less able candidates do tend to throw in Propp’s name, without making this theory relevant to the text.
A trailer for a film like Narnia, Stardust and even Star Trek may well suggest a Propp-style narrative. Even some adverts might: a quest for the cleanest kitchen, where the germs are the “villain”, the manufacturer of the product becomes the “donor” and the germ-free surface the “Princess / Prize”! But just because someone could be seen as “heroic” doesn’t mean that Propp is necessarily relevant! Laura Mulvey’s original text, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (written 1973, published 1975) may need interpreting for students, but they really should be exposed to her original ideas before they throw “male gaze” down onto an exam paper at the first sight of a sexy looking woman! It may be a relevant theory to use if they read the text as one which invites the audience to focus on a woman in a way which objectifies her. If this is the case, candidates need to specifically explain how this is achieved. To get the really top marks, they should also be considering why this is so, perhaps relating this to the genre or intended audience of the text.
MEST 1 | Case Study
(There is more information available on this site. See ‘Related Resources’ at the bottom of this article.)
Top marks can be gained by students producing a good case study, with a wide range of products from across all three platforms. Check that studies include products which allow students to cover a wide range of audiences and that they have some really specific examples which they can quote in the exam.
A folder or a scrap book where they keep all of their material will help to keep them organised and make revision easier.
One “teacher-taught” product in a case-study is fine, to allow the students to see what they could/should be producing, but they should then go on to research their own further products, (two in really good depth should be fine) and these are the ones they should really focus on in their exam response. Examiners mark a centre at a time. If they find all candidates responding with exactly the same material then they are unlikely to be able see individual student’s sense of “engagement” with their material, which is one of the requirements of the highest mark band.
Put a poster on the classroom wall where they each have to write in their case-study products, eg. Film and Broadcast Fiction:
That way, if the teacher or other students come across some material related to a particular choice of product, they can share it. This is really helpful for ensuring that wide range of specific examples. I always get students to ask parents / grandparents etc. to look out for any information on their chosen case-study products, as they will be exposed to very different media from the students. For example, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was featured in National Trust Magazine – not a familiar text with teenagers, but an impressive one to include in a case-study.
In the exam, don’t ignore the question and just write “everything I know about my case study!” The question will have a focus, which will be expanded further in the second bullet point – this expansion will give you a strong clue to what is expected of you in your response, so don’t ignore it!
A brief outline of your case-study in the opening paragraph is sufficient. Top mark students will work the question into this. Practicing these opening sentences will help students to reach the high mark bands.
Giving a specific example for every point they make will also enable them to demonstrate the skills rewarded in the top mark bands – a range of detailed examples.
How do I get my students to reach the top grades? This is a question which we all ask.
Examiners and moderators often see work by students who may not be in the top ability bands yet manage to reach the higher mark bands because they REALLY understand what is required of them.
Below are some ideas and strategies which have been proven to help raise achievement in both exams and coursework modules. These are focused on the AQA Media Studies A2 level course, although much of the advice could be adapted for other awards.
A2 students need to move beyond looking at just the texts themselves and now be actively engaged in asking why texts are the way they are. Considering context is key to reaching high marks at A2; at A/S students focused on how texts were constructed; at A2 they need to consider why, thinking about contexts surrounding production and reception.
Theory
At A2, there is a higher expectation that students are exposed to and can use more complex theories. A good starting point is Postmodernism ~ see ‘An Introduction to Postmodernism’ by John Lough and the link below on Strinati. As with A/S, in the exam as well as in their coursework there is little if any reward for throwing the word into their analysis without demonstrating understanding of the term and its relevance to the point they’re making. For this reason, it might be useful to spend some time at the beginning of the course getting them to understand and apply to specific texts the ideas behind this concept and some of its main players, such as Baudrillard and Strinati (see separate article - coming soon). In this way, abstract theories can be made concrete for students to understand them and be able to apply them in their own work.
MEST 3 Section A | Unseen Text
Read the supplied information
As with MEST 1 at A/S level, do make sure the students know how crucial it is for them to read the information on the question paper. The few minutes spent on this at the beginning of the exam isn’t just time well spent – they need to see it as an essential part of their exam technique which is designed to help them access the paper.
Unlike A/S level, the questions here are not equally weighted. Students shouldn’t spend an inappropriate time responding to the first question, worth 8 marks, at the expense of the second and third questions, each worth 12 marks. Examiners often see scripts where candidates have spent too long on the first two questions and had to leave the 3rd one incomplete.
One strategy for ensuring they get the timing right is to give lots of brief, timed questions. Find two texts, give them a few minutes of “reading” time then give them only 10-12 minutes to write a question 1 response or 15-17 minutes for a Q2 or Q3 one. This way they will gain an understanding of what a short-answer response feels like and are less likely to get this wrong in pressure of the exam room.
Hint: If you run out of ideas for suitable texts and questions, set the students in pairs to produce their own question paper for their colleagues. It’s a great way to get them to focus on the mark scheme and to get them exposed to a range of media texts whilst they make their selections. You can even get them to mark their colleagues’ responses and give advice about where / how they could improve!
The first question focuses on the texts given; for high marks they must keep referring to specific elements of the texts – considering the media language used in order to support their ideas.
Although to date question one has been on Representations, students should be aware that this question could also be on forms, institutions, audiences or values, so some time spent on practicing questions with these different focuses will ensure that, come the exam, they aren’t thrown by an “unfamiliar” question type. The second question tells candidates that they “may” refer to other media products in their answer. However, students who are aiming for the top marks should be bringing other texts in at this point; the top two mark bands reward this use of their wider knowledge when answering this question. The third question is more definite: “you should refer to other media products in your answer”. Here, to reach the top marks it is essential that other, relevant products are included. Top marks are awarded for a “wide range” of examples from other media. It is perfectly acceptable for candidates to refer to products from their case studies, even if they then go on to use that same material in their Section B response. Higher marks are awarded to those candidates who present different sides of a debate, especially in response to question 3, but also if relevant in question 2. To help them achieve this, a key phrase they can be taught to use is “However, it could be argued that…” Coming half to 2/3 of the way through an answer, this will really signpost to the examiner that the candidate is considering different viewpoints. Relevant counter-arguments will be rewarded.
MEST 3 Section B | Case Studies
Building on the skills they used at AS level where they produced an individual case-study, students now need to produce two case-studies: one on Representation and one on New Media Technology (see below).
As with A/S, some initial teacher-taught work is relevant, demonstrating how a case-study could be constructed, including theory and context, but after this is it important that they produce their own case-studies if they want to achieve high marks. Examiners mark a centre at a time, and will be able to award the highest marks to those candidates who provide “detailed evidence of individual study”. Clearly this is difficult to achieve if the examiner reads script after script where all candidates have used the same case study.
Of course, moving from being a teacher to being more of a facilitator can be unnerving – surely they’re more likely to do better if I teach them a case study? Setting aside lessons when students are undertaking research means that the teacher can give individual attention and support. Interim deadlines will help to maintain control over these different study areas. One successful strategy is to set essays fairly early on to help students see where they have gaps in their knowledge, such as insufficient theory, too few examples, lack of contextual material, etc. These omissions can then be addressed as students collate their material, long before final “mocks” and the exam.
Individual Case Studies | Representations
See links to other material on this site
In order to achieve the highest marks, candidates need to demonstrate their engagement with their topic area. Modelling what a case-study should involve is also a useful way of covering some representation theory. A good starting point for their own projects is to find out what they are interested in outside of their studies.
For example, a student who plans to spend a gap-year working in Africa could do a representation study on the country; a student who has an interest in going into the Army could look at the representation of the armed forces.
Representation questions tend to condense to three key areas; is the representation:
fair or unfair;
realistic or unrealistic;
harmless or harmful.
Using these as focuses will ensure students consider who has the power to create the representations of their chosen group or place ~ a key understanding which will enable them to engage in the media issues and debates required at the top mark level.
As with A/S, it is essential that students can draw from a wide range of specific examples, both fiction and non-fiction, from all three platforms.
For example: a case-study on Africa may include the representation of the country in films such as Blood Diamond (2006), The Constant Gardener (2005) and Invictus (2009) as well as press responses to the release of these films; documentaries such as the film Cry Freetown (1999) and the work of Louis Theroux; news reports on famine and civil unrest; newspaper reports of contemporary issues in the country, as well as holiday brochures and wildlife programmes. Then they can consider the focuses above: How fair are there representations? How realistic/accurate are they? If most of the texts available are created by non-Africans, are these representations harmful? (For example, do they invite audiences to make unfavourable comparison between African ideologies and those of the Western world?)
click on image to enlarge
Individual Case Studies | New Media Technology
Once students have understood the way in which an A2 case study is constructed, then producing their New Media Technology case study can be achieved by the teacher moving fairly swiftly through a range of potential study areas. These could include: (see The Impact of Digital Media on this site for more detail on this)
Political – such as the Government report on Digital Britain or other contemporary references
The history of the Internet and World Wide Web
New Media and the impact of self-scheduling
Interactive Media and convergence
User Generated Content ~ any current dramatic news story will include UGC
Impact of New Media on Radio
Podcasts
Multimedia Videogames Technology
Impact of New Media on Print
Newspapers – charging for online content?
New Media and Safety (attempts at regulation and debates surrounding release of contributor’s details)
New Media and the Music Industry
Piracy (which comes into some of the above, including music, gaming and the film industry)
Web 2.0
Whilst introducing each of these, keep focusing on brief details of what a case study on each of these could include.
One way students can present their case studies is by given a presentation to the class. This has huge benefits – not only does it focus their own ideas, it exposes the rest of the group to areas which they aren’t themselves studying in depth, but which may come up in the unseen section of the exam.
Keeping one or two really good ones will also enable you to present to future classes how a good case-study looks!
Some potential areas of study include:
News
The British Press
Television News
News International
Music
Film
The Magazine Industry
The Video Games Industry
How political campaigns use New Media Technology
How sport uses New Media Technology
A single institution
BBC
ITV
Sony
Royalty’s use of NMT
The Police’s use of NMT
New Media Technology questions tend to condense to opportunities and challenges / threats ~ both for producers and consumers, and requires an understanding how and why institutions react to NMT. Using these as a focus will ensure that students have the material they need to reach the top mark band, which requires a “sophisticated understanding of the impact of new and digital media”.
For example, a good case study looking at newspapers could start by looking at the traditional newspaper industry:
its history
institutions
formats
pricing
profit-routes (ie. advertising vs. cover price vs. small ads)
an understanding of the changing role of the Press Complaint’s Commission / on-line regulation
Then consider the challenges to this traditionally print-based industry which New Media Technology brings:
competing against free, online news from (eg.) BBC
small-ads in decline, competing with ebay, craigslist and other free, NMT routes
on-line news is searchable where print-based isn’t
24 hour news channels with breaking news, arguably makes newspapers not “new” but “old”?
potential loss of readership (circulations in decline) and therefore of advertising revenue
are local papers facing different challenges to nationals?
Moving to then consider the ways in which the industry has responded to these challenges and used them as opportunities:
using convergence to reach new audiences (eg. via hand-held devices / apps etc.)
charging for news via new media
promotion of on-line advertising which is easier to show direct benefits via click-through rates
increase in consumer time spent using NMT
new ways to interact with consumers
use of user generated content (UGC) to enhance content
including moving images on websites
For consumers, the benefits which include:
fast news
easily accessible on-the-move with NMT
free news
opportunity to be exposed to ideologies of different news providers
opportunities to contribute via UGC
The debates here are those surrounding free news; regulations regarding bias, (traditionally newspapers have been allowed to have an overt ideology and align themselves to specific political parties; we expect a different, more balanced attitude from other news outlets, which are frequently held to account over perceived bias); convergence as newspapers include moving images as part of on-line content; controversy over inclusion of some pictures – put up hastily on website in order to be as up-do-date as possible but accused of jeopardising fair trial, as well as a wide range of other contemporary issues which will arise during the period of their study.
A thorough knowledge of material such as this will enable candidates to tackle the New Media Technology questions, demonstrating a clear understanding of the challenges that NMT poses for the media industries, how they are tackling those challenges, the relevant debates and wider issues, as well as the opportunities which NMT brings for both producers and consumers.
HINT: A good starter to A2 lessons once a week is to hand out pages / supplements from Sunday papers. Give pairs of students 5-10 mins to find and read a story which is relevant to anything they, or their colleagues, are studying. Each pair then has to read out / summarise this news story for the rest of the class. A poster on the wall detailing which Representation and NMT case study each student is doing will help them to find information relevant to their colleagues’ study areas.
“Digital media have, in many ways, changed how we consume media products”. Who do you think benefits the most – audiences or producers?
Benefits for Audiences
With ‘convergence culture’ audiences benefit because:
They have a wealth of information available at all times via broadband, wi-fi and multi platform mobile devices such as the iPone and Blackberry.
Availability of interactive features - Social Networking Sites (SNS) such as Facebook, and the 140 character blog Twitter, and internet blogs. Also Skype for long distance phone calls, and email.
On demand media content means music, feature films, radio and television and all the content of the internet are available on a laptop with wi-fi.
News comes from newspaper online sites, RSS feeds, blogs, and news organisations website such as BBC News who also supply podcasts
Missed a television programme – no problem it is available for at least a week on the BBC iplayer, and the other mainstream channels have similar devices
Convergence means that all digital content can be accessed in one place for the cost of broadband or subscription via Sky or Virgin or on the move via a device such as an iPad or notebook computer.
Want to show the world your latest video – just upload it to YouTube and it is there for all the world to see
Trying to break into journalism – think about Citizen Journalism –send your report and pictures of a newsworthy event to a news organisation or dedicated site such as the Huffington post and they are more than likely to publish it – no fee but plenty of kudos. This is a way of democratising the media and making content free from traditional gatekeepers
Podcasts, forums and blogs allow ordinary people to have an interactive relationship with the media offering more democracy
New developments include the hybrid television where SNS, emails and the internet are accessible on your TV screen – so watch the world cup, comment to your friends via Twitter and keep an eye on your emails all from the comfort of the armchair – at last accessing the internet becomes a ‘lean back’ activity
Want up to the minute sports or business news – just pay a few pounds for an ‘app’ for your phone, or another ‘app’ will list all the restaurants in your neighbourhood wherever you are.
Downsides for audiences are that some of this content that may appear to be free won’t be for much longer – content is costly – see newspapers below and copyright issues to do with music and films have yet to be solved
Benefits for Producers
Media producers benefit because:
They have more platforms to distribute their products which can be linked to provide a multimedia product line up e.g. a feature film is distributed to cinemas, then very quickly is available for internet streaming and on DVD, then bought by television. A low budget film can be initially published on YouTube, and one producer has published a serialised film just on mobile phones.
Content - Music, video, data, news, and text are instantly available at all times
Online shopping is becoming very popular with ebay and other auction sites making the process entertaining as well. one click internet shops such as Amazon and iStore are able to sell media products from centralised warehouses cutting distribution costs
Online video games and avatar sites are extremely popular, profitable and accessible through gaming units such as Wii
They are able to market their products to many different audiences using digital methods like viral marketing where word of mouth recommendation becomes text, blog or Facebook recommendation to thousands of viral linked groups rather than one mass audience
Online advertising is effective although it has not yet replaced print and television advertising. The advantages are online advertising is well focussed using video, banners, pop ups, and other internet advertising devices to carefully selected groups.
The Downsides for Producers of Convergence Culture
The main problem for producers is how to generate serious money out of digital content. Because of copyright issues, and the sheer cost of running and supporting online content, new media is expensive. Online advertising does not yet produce enough revenue to compensate for the loss of advertising revenue from the print editions of magazines and newspapers, or the sale of CDs and DVDs.
Copyright problems – it costs over $100,million dollars to make a major block buster film such as the new Ridley Scott Robin Hood – if consumers are downloading the film free via file sharing sites then the film producers will lose a lot of money – digital content is easily copied.
Copyright theft is a very serious problem for the music industry who has still to recover from the – as they see it – disaster of napster style music sharing. One site Spotify is offering a new legal model to distribute music via a sort of internet radio station where you choose your own songs – even this model has had to start charging new customers.
Newspapers suffer disproportionately as they are still running with costly and unwieldy ‘old media’ print distribution. There are approximately 55,000 shops and outlets with a delivery of heavy newspapers early every morning.
As well as keeping their print editions all newspapers have online editions which are costly to set up and support – effectively newspapers are running two separate operations and until now the online sites have had to be free because of the competition.
From June 2010 Rupert Murdoch has decided that he cannot sustain the losses of £57 million a year from his UK papers, and is putting up a paywall so that online editions of The Times and Sunday Times will cost the same as the print edition - £1 a day.
In a recent radio discussion on the BBC Media Show newspaper editors admitted that no one knows if there will be print newspapers in 10 years time. Possibly everybody will be reading their newspaper on a Kindle, mobile phone or iPad – maybe!
Further Reading
Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins (New York University Press 2006) A grade A/B answer to the above question would require:
a confident and appropriate discussion and evaluation of the question
reference a wide range of examples
it needs to provide detailed illustration
it needs to show comprehensive application of knowledge and understanding of current ideas, debates and information about digital media and its advantages and disadvantages.
it needs to be an engaged and sophisticated response that is clearly written and well structured, with clear evidence of critical autonomy.
at the top of this level (grade A), it needs to be an articulate and stimulating response which demonstrates evidence of an independent and informed approach and references a variety of appropriate and relevant media texts.
1. Decide three theories you're going to use in your case study answer.
Barthes, Roland used the term Myth in order to refer to a second order of signification with a
chain of concepts widely accepted throughout a culture and used to understand
an experience. Our myth of the countryside, for example, refers to a chain of
concepts such as: it is good; it is natural; it is peaceful; it is beautiful;
it is a place for leisure and recuperation.Then there is the traditional myth about the British policeman
which includes concepts of friendliness, helpfulness and non-aggressiveness.
Fiske J. (1987Television Culture)
Fiske describes
television news bulletins as high-status texts because of their agenda-setting
role in the political and social life of our culture. Broadcasters themselves
attach high status to news bulletins as can be seen by their positioning at
fixed points in the schedules. They are rarely displaced and other programmes
must fit around them, sometimes actually being divided into two sections. See
Studying The Media P106.
Katz, E
(1959 ‘Mass Communications Research and the Study of Popular Culture Studies in
Public Communication, vol. 2. See ‘Investigating
Mass Media, Trowler
1996). Katz is one of the originators of the gratifications model which suggests that different people use
the media in different ways in order to get different sorts of pleasure or
fulfil different types of needs. They may get different gratifications from the
same programme. The gratifications model stresses the importance of what people
do with the media rather than what it does to them. Compare with Herbert
Marcuse.
Marx, Karl (1818-1883), German political philosopher
and revolutionist, cofounder with Friedrich Engels of scientific socialism
(modern communism), and, as such, one of the most influential thinkers of all
times.Communism, is
a concept or system of society in which the major resources and means of
production are owned by the community rather than by individuals. In theory,
such societies provide for equal sharing of all work, according to ability, and
all benefits, according to need. Some conceptions of communist societies assume
that, ultimately, coercive government would be unnecessary and therefore that
such a society would be without rulers. Until the ultimate stages are reached,
however, communism involves the abolition of private property by a
revolutionary movement; responsibility for meeting public needs is then vested
in the state.
Maslow.The
American psychologist Abraham Maslow devised a six-level hierarchy of motives
that, according to his theory, determine human behaviour. Maslow ranks human
needs as follows: (1) physiological; (2) security and safety; (3) love and
feelings of belonging; (4) competence, prestige, and esteem; (5)
self-fulfilment; and (6) curiosity and the need to understand. No single theory
of motivation has been universally accepted, but a direction is evident.
Formerly, many psychologists stressed the reduction of stimulation to its
lowest possible level. An organism was thought to pursue that behaviour most
likely to bring about this desired state of no stimulation. Many human
physiological systems do in fact operate in this manner. Recent cognitive
theories of motivation, however, portray humans seeking to optimise rather than
minimise stimulation and are thus better able to account for exploratory behaviour,
the need for variety, aesthetic reactions, and curiosity. His theories have
been adapted by Media critics and theorists and they are applicable to the
topics of Audience and Advertising & Marketing.
Propp,
Vladimir. In
‘Morphology of the Folk Tale’
Propp analysed folk tales as a basis for his 32 character types all of whom
perform some kind of function in the way a narrative is organised and developed.
Amongst these types are to be found the Hero, the Heroine, the Villain and the
Donor, the latter, for example, providing advice, magic or a talisman to help
the Hero. This type of analysis is useful when considering simple texts -
especially formulaic popular cinema. More complex art is beyond Propp’s system.
See also, Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler.
Todorov, Tzvetvan argued that narratives begin with a state of
equilibrium, where there is harmony and balance between characters and their
environment/situation. Then comes some form of disruption which sets in motion
a train of events. At the end of the narrative a new equilibrium is reached.
Note how this model is particularly applicable to sitcoms where, however, the
equilibrium achieved at the end is usually identical to that which began the
narrative.
John
Berger – The Male Gaze.Writing in 1972, Berger insisted that women were still
‘depicted in a different way to men - because the "ideal" spectator
is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter
him’ (ibid., 64). In 1996 Jib Fowles still felt able to insist that ‘in
advertising males gaze, and females are gazed at’ (Fowles 1996, 204). And Paul
Messaris notes that female models in ads addressed to women ‘treat the lens as
a substitute for the eye of an imaginary male onlooker,’ adding that ‘it could
be argued that when women look at these ads, they are actually seeing
themselves as a man might see them’ (Messaris 1997, 41). Such ads ‘appear to
imply a male point of view, even though the intended viewer is often a woman.
So the women who look at these ads are being invited to identify both with the
person being viewed and with an implicit, opposite-sex viewer’ (ibid.,
44).
The world first heard about the death of Michael Jackson from the online gossip website TMZ. How has new/digital media changed the ways in which information reaches audiences and what are the implications? (48 marks)
‘New and digital media erodes the dividing line between reporters and reported, between active producers and passive audiences: people are enabled to speak for themselves.’ (www.indymedia.org.uk) Have such developments made the media more democratic, with more equal participation by more people? (48 marks)
Not long to go people! You should be at the final stage of your revision now, and everything should really just be consolidating and learning facts and figures and media terminology.
Below are 5 key things to do when revising:
1. Analyse everything you watch! It doesn't have to be out loud but when you watch a programme or an advert imagine the questions you'd get and what you'd say.
2. Learn facts and figures about your films. You should be the Oracle on your films by now.
3. Go over past blog posts and find exam questions and mark schemes you can use for revision. Also use AQA - you don't need a login.
4. Make sure you know Media terminology off by heart! It's so important to get it into your answers.
5. Decide the theories you are going to use in the case study answer. How will you apply them? Make that decision now.
Sample questions are the best way to learn in my opinion - you just cannot do enough. Read the examiners reports and the questions and decide exactly what it is that you are going to do in that exam. Have a plan!
Production What
are the pre-production issues for the production company when making
films?
Whose idea was the film? Did the idea start with the writer, or were writers
brought in to develop a preconceived idea?
What are the issues with the genre of the film?
Where did the idea come from? Was it an original idea, or perhaps a book first,
or TV series, or comic strip, or from some other source?
Who wrote the original script? Did other people become involved in the writing
as the project progressed?
How easy was it to arrange the financial backing to make the film? Who were the
financial backers? Why?
Casting – who were cast in the main roles and why? What other films featured
the stars? What were the associations they brought with them?
Who was the producer? How did he or she become involved?
Who was the director? How did he or she become involved?
Who composed the film music and why was he or she chosen? Consider the sales of
the CDs on Amazon, etc. Seek out reviews.
§What were the issues for the production
company during the production phase?
Was it an easy ‘shoot’? If there were difficulties what were they? Were there
tensions between any of the creative personnel, often known as ‘the
talent’?
Was any part of the film shot on location? If so, where? Why were some
locations chosen over others? Were costs a factor?
Where there any difficulties with casting or with acquiring the stars/actors
the producer wanted?
How significant was casting to reach specific audiences?
What did the studio film cost to make? How much did the stars get? Where did
the budget go? Was the film shot within budget? Was it ever in any danger of
going over budget?
Were there any changes to the script during production? How many changes or
re-writes? Did the same scriptwriter(s) stay ‘on board’ all the time, or were
some replaced?
List some of the key people who made contributions to the production and
highlight some of their individual contributions.
§What were the technological issues for
the studio for producing and distributing the film?
§What was the impact for marketing
and consumption from the following aspects of distribution for your
film?
Who were the distributors? How well known is/was the company? What is their
track record as distributors? (other films they have distributed)
Who was the target audience for your film? How do you know?
How did the film-makers decide where to release the film and when? What was the
eventual release pattern nationally and locally?
What deals were made for distribution abroad? How easily were these deals
secured?
Why did they at any stage change their plans for the release pattern, and if
so, why?
What was the marketing and advertising strategy for the film?
§Was there a premiere, and if so,
where?
Was your film distributed to digital cinemas?
When did it go to DVD, HD-DVD and what are the sales figures?
How important are internet downloads and YOUTUBE
How does the official film website market the film? Are there any official and
blogs, etc.?
Find film posters and analyse them for how they reach their audience(s)
targeted British audiences to see the film.
What outlets were used for advertising? Were TV spots used?
Were there any merchandising tie-ins? (products/toys, posters, photos, etc. Who
were the consumers/audiences for those?) How were they introduced (as a
marketing campaign in the weeks leading up to the release of the
film?)
Was any additional publicity gained, and if so, how?
How did the distributors market the film by utilizing “the talent” to appear on
TV and radio shows? What kinds of press stories were released as and before the
film came out?
§What were the issues during the
exhibition and consumption /audience phase of your film?
When was the film released; also where and on how many screens?
Was there a particular strategy attached to increasing the number of prints
available?
Were there any difficulties with the censors? How did the censors classify the
film?
Were there any other special restrictions placed on the exhibition of the
film?
What were the reactions of the critics to the film? Was it considered a critical
success? Has it been re-assessed since then?
Find several good film reviews and make notes on common features
Consider the public’s response to the film; read and make notes on features
from reviews on AMAZON, etc.
Did the film create a particular media debate, or create news headlines?
§How much money did the film take in its
first year? Was it considered a commercial/financial success?
Did it have ‘legs’, that is did it continue to run in the cinema for some
time?
Carry out some primary research of your own (a survey) to establish who in your
age group has seen the film and the reasons why. Form a few questions on this.
One might consider the effectiveness of the marketing campaign and which aspect
of it encouraged or discouraged your age group to see or not see the film.
How did the audiences’ reactions affect the institutions (producing
studios/distributors) and the decisions that they might make to “green-light”
future films? For instance, is the production company making more films in the
same genre with similar stars, etc. Or, has the studio decided to target
audiences through a different genre, actors, use of technology, etc. Have
audiences’ tastes changed? Why?
