Ideas on how to structure answers and apply media theories to the G325 exam section 1 - following the Music coursework brief.

1. Revision Day
1. Exam structure (1 hour)
2. Theory application (2 hours)

2. 1. Exam structure – 1a
Read through the exemplar pack and, in pairs, annotate each one in terms of
paragraph structure. Then make notes using the following prompt questions:
• How do the students introduce the essay?
• How do they move into the body of the essay?
• How much of the word count do they devote to AS and A2?
• Where and how have they made links between the two halves?
• How do they clearly explain the progress they have made?
• Is any theory referred to? How is it presented?
• What kind of terminology (e.g. theoretical? Technical?) have they used and
where?
• What crossover with other questions is in evidence?
• How do they conclude?

3. 1. Exam structure – 1b
Read through the exemplar pack and, in pairs, annotate each one in terms of
paragraph structure. Then make notes using the following prompt questions:
• How do the students introduce the essay?
• How do they move into the body of the essay?
• Is any theory referred to? How is it presented?
• How do they link the theories to their constructions?
• What kind of terminology (e.g. theoretical? Technical?) have they used and
where?
• How have they mixed in other key concepts (e.g. the impact of
narrative/genre or representation on audience appeal)?
• What other crossover with other questions is in evidence?
• How do they conclude?

4. 1. Create your own essay plan
To save thinking time and head space in the exam, devise a one sheet
plan which can be applied to any question option, then adapt it further.
This can be written, visual, verbal (i.e. recorded in the booth), done as a
Prezi. . . Whatever helps you revise and remember it.
Things to consider:
• How to introduce
• Where to apply theories
• Where to apply terminology to use
• How to structure into paragraphs
• What material you could write in any question (and where to put it)
• How to conclude

5. 2. Theory application
QUIZ TIME!!

6. Question 1
What audience theory suggests people can be
influenced through discussions with their
friends/family?

7. Question 2
What theorist said that genre theory is limiting as it
does not allow for the acknowledgement of hybrid?

8. Question 3
What audience theory says that we are directly
influenced by what we watch in the media and could
repeat actions seen?

9. Question 4
What genre theorist said that iconography is the key to
understanding genre?

10. Question 5
What audience theory states that there are 5 reasons
for interacting with the media?

11. Question 6
Can you name all 5 reasons?

12. Question 7
What genre theorists said that Hollywood’s success is
reliant on repetition with variation?

13. Question 8
What audience theory says that audiences will be
affected over a period of time by the repetition of
images?

14. Question 9
What is an auteur?

15. Question 10
What is the main criticism of mass audience
theories?

16. Question 1
What audience theory suggests people can be
influenced through discussions with their
friends/family?
Two Step Flow

17. Question 2
What theorist said that genre theory is limiting as it
does not allow for the acknowledgement of hybrid?
Rick Altman

18. Question 3
What audience theory says that we are directly
influenced by what we watch in the media and could
repeat actions seen?
Hypodermic Syringe

19. Question 4
What genre theorist said that iconography is the key
to understanding genre?
Edward Buscombe

20. Question 5
What audience theory states that there are 5
reasons for interacting with the media?
Uses and gratifications

21. Question 6
Can you name all 5 reasons?
Information
Identification
Interaction
Entertainment
Escapism

22. Question 7
What genre theorists said that Hollywood’s success
is reliant on repetition with variation?
Richard Maltby and Ian Craven

23. Question 8
What audience theory says that audiences will be
affected over a period of time by the repetition of
images?
Culmination theory

24. Question 9
What is an auteur?
A film maker that was/is considered
to be particularly influential and
artistic.

25. Question 10
What is the main criticism of mass audience
theories?
Does not take in to account the
individual make up

26. Application of theory – in general
Remember – the idea is to relate everything you say in regard to theory to
precise, specific things within your product. The bigger the meaning you can
assign to small examples, the better your response will be.
What to use as examples (music video):
• Camera shots/movements
• Composition/framing
• Narrative points
• Transitions
• Effects
• Lighting decisions
• Mise-en-scene (including actors)
• Any diegetic sound used alongside the non-diegetic music track.

27. Media Language reminder
• Any theory of narrative or genre can be used within
the media language question.
• The main point will be to explain how you have
encoded meanings within the text, using codes and
conventions.

28. Audience Theory

29. Application – reception theory (Hall)
• Preferred meaning: what thematic meaning, as a media producer, did you
encode into your construction?
• Negotiated meaning: what prior knowledge or experience does the
audience need to bring to your construction in order to grasp the preferred
meaning? (examples – prior knowledge of genre conventions, intertextual
references, narrative expectations)
• Oppositional meaning: What ambiguities are present within your
construction that create enigma, but could lead the audience to a different
meaning? Were these put in deliberately by you, the producer?
Related: Fiske wrote: ‘popular culture is made by the people’, so what
messages or ideologies do you think your audience will accept in your
product?

30. Application – uses and gratifications (McQuail)
As one advertising product among thousands, your music video must compete to
be selected (used) by an audience to provide gratifications.
• Diversion: how does your video distract an audience from real life? How does it
appeal to their emotions and create an emotional release?
• Personal relationships/interaction: how does your video promote/create
companionship? Does it inform the audience of social identity which they can
apply to create social relationships? (i.e. does it provide information on how to
find social acceptance?)
• Personal identity: linked to the above, how does your video help the audience to
explore their reality and understand themselves? (i.e. does your video deal with a
particular issue and provide solutions? Does it present stereotypical ideals that
‘instruct’ the audience on how to behave?)
• Surveillance/information: Does you video promote ideas which may help the
audience understand something or see how to accomplish something?
Link – Althusser: What means have you given the audience to construct themselves
into your product? How have you used realism to make this possible?

31. Application – Thornton and Hebdige
• Thornton relates to the idea of a negotiated meaning – in this
negotiated through the use of “subcultural capital” in media texts.
What subcultural commodities or values have you included that might
attract certain subcultural groups? What links are there between your
product and the style of music, bearing in mind musical preference
often signals subcultural allegiance?
• Hebdige talks about how members of a subculture signal their
belonging through symbolic use of style: fashion, mannerisms, argot
(methods of excluding outsiders, e.g. coded slang speech). Is there
any use of symbolism, linked to subculture, in your video?
Link – Dyer (star image), usually linked to stereotypes – how is the
artist image (if appropriate) being constructed in a way that might
signal subcultural allegiance?

32. Application – Marxism (Gramsci)
Marxism concerns the creation of ideologies within texts – the issue is whether
more idealised ideologies are being forced upon the masses by the small minority
of media producers/owners with agendas of social/political control.
• Does your preferred reading (link to Hall) contain any ideologies you wish to
promote?
• How have you put them there? Will the audience engage with them without any
negotiation? (note – this is a passive audience theory)
• Does your product use any commonly held stereotypes/archetypes?
• Does your product respond to any kind of ‘moral panic’ or paint subcultural
allegiance in a bad light?
• Is there a clear sense of ‘this is good and this is bad’?
Link – Hypodermic Needle: what could be argued to be the one set meaning of
your product? How does the application of Hall or McQuail argue against this?
Culmination – Has the repetition of images or ideas contributed to this?

33. Narrative Theory

34. Application - Todorov
Does your video show some or all elements of Todorov’s narrative?
• Equilibrium
• Disequilibrium
• Recognition
• Repair (sometimes multiple attempts)
• Rising action
• Climax
• New equilibrium
Does the video do this in order (linear narration) or not (non-linear
narration)?

35. Application - Barthes
• Enigma or hermeneutic – What questions do you get the audience to ask
themselves, which attracts them to the text? What information do you
deliberately miss out or disrupt/mask through effects or editing choices?
• Action or proairetic – In what way have you implied actions or events
without showing them? Have you used non-linear approaches to create
suspense and reveal plotlines?
• Semiotic – Links to media language and negotiated meaning. What
connections or associations have you made apparent to the audience
through use of symbolic codes (e.g. connotations – white = purity, etc.)?
• Plus. . . How did you ensure your text works in line with expected
conventions – either those defined by Goodwin for music videos in general,
or those defined by the genre of music you worked with?

36. Application – Levi-Strauss
Levi-Strauss explored the use of binary opposition in terms of
opposites, contrasts or radical juxtapositions.
• What oppositions are there in your product? Between characters?
Within characters?
• What contrasts are there in terms of settings and situations?
• What is juxtaposed in your product – how does the use of editing,
camera shots or effects highlight the difference? By juxtaposition, you
can also refer to the way different sections of narrative are juxtaposed
to one another in a non-linear pattern.

37. Application - Goodwin
• This should be obvious and something you are used to.
• Goodwin can be applied to most questions:
• Audience – how the matching of lyrics/music to visuals signals subcultural
allegiance?
• Narrative – how are the notions of narrative being effected/played with to fit
Goodwin? Has trying to match visuals to music created a less Todorvian, more
enigmatic product?
• Representation – how have notions of looking created representations within
your text?
• Genre – How has the theory of Goodwin been generally met as a generic
framework?

38. Genre Theory

39. Application – genre theory (Gledhill and
Neale)
• Gledhill – genre conventions are used to standardise and stabilise
production, catering for different audiences specifically.
Remembering that your video is a advert, and therefore a product
very much created (in real life) to meet institutional needs, what
genre conventions have you deliberately and overtly used in order to
ensure all of the audience for that genre will engage with the product
and meet the desired outcome (e.g. buy the album)?
• Neale – opposed to Gledhill, Neale said differences between texts
within a genre and the constant development of conventions is as
essential as their repetition. Where a genre is limiting, it will die out
(e.g. westerns). In what ways have you taken genre conventions and
challenged or developed them, in order to create a new convention?

40. Application – genre theory (Tudor and
Buscombe)
Separate to the other two, Tudor described genre as defining a moral
or social world.
• What are the moral and social definitions within your chosen music
genre?
• How have these been expressed visually and narratively?
• What are the links to audience (uses and gratifications)?
Buscombe describes the way that iconography signals genre. How does
this operate within your video? How have you set about choosing
iconography that relates to the genre of music?