Lesson 1 for A-Level Media Studies. Eduqas exam board.

1. Welcome to A-Level Media Studies
Entry Task
Write down your responses to the following questions:
• What are your expectations of Media Studies?
• What do you want to study?
• What do you know about Media Studies?
Write down our email addresses into your diaries
hazel.robbins@cardinalnewman.coventry.sch.uk
nathan.osborne@cardinalnewman.coventry.sch.uk
Central blog address
http://mrshrobbins.blogspot.co.uk
Thursday, 07 September 2017CWK

2. My expectations…
1. Punctuality to lessons – do NOT come to lessons late
2. Be ready to learn – ensure you have a folder with you EVERY lesson
3. Begin the Entry Task on the board – be INDEPENDENT
4. Be proactive learners
5. Respect when other people are talking
6. Participation
7. Confidence
8. POSITIVITY – Media is difficult – do not give up!
9. The desire to achieve
10. Meet all deadlines.
Learning Objective: To understand the expectations of Media lessons

3. Assessment Objectives
AO1
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
• the theoretical framework of media
• contexts of media and their influence on media products and processes.
AO2
Apply knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework of media to:
• analyse media products, including in relation to their contexts and through the use of academic
theories
• evaluate academic ideas and arguments
• make judgements and draw conclusions
AO3
• Create cross-media products for an intended audience, by applying knowledge and understanding of
the theoretical framework of media to communicate meaning
What does each AO mean?
What is it expecting you to
know?

4. Course outline
Paper 1: Component 1: Media Products, Industries and Audiences
35% examination
Learners develop knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework, and skills in analysing
media products:
• A range of forms and products are studied in relation to key aspects of the theoretical framework.
• Learners study a variety of forms through a range of contemporary and historical set products.
Learners also develop:
• knowledge and understanding of how media products relate to relevant contexts
• the ability to use relevant theories and theoretical approaches
• the ability to use relevant subject-specific terminology
• the ability to construct a sustained line of reasoning in an extended response.

5. Course outline Paper 1: Component 1: Media Products, Industries and Audiences
Section A
This section assesses media language and
representation in relation to the following
media forms: advertising and marketing, music
video or newspapers.
There will be two questions.
• One question will assess media language in relation
to an unseen print or audiovisual resource (AO2).
• One extended response question will assess
representation through the comparison of one set
product with an unseen print or audio-visual resource
(AO2). Reference to contexts will be required.
ASSESSMENT
Section B
This assesses media industries and audiences in
relation to the following media forms: advertising, film
cross-media study, newspapers, radio, video
games.
There will be two questions.
• One stepped question assessing knowledge and
understanding of media industries in relation to one
form studied (AO1).
• One stepped question assessing knowledge and
understanding of audiences in relation to a different
media form from that assessed in the industries
question (AO1).

6. Course outline
35% examination
Learners study three media forms in depth:
• Television
• Magazines
• Online media
All products are set by Eduqas and there are options for each media form.
All four areas of the theoretical framework are studied in relation to all forms.
This component requires the close analysis of set products, comparing media language and representations in relation to relevant social,
cultural, economic, political and historical contexts.
Learners develop understanding of the role of media industries in shaping media products and the ways in which audiences are targeted and
addressed.
Learners further develop the ability to analyse and critically compare media products, and to develop a line of reasoning in extended
responses.
The study of the Component 2 topics should be informed by relevant theories – these should be used and evaluated in relation to the set
products in each section.
Paper 2: Media Forms and Products in Depth

7. Course outline Paper 2: Media Forms and Products in Depth
This component assesses media language, representation, media industries, audiences and
media contexts. The exam consists of three sections:
Section A: Television in the Global Age (30 marks)
There will be one two-part question or one extended response question.
Section B – Magazines: Mainstream and Alternative Media (30 marks)
There will be one two-part question or one extended response question.
Section C – Media in the Online Age (30 marks)
There will be one two-part question or one extended response question.
Extended response questions will be based on both of the set products for that form. Each
part of a two-part question will be based on one set product.
Learners need to be prepared to answer on any area or the theoretical framework, including
contexts, and to evaluate theory.
ASSESSMENT

8. Course outline
NEA (Non Exam Assessment): 30% coursework
Component 3 requires learners to create an individual cross-media production in two forms for an intended audience,
applying knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework:
• media language
• representations
• audiences
• media industries, including digital convergence.
Learners must complete one of the briefs set by Eduqas that will be released annually on March 1st in the year prior to
assessment. The briefs will stipulate the industry and audience contexts as well as detailing very specific requirements that
learners must complete, including the required length/quantity of the work. Learners will develop a response to their chosen
brief and create a production in a genre of their choice for the specified industry context and intended audience. It is really
important that learners adhere to the cross-media brief and complete all elements of the set tasks, as learners are assessed
partly on their ability to meet the requirements of the brief.
The production work will be supported by a Statement of Aims and Intentions (approximately 500 words) to explain how the
learner intends to respond to the brief, apply knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework and target the
intended audience. The Statement of Aims and Intentions needs to be completed once the learner has researched and
planned the production, but before the production process begins.
Component 3: Cross-Media Production

9. Course outline
The following forms will always be set:
Component 3: Cross-Media Production

10. Course outline Component 3: Cross-Media Production
Individual work
• All production work must be completed individually; group work is not permitted in
Component 3.
• Each learner must develop their own response to the chosen set brief and all
aspects of the research, planning and production must be completed individually, by
the assessed learner.
• As detailed in the specification, the learner may use unassessed students and
others: to appear in their media products, e.g. as actors or models or to operate
equipment, e.g. lighting or sound recording equipment, under the direction of the assessed
learner.

11. Course outline Component 3: Cross-Media Production
Component 3 assesses AO3: Create media products for an intended audience, by applying knowledge and
understanding of the theoretical framework of media to communicate meaning.
The total number of marks available is 60:
10 marks for the statement of aims to create a media/cross-media production for an intended audience.
20 marks for creating a media/cross-media production that meets the requirements of the set brief:
o Use of conventions relevant to the chosen forms, genre and industry context
o Media products are clearly linked as a cross-media production
o Appropriate mode of address, to engage and position the intended audience
o Tasks set out in the brief are completed.
30 marks for creating a media/cross-media production which uses media language to communicate meanings and
construct representations.
Use of media language to communicate meanings and construct points of view
o At higher levels, this might include elements such as intertextuality and hybridity
Effective design or narrative structure
Use of media language to construct appropriate representations.
ASSESSMENT

12. Key Media Concepts: The Theoretical Framework
• Media Language
• Representation
• Media Industries
• Audiences
These concepts underpin
everything you will learn across
the two years.

13. Key Points: Media Language
• How the different modes and language associated with different media forms communicate multiple
meanings
• How the combination of elements of media language influence meaning
• How developing technologies affect media language
• The codes and conventions of media forms and products, including the processes through which
media language develops as genre
• The dynamic and historically relative nature of genre
• The processes through which meanings are established through intertextuality
• How audiences respond to and interpret the above aspects of media language
• How genre conventions are socially and historically relative, dynamic and can be used in a hybrid way
• The significance of challenging and/or subverting genre conventions
• The significance of the varieties of ways intertextuality can be used in the media
• The way media language incorporates viewpoints and ideologies

14. Key Points: Representation
• The way events, issues, individuals (including self-representation) and social groups (including social identity) are
represented through processes of selection and combination
• The way the media through representation construct versions of reality
• The processes which lead media producers to make choices about how to represent events, issues, individuals and
social groups
• The effect of social and cultural context on representation
• How and why stereotypes can be used positively and negatively
• How and why particular social groups, in a national and global context, may be underrepresented or misrepresented
• How media representations convey values, attitudes and beliefs about the world and how these may be
systematically reinforced across a wide range of media representations
• How audiences respond to and interpret media representations
• The way in which representations make claims about realism
• The impact of industry contexts on the choices media producers make about how to represent events, issues,
individuals and social groups
• The effect of historical context on representations
• How representations invoke discourses and ideologies and position audiences
• How audience responses to and interpretations of media representations reflect social, cultural and historical
circumstances

15. Key Points: Media Industries
• Processes of production, distribution and circulation by organisations, groups and individuals in a global
context
• The specialised and institutionalised nature of media production, distribution and circulation
• The relationship of recent technological change and media production, distribution and circulation
• The significance of patterns of ownership and control, including conglomerate ownership, vertical integration
and diversification
• The significance of economic factors, including commercial and not-for-profit public funding, to media
industries and their products
• How media organisations maintain, including through marketing, varieties of audiences nationally and globally
• The regulatory framework of contemporary media in the UK
• The impact of 'new' digital technologies on media regulation, including the role of individual producers
• How processes of production, distribution and circulation shape media products
• The impact of digitally convergent media platforms on media production, distribution and circulation, including
individual producers
• The role of regulation in global production, distribution and circulation
• The effect of individual producers on media industries

16. Key Points: Audience
• How audiences are grouped and categorised by media industries, including by age, gender and social class,
as well as by lifestyle and taste
• How media producers target, attract, reach, address and potentially construct audiences
• How media industries target audiences through the content and appeal of media products and through the
ways in which they are marketed, distributed and circulated
• The interrelationship between media technologies and patterns of consumption and response
• How audiences interpret the media, including how and why audiences may interpret the same media in
different ways
• How audiences interact with the media and can be actively involved in media production
• How specialised audiences can be reached, both on a national and global scale, through different media
technologies and platforms
• How media organisations reflect the different needs of mass and specialised audiences, including through
targeting
• How audiences use media in different ways, reflecting demographic factors as well as aspects of identity and
cultural capital
• The role and significance of specialised audiences, including niche and fan, to the media
• The way in which different audience interpretations reflect social, cultural and historical circumstances

17. READING MEDIA LANGUAGE
Visual signs can communicate meaning.
Signification is to do with the ways things act as signs.
Signs are composed of two parts:
• What we can see - the signifier
•The meaning we take from it- the signified
Please make notes for
EACH slide. You will
need to refer to this as
we move through the
course

18. We understand visual signs in the same way that we understand words.
Although each of these signifiers is different the signified is the same - “direction.”

19. TYPES OF SIGNS
The iconic sign. This is a sign which resembles what it signifies.
resembles a crossroads.
resembles a set of traffic lights.
Examples

20. The arbitrary or conventional sign.
This type of sign only signifies something because we all agree that it does.
All words are arbitrary signs.
Dog
in no way resembles a roundabout.

21. The symbolic sign, or symbol.
This is a sign which is a mixture of iconic and conventional. We call it symbolic because it
signifies much more than its iconic significance.
are symbolicand
whereas
is iconic.

22. The indexical sign.
This is a sign that has a close link with what it signifies, but the link is not one of
resemblance because what an indexical sign signifies is usually invisible.
are an index of time.
expressions are an index of feeling.

23. DENOTATION and CONNOTATION
Words and images in media texts can work on more than one level.
You will come across the terms denotation and connotation throughout your course.
They are important terms for you to understand.
Please learn to use them in your essay responses.

24. DENOTATION is the straight forward or common- sense meaning of a sign.
Literally what is actually shown in an image.
A red rose is a flower – that is its straight forward meaning or denotation
An apple is a fruit we eat-
A lamb is a young sheep-

25. CONNOTATION is the extra, linked meaning that goes with any sign.
The connotations of a sign will be much more personal than the straight forward
denotation because they are to do with personal ideas and feelings about it.
The connotations will not be the same for everybody.

26. Think about the rose…
For romantics a red rose can be a symbol of love.
In Lancashire it is a symbol for the county.
It has even been a symbol for a political party.
These are all connotations or extra layers of meaning
that the image carries with it.

27. Think about the apple…
It can be a symbol of health.
It can have associated meanings of New
York -“The Big Apple”.
It can even have stand for sin.
These are all connotations or extra layers
of meaning that the image carries with it.

28. And the lamb…
For some a lamb has linked or extra
meanings to do with Wales..
For others it has religious meaning.
It can even stand for a season- Spring .
These are all connotations or extra
layers of meaning that the image carries
with it.

29. A two step content analysis of pictures.
1. Denotation. Straightforward reading of what is in the
picture.
2. Connotation. The extra, linked meanings that go with
the picture.
1 :- Sky. Sand. Girl. Boy. Donkey.
2:- Beach. Seaside. Holiday. Family holiday.
Traditional British holiday.

30. Notice how other pictures can have different denotational suggestions but the same
connotational suggestions.
The connotations for all
of these pictures is the
same as the previous
one- traditional, family
holidays.
The bright colours, blue
skies and smiling faces
have connotations of
happiness.

31. Home Learning: Consumption of media presentation.
Due: 14th September 2017
Create a log of the media that you have used across a period of 5 days. Use the following to
help you with this:
• List the websites/apps/TV/Film/magazine etc. you consumed.
• How long did you use that form of media?
• What did you learn from this media?
• What was the purpose of using that form of media?
• What are the top forms of media that you use?
• How many minutes/hours across the 5 days have you spent accessing the top three
forms of media in your list?
You can create your log as a handwritten piece, an image, a video etc. You will present this
to the rest of the class.