Media Evaluation

1. M A I S I E T I M M I N S
2) How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary texts?

2. Documentary
For my main product I created a 5 minute opening
sequence to a documentary. I chose to focus on the
topic of pressure from the media on appearances and
the effect that this has on teenagers. The aim was to
investigate this topic to show teenaged girls between
the ages of 13-19 (my primary target audience) that
they are not alone in feeling this pressure. I also
wanted to highlight this pressure to parents (my
secondary target audience) to emphasize the effect it is
having on their children.

3. Radio advert and DPS
My ancillary texts consist of a radio advert and a
double page spread for a TV listing. These products
serve the purpose of advertising the documentary and
promoting it to my target audience.

4. Consistent themes - Voxpops
In our documentary we asked students “If you could look like a
celebrity or someone in the public eye, who would it be?” to
which we received the responses “if I could look like a celebrity I
would probably say someone like Beyonce” and “Beyonce”. We
used these voxpops in our radio trailer to show consistency
throughout the two products and emphasize how they relate.
The use of the same voices from the voxpops throughout the
radio ad and documentary highlights their relationship.
However, we didn’t effectively continue this consistency through
to our double page spread as we didn’t include the same
voxpops. The use of the voxpops from teenagers themselves will
have been successful in channeling our target audience and
connecting with them as they are of similar ages.

5. Consistent themes - Date and Time
I showed consistency throughout my
products by including the date, channel
and time of the documentary to the end
of the radio trailer and end of the article.
For example, the last thing that is
mentioned in the trailer is “Switch to
ITV1 on Tuesday 9th of December at
8pm”.
There wasn’t any need for us to include this in our documentary as the
people watching it will have already been notified of the time, date and
channel. This would mean that my ancillary products were successful in
advertising my documentary.

6. Consistent themes - Stats
I used statistics in all 3 of my products to highlight their informative purpose. In the
documentary we said:
 “92% of teenage girls would like to change something about the way they look, with body weight
ranking the highest”
 “98% of girls feel there is an immense pressure from external sources to look a certain way”
 “7 in 10 girls believe they are not good enough or do not measure up
in some ways, including looks, performance in school and relationships
with family and friends.”
In the radio advert we said:
 “74% of girls say they are under pressure to please everyone, 98% of
girls would like to change something about the way they look and 90% of girls suffer with eating disorders
because of this pressure.”
 “Pressure from the media is something that affects 1 in 3 people.”
And in the double page spread we said:
 “40% of all 9 and 10 year old girls have already been on a diet.”
All of the stats we used relate to body image and appearance. This links to Ferdinand De Saussure’s theory
that everything has a pattern and some kind of structure. I think I effectively related all three products
together in this aspect as it presents them all as factual products and suggests that the writer of the article,
speaker in the radio advert and presenter of the documentary have a great deal of knowledge in the topic
they are discussing.

7. Consistent themes - Presenter
There is the same presenter throughout the 5 minutes of the documentary however this
presenter doesn’t feature as the writer in the double page spread or the speaker in the radio
advert. This can be seen as a lack of consistency through the products. Although, images of
the presenter are used in the double page spread which creates a clear link. I didn’t want to
use the same presenter in the documentary for the radio advert or the DPS as this isn’t a
reflection of real life products. Due to the use of the images of the presenter in the DPS there
is still a pattern. There is also a pattern in terms of one person being in control and leading
the product (the presenter in documentary, writer in article and speaker in advert). This
links to Ferdinand De Saussure’s theory that there is a pattern in everything as, despite not
using the same presenter, there are still evident links between the
products.

8. Consistent themes - Music
We mediated the music in the radio advert to ensure it was an upbeat,
contemporary style. Although we didn’t use the same music in both
products, we used a similar style to make sure the products flowed and
related to each other. Obviously we couldn’t use music in the dps so, when
writing the article I made sure I used informal language and rhetorical
questions like “Sound ridiculous, right?” to reflect the tone of the other
products and create a relationship between the reader and writer whilst
still keeping the formality of a real life product.

9. Consistent themes - Experts
We could have been more consistent with our experts as we don’t carry
them through into the radio advert like we did in the other two products.
The experts that feature in our documentary are Ella Victoria (a beauty
and lifestyle Vlogger on YouTube) and Jake Timmins (a psychology
expert).
We didn’t have enough space on our dps to include
information on both experts therefore we just
included Ella as we thought this would attract
young girls to read the dps and further, watch the
documentary, because they may watch her videos
on YouTube.