This document provides revision materials for Section A of an exam focusing on analyzing representations in media texts. It outlines the key areas and texts that may be covered, including advertisements, music videos, and print media like The Big Issue. For advertisements, students are told to consider the brand/company history and identity, representations of people, places and ideologies, and how media language is used. For music videos, the summary highlights analyzing the artist history and audience reaction, representations, and use of media language. The document provides example texts that could come up and emphasizes representing 2 out of the given media forms will be examined.

1. SECTION A
REVISION
LO: To highlight the texts that Section A will be based on
and relate them to possible questions.

2. Question Areas
Media
Language
Representation
CulturalHistorical PoliticalSocial

3. Media
Language

4. Misé en Scene
Sound
Camera
Editing

5. Representation

6. Stereotypes followed or
subverted.
Consider:
• People
• Places
• Ideologies

7. CulturalHistorical
Social

8. CulturalHistorical
Social

9. Exam Focus
Remember the exam will only focus on
2 text areas.
For example:
•Music videos and Adverts
•Adverts and Big Issue
•Music videos and Big Issue

10. Advertisement Texts

11. Old Spice
The Old Spice ‘Smell Like A
Man’ campaign poster from
2010 was a transformative
mass market campaign for
the aftershave brand.
Prior to 2010 the Old Spice
brand was associated with a
much older, more mature
male audience.
This magazine advert was a
continuing part of a campaign
that sought to reposition the
brand and make it more
accessible to younger
audiences.

12. Lucozade
The Lucozade ‘I believe’
campaign poster from 2013
was part of a £4m mass
market campaign to educate
consumers about how the soft
drink brand can help improve
people’s sports performance,
and features footballer Gareth
Bale as a key brand
ambassador.

13. Shelter
Shelter, the UK based housing and homelessness charity
launched an advertising campaign in 2011 that was
produced for those at risk of homelessness to point them
to Shelter’s free services and guide them to seek advice
on issues around homelessness earlier.

14. Advertisements: What to Revise
• History of the brand/company
• The brand’s/company’s identity and how it has
changed over time
• The representations (place, places, ideologies)
offered and how they link to the brand/company
• When analysing the texts consider how they link to:
Social Issues
Cultural Issues
Historical Issues
Political Issues
• How media language is used to communicate to
audience

15. Further Points

16. Video Texts
Massive Attack
‘Unfinished Sympathy’
David Guetta
‘Titanium’

17. Massive Attack
‘Unfinished Sympathy’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWmrfgj0M
ZI
The music videos in List A all
feature their respective
artist(s) and are a mixture of
performance and narrative,
and raise a number of similar
representational issues
surrounding ‘street life’.

18. David Guetta ‘Titanium’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfuAukYTKg
The music videos in List B do
not feature their respective
artist(s) at all, instead, with each
music video celebrating the
power of narrative and
signification and a postmodern
emphasis on intertextuality.
The videos in List B each use
very different representations to
each other, but each contrasts
clearly with the representations
featured in the music videos in
list A.

19. Music Videos: What to Revise
• History/overview of the artist
• Audience reaction to the videos
• The representations (place, places, ideologies) offered and
how they link to the artist
• When analysing the texts consider how they link to:
Social Issues
Cultural Issues
Historical Issues
• How media language is used to communicate to audience

20. Mark Scheme Points
How producers may choose to include different representations in music videos to
promote the artist(s), for example:
• producers of music videos may construct representations of the artist(s) that
emphasise key aspects of their image, such as their performance prowess, which
depending on the genre of music video could be high paced, coordinated dance
routines, or performance highlighting the artist’s (or artists’) musical prowess and
artistry, or narrative performance highlighting the artist’s (or artists’) image.
Music videos may focus on one element of those highlighted above in depth but
producers are more likely to select a combination of these elements to strongly
emphasise key aspects of the artist’s (or artists’) mediated
Image.
• producers of music videos may construct representations of the target audience
for the artist(s), for example the storyline of narrative elements of a music video
may feature representations (or idealised representations) of fans (the target
audience) interacting with the artist(s) in order to elicit within fans a feeling of
belonging and loyalty with regard to the mediated image and/or music of the
artist’s (or artists’).

21. Mark Scheme Points
Producers of music videos may promote the artist(s) to their fan-base (target audience) through elicit
value-transference to the artist(s) through representations other than those of the artist(s), for
example:
•Through artistic excellence and high production values, e.g. a highly cinematic in style narrative music
video.
•Through more abstract, ‘high art’ expressionist videos (that may be live action, animated or feature
digital CGI.
•Videos may feature a combination of these elements that appeal to the artist’s fan-base (target
audience)
•Through the use of glamour, for example, featuring representations artist(s) through the use of
performers (which may be real, digital or animated) in ‘glamorous’ and / or highly aspirational
situations.
•Music videos may also elicit value transference through the use of performance and high fashion
using highly skilled and elaborately costumed dance artists completing complex routines in sync with
the beat of the artist’s (or artists’) track.
•Music videos may also elicit value-transference through constructed narrative representations that
demonstrate an ‘opposition to the status quo’ in-order to elicit a feeling within the artist’s (or artists’)
fan-base (target audience) of loyalty to the artist(s) and of being part of a larger movement.

22. Mark Scheme Points
Presentation of examples of use of representations in music videos, for example:
• Massive Attack's video uses social realist representation of ‘street life’ to represent the
authenticity and cultural currency of the artists
• The single shot naturalism and use of non-actors, for example in the Massive Attack video to
emphasise the realism of the
representation to add to the ‘cutting edge’ image of the artists
• the representation of poverty and inequality, aiming to transfer that value of transcendence
to the artist
• the use of intertextual, postmodern representations in List B videos to transfer the quality of
the video itself to the image of the artists, e.g. the cinéphiliac recreation of Spielbergian 80s
suburban America in the David Guetta video
• the use of messages and viewpoints in videos that aim to bolster the image of the artist and
chime with those of the positioned audience, e.g. the very filmic representation of teenage
alienation in Guetta’s video creates an ambiguous message that adds to the sophistication of
Guetta’s image and fits the large-scale nature of the song.
Also highlight all points
identified in classroom
analysis

23. Print 'Big Issue' Text
Media
Language
Represe
ntation
CulturalHistorical PoliticalSocial
For the Big Issue text you
will be given an unseen
text that you will have to
analyse referencing the
highlighted areas linking
to the question being
asked.