The following A Level boards: AQA, OCR, and WJEC require students to demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of media institutions. The key requirement across the syllabuses is to understand the relationship between Institutions and their media products.

Students should have knowledge and understanding of these six topics:

1. OWNERSHIP Ways in which ownership of a media institution can affect or influence the content and distribution...

Vertical Integration

Commercial institutions try to combat the power of the BBC by becoming larger and creating vertical integration. This is where an institution has shares or owns each part of the production and distribution process. For example: Warner Bros Entertainment calls itself a fully integrated broad based entertainment company which owns film studios and the means to distribute the films as well as some of the cinemas in which they...

Introduction

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...[ read full article ] »

All A Level boards: AQA, OCR, and WJEC require students to demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of media institutions. The key requirement is to understand the relationship between Institutions and their media products.

Students should have knowledge and understanding of these six topics:

• AUDIENCES The significance of media ownership to the way audiences receive texts.
• TECHNOLOGY The importance of new technologies on media...