This is not in any way prescriptive, but offers some suggestions for a scheme of work aiming towards the MS1 2 ½ hour exam.
WJEC suggests that for a typical two sessions per week AS class, the basic plan for Term 1 is to start with an introduction to Media Studies and particularly textual analysis (MS1) and slowly introduce the key concepts: Genre, Narrative, and then after about November teach Representation and responses and textual examples alongside the start of practical production work for MS2.
Term 2 will be split between a weekly session on MS2 practical course work, and a weekly session teaching material relating to MS1. Effectively after mid November in Term 1, MS1 and MS2 are being taught concurrently.
Associated Resources
Key Concepts – Genre, Narrative, Representation, Media Language and Audience
Opening Sequences – Film Analysis Children of Men
Magazines – Image Analysis
Advertising – Introduction
Music Video
Radio
Television Crime Drama – Soaps – Sci-fi, Doctor Who
Iconography
Theory: Genre Theory – Audience Theory – Media Theorists
MS1
Weeks 1/2 Class Work
A brief overview of the whole course and an introduction to Media Studies – you may want to run this over at least two sessions.
Introduction to the importance of image analysis in Media Studies. Image analysis is at the heart of this AS module, aiming towards Q1 in the exam which is analysis of an unseen extract, and worth 40 marks.
Start teaching visual codes and key concept genre and genre conventions in print, television programmes and film. See Genre on this site.
Suggest start with print.
Activity
In small groups look at print texts such as magazines, newspapers front pages, CD covers and DVD covers. Begin to analyse how images are used in print to attract an audience, and how content is linked to images.
Introduce magazine genres: case study of ‘life-style’ or ‘fashion’ or ‘gossip’ or ‘hobby’. Look at PRINT ANALYSIS on this site.
Weeks 3/4 Class Work
Look at the way narrative informs genre, and how audience expectations are set up by narrative arcs and plot. Discuss other genre conventions such as iconography and setting with examples such as Vampire films – Twilight (2008), and any Dracula. Introduce the concept of hybrids.
Look at opening sequences of TV shows to show importance of characters and star actors in signposting genre – e.g. Robin Hood (BBC) or Merlin (BBC) , soap operas, crime dramas – see this site for Crime Drama Analysis.
Narrative in images in print especially newspaper and magazine images. The Spectrum section from the Sunday Times Magazine is especially good for photo realism/journalism.
Activity
Students in pairs watch selected opening sequences and create a chart of genre related characters, settings, plot teases, iconography. Look at analysing an opening sequence (Children of Men) on this site.
Weeks 5/6 Class Work
Introduction to the technical codes used in moving image texts such as TV Drama and Film. Teacher led introduction to exploring moving images through shot size, character POV and third person POV, camera angles, editing and audio codes, particularly use of music e.g. sig tunes in radio and title music in TV. Students to work on how meaning is formed through technical codes.
See GENRE and SHOT SIZE under KEY CONCEPTS on this site.
Activity
Quiz to stimulate students’ understanding of these concepts. Teacher starts with still images as initial stimulus. Students in pairs to find still images and create quiz to test other pairs.
e.g. Horror genre see http://www.teachnet-uk.org.uk/So You Think You Know Horror
Film genre: stills from ‘Gangster’ or ‘Horror’ or ‘Sci-Fi’– teacher led.
Television genre: stills from ‘Soap’ or ‘Sit-com’ or ‘Police drama’ – teacher led.
Week 7 Class Work
Teacher led introduction to some narrative theories – chose from Todorov, Propp, Levy-Strauss Binary opposites, open and closed narratives, codes of action / codes of enigma. Lots of examples from film, TV and postmodern shows such as the excellent BBC Sherlock which alludes to former TV shows, and the eponymous fictional character, but uses post modern devices such as phone text on the screen while sticking to the fundamental detective series format. This may be a good time to teach denotation and connotation. See MediaEdu Glossary for handy definitions.
See NARRATIVE under KEY CONCEPTS on this site.
Activity
Students in pairs select one TV series and dissect its narrative construction in terms of one theorist such as Todorov or Propp. Possibly short presentation to class.
Week 8 Reinforcement Week
Revise key concepts of genre, and narrative and genre theorists. Revise technical codes especially for moving image and newspaper / magazine front pages. Explore genre in different media texts including video games, DVD and CD covers, print, TV and film. The spec says students should be able to analyse image texts from across these media forms:
- Advertisements
- CD covers or DVD covers
- Newspaper front pages
- Magazines (including comics)
- Websites (if selected for exam, websites will be in print-based format)
MOVING IMAGE
- Film extracts
- Television sequences
- Computer game extracts
- Music videos
AUDIO
- Radio sequences
- Radio advertisements
Weeks 9/10 Class Work
Start consideration of Representation and responses. Teacher led lecture on encoding and the way meaning is encoded in representations.
Discuss process of mediation in the construction of a text.
Look at social groups such as teenagers, immigrants, Northerners or Southerners, older people. Also look at places such as Beijing, London, New York.
Choose examples that offer a variety of texts – many films and TV shows are set in New York and/or London.
Discuss the representations of young women in film, or television and/or advertising. Key questions to ask about representations:
1. Who or what is being represented, and how is this representation constructed by the text?
2. How does the text convey or suggest reality?
3. How do audiences deconstruct texts according to their knowledge and experience of the world?
4. What is a stereotype and why is it useful in a text as a shorthand to convey messages quickly?
Activity
1. Students to create stereotypical profiles for a chosen group or place such as Paris or Premiership footballers’ wives.
2. Students imagine they are casting directors looking for particular characters and locations, in a film and make presentations with visuals to class on what stereotypes or counter stereotypes they are looking for.
Homework
Students to research a group or place, and choose several media examples and bring in at least one example to present to the class.
Week 7 - 8 Class Work
Continue Representation and responses. Look at some theory e.g. Tessa Perkins, Richard Dyer, possibly Marxism / Hegemony, Post-modernism. Where students are discussing media theories, it is important that they can apply these to media texts rather than simply ‘name–drop’ them.
Teach textual examples. This could include texts that represent a group of people and a place e.g. Friends represents both ‘professional thirty-somethings’ and New York – discuss why Friends is still so popular with teenage girls?
See REPRESENTATIONS under KEY CONCEPTS on this site.
Students have to learn
2-3 examplesof representation in texts for the MS1 exam which include representations of:
Gender, Ethnicity, Age, Issues, Events, Regional and National identities.
The student protests in autumn 2010 offer a variety of different news images and narratives – in many ways the still images in newspapers and on news websites offer the best images for analysis – it might be worth discussing why this is.
Activity
This is an exercise in how we see ourselves in media terms, and how we might present our social group to an alien from Mars.
Work in pairs. Use a digital still camera to take images to represent your social group, your genders, ethnicity, style of living, issues and activities and where you live. Try and suggest the position of your group in society, and your group’s economic value to a media institution. Create images to suggest how your group might be represented in print and on say a TV news programme.
Start teaching essay skills – how to begin an essay, how to develop a subject and how to create an essay structure.
Homework
Write a short essay – one page of A4 using image analysis of an opening of a film, or a particular website or a print advertisement. The text for analysis can be put on the intranet.
For a full consideration of IMAGE ANALYSIS see under KEY TUTORIALS on this site.
Week 9 Class Work
More detailed and exam orientated text analysis. Students now have the concepts of genre, narrative and representation in their armory and can begin to study how complex texts are constructed and how they can be interpreted by audiences.
Students should be able to discuss the role of selection, construction and anchorage in creating representations and how the media use representations. They should start identifying the messages and values underlying texts. Look at websites as well as TV shows, films, video games, magazines and newspapers.
WJEC expects students to be able to discuss three taught examples in the MS1 exam. One should be an event and how it is mediated.
Teacher to select an event such as the World Cup 2010 or the forthcoming Royal Wedding and examine how the event is represented by different media. This will form one of the students’ examples for MS1.
An event is something that takes place, is presented in the media and has significance for an audience. Some examples include a televised pop festival such as Glastonbury which could be linked to representations of youth. A national event such as the royal wedding or a local event such as a Christmas carol concert, or an important local sporting event, or a national sporting event such as Wimbledon or the Olympic games, or a News event such as student protests in London and around the UK.
Students should be able to write about :
- How the event has been represented in different media texts – print, TV, radio.
- Whose ideas and values are expressed in the representations of the event – which institutions, which group of people, which media company.
- How might different audiences respond to the representations of the event?
- What is the preferred reading of the event?
- How age, gender, and ethnicity are represented
At least two other examples - assuming an event is the first example - of representations are required for the exam. Some suggestions:
- Representations of gender in computer games – study at least two computer games
- Representations of body image in fashion and games media – mainly print but video games too.
- Representations of gender in advertising
- Representations in gender in sport texts – why are so few women’s sports written about in newspapers?
Week 10 Class Work
Audiences - Part I - Introduction to the concept of audience. WJEC requires students to study the way in which audiences can be categorised including advertisers’ economic categories (A, B1, C2 etc). You will need to introduce some theory: Active/Passive debate. Uses and Gratifications, Two-step flow, Reception theory, Stuart Hall and Morley. Students need to understand target audiences, niche audiences, psychographics, demographics.
For details on audience measurement, Maslow, demographics etc see MediaEdu - Advertising
Activity
Each small group to explore examples of targeting audiences from music videos. They offer a good way into analysis of a product that has the sole purpose of selling an audio text to an audience using a visual medium.
See this website heading POPULAR MUSIC ON TV for more detailed information about music videos and suggestions.
Homework
Students to do some audience research into their own family’s media consumption across media including newspapers, TV programmes, music videos on YouTube, internet sites, social networking sites.
Write a report incorporating theoretical knowledge gained so far on audience responses.
Week 11 Class Work
Audiences - Part II - Finish theory and discuss how students can write about audience, using examples and where audience statistics can be found – BARB, ABC, and RAJAR. Question 2 in the MS1 exam is about representation and audiences.
Explore how different audiences respond differently to the same media text. You might use the trailer of a British film such as Slumdog Millionaire or Hot Fuzz – see analysis of Hot Fuzz and Slumdog trailers:
https://media.edusites.co.uk/index.php/article/film-trailer-workshop/
Possible examples might be drawn from Hollywood films, and how a film is presented globally and across the media to find the widest audiences – e.g. ‘Cloverfield’ (viral publicity), ‘Mamma Mia’ (stars and music),‘Dark Knight’ (Family entertainment, comics & stars)
For a full consideration of theories and debates about AUDIENCE see under KEY CONCEPTS on this website.
Homework
Second text analysis essay - write a timed essay max 40 mins analysing representations from the taught event discussed in Week 9.
Week 12/13 Class Work
One of the taught examples that students can use in the exam could come from Advertising and this could also be something that they can produce practically for MS2. WJEC has constructed this AS course to be holistic so that the two modules MS1 and MS2 relate and overlap.
In this session Introduction to Advertising. Explore a case study across platforms such as the Chanel No 9 film / tv and print advertisements.
Regulation, the work of the ASA.
For notes on ADVERTISING click here.
Activity
Advert analysis in 45 minutes in class. Discussion of how advertisements differ between media. Each small group to write an analysis of one advertisement from each media print, internet, film or TV showing how different audiences are attracted in different ways according to the media format using media codes and concepts such as narrative, representation and technical codes – the high gloss glamour of top end fashion magazines such as Vogue compared to websites selling ‘street’ fashion.
Students must get used to working at exam speed in timed conditions.
Homework
Concentrate on finding one strong example of advertising from across different media for homework that can be used as an example in the exam – write it up with relevant headings such as genre, representations, and audience.
Week 14/15 Class Work
The question for the MS1 exam in winter 2010 started with an extract from TV news bulletin. Students have to answer all three questions.
Study the news reports taken from Newsround (BBC1, January 2009) and the BBC News (shown at 10.00 pm, BBC1, January 2009). Both report on the inauguration of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States.
1. Analyse the news reports commenting on:
- Visual Codes
- Technical and Audio Codes
- Genre Conventions. [40]
2. (a) Suggest two different audiences for the BBC News shown at 10.00 pm. Give brief reasons
for your suggestions. [6]
(b) How is the main audience for Newsround attracted to this programme? [9]
(c) With reference to your own detailed examples, explore what influences how audiences or
users respond to media texts. [15]
3. Using your own detailed examples, explore representations of ethnicity in the media today. [30]
This is a 2½ hour exam and technique is important. It is vital to make useful and relevant notes during the time given for note taking during the viewing process. Students who make comprehensive notes achieved on average higher grades.
The 2009 exam questions for MS1 were about DVD and video game covers.
Answer all three questions.
Study the covers for the DVD Kidulthood and the PC game The Sims 2 University.
1. Analyse the two covers commenting on:
- Visual Codes
- Layout and Design
- Language and Mode of Address. [40]
2. (a) Study the cover for The Sims 2 University. Suggest two different audiences for this game.
Give brief reasons for your suggestions. [6]
(b) Study the DVD cover for Kidulthood. Explore how the main audience for this DVD has
been targeted. [9]
(c) Discuss how media texts attract different audiences. Refer to your own detailed examples. [15]
3. With reference to your own detailed examples, explore the different representations of young
people in the media today. [30]
Students must have at least three learned examples related to the taught examples in class.
A student portfolio might contain:
- Detailed media examples of coverage of an event such as Glastonbury music festival
- Analysis of the openings of films from one genre – several James Bond film opening sequences
- Analysis of the front pages of a varied selection of newspapers and their related websites.
Week 16 Class Work
Students to consolidate their key concepts and theory notes, text examples and other material for the exam.
Check that each student’s notes, especially about their chosen examples, are well structured and easy to use for revision.
Unseen extract exam practice. Use as an example for students of an unseen text from an unusual platform. Computer games seem to be favoured by examiners.
You could choose radio. Radio sequences are included in the spec but it is more likely that a visual medium will be used in the exam.
It is a good exercise and easy with BBC iPlayer to play an extract from a radio comedy show or part of say the Chris Evans drive time show on Radio 2, and ask students to analyse it. Here tone of voice, choice of music, style, content and listener interaction become important. Students might not realise that radio shows are in genres. Narrative arises out of the format of the show.
Media Representations and Responses
Introduction [text from WJEC specification]
This unit aims to provide candidates with a framework for analysing the media and responses. Candidates will be encouraged to explore the media through a study of genre, narrative and representation and make connections between the texts and audience/user responses to them.
In the developing area of interactive media, this involves considering users and their interaction with texts. It will be important for candidates to be provided with a range of examples which will enable them to understand and interpret the media independently.
The representations of social/cultural groups, events, issues and their underlying messages and values will be explored using a range of approaches.
Content
Candidates will be required to study how media texts are constructed and how audiences and users respond to and interpret them using the following framework:
(a) Texts
- Genre conventions
- Narrative construction
- Technical codes such as camerawork, lighting, editing and sound for
- Audio-visual media and graphic design elements for print-based and Interactive media
- Language used and mode of address.
(b) Representations
- The role of selection, construction and anchorage in creating representations
- How the media uses representations
- The points of view, messages and values underlying those representations.
Candidates will be expected to have studied a range of representations of:
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Age
- Issues
- Events
- Regional and national identities.
(c) Audience Responses
Candidates will need to consider the ways in which different audiences can respond to the same text in different ways. This will involve studying:
Any media can be explored but the media texts used in the examination will be selected from the following:
- Advertisements
- DVD covers
- CD covers
- Newspaper front pages
- Magazines (including comics)
- Radio sequences
- Film extracts
- Television sequences
- Music videos
- Websites (if selected for examination, websites will be reproduced in print-based format)
- Computer game extracts.
Assessment
A written examination paper of two and a half hours, assessing AO1 and AO2. This will consist of three compulsory questions:
- Question 1 requires an analysis of an audio/visual or print-based extract (40).
- Questions 2 and 3 will be based on representation and audience issues and may be subdivided where appropriate (30 and 30).
Note
: for questions 2 & 3, candidates will be expected to draw on their own studies of representation and audience response issues.
