LESSON 23: THE MEDIA EXAMINATION

So, we're at the start of the next phase of your journey - the final full term of study.
We're starting with the mock examinations next week so it's probably a good time to review some of the issues that the AQA paper will be looking at

SECTION A:
This section follows a format of a comparison of the ideas / content / concerns of two media products. Q1 always asks for a response that involves a direct comparison as to how each text deals with the issue or what they tell us about the manner in which an aspect of media from is used - narrative; genre; language; representation; values etc. Q2 is a wider contexts question where the products are used a starting point for discussion on an issue. Q3 is the media debates where the products are linked into an issue such as dumbing down, censorship, media violence etc.

SECTION B:
This year it's IDENTITIES or a response to NEW TECHNOLOGY.
The identities task will require you to use the case-study to consider how a group are represented or mis-represented in media products. Such tasks could be around alternative representations, the use of stereotypes, the distorting effect of media presentations on audiences. You will need to think about the ideas we looked at in the exemplar case-study on masculinity and the media last term.
New technology is a favourite task. The tasks boil down very simply : how do media technologies impact on how audiences access media products and how technologies impact on the way in which media industry produces and markets its products. These are pretty much the same task.
We need to consider that any assessment of impact requires an understanding of what went before as well as what happened after. For us, ground zero for the impact point can be one of three key dates / events:
1990 [Sky TV/ Amazon] 
2000 [digital music / I-Tunes] 
2004 [Web 2.0 / Facebook]
For each we need to consider their impact on the relevant media industry [broadcasting; music; retailing; communication/social media] and the products that developed from these [netflix; spotify; twitter] and the wider technologies they changed [mobile phones; tablets; consoles].
Just the most casual of consideration will show the vast range of examples and ideas that can be incorporated into any essay on this topic. We could explore the impact of Ebay [1995] or Google [1998] or of Wikipedia [2001] or of the I-Phone [2007] or the I-Pad [2010].

The following films are the full 4 episodes of the BBC programme The Virtual Revolution.  This series first broadcast in 2010 is possibly the best overview of the topic area of the impact of digital technology of the web. Each episode takes a theme and explores it by interview and examples. Great as the series is we need to be aware that at 5 years old some of it is dated - almost inevitably given its subject matter. [e.g. in episode 1 Wikipedia is mentioned as having 60 million hits a month; September 2014 it had 500 million unique visitors per month - almost a ten fold increase in five years. In Episode 4 we are told that Facebook has 350 million accounts; in 2014 that figure was 1.3 billion - a four fold increase in five years].

episode 1

episode 2

episode 3

 

 

episode 4