Essential Reading List

As you know, a detailed bibliography is crucial for the top grades in the coursework. What you see below are 45 of the most important books for the independent study, all of which are either in the school library or media suite. Those underlined are the twenty most important but, obviously, not all of the texts on this list will be directly relevant for you...you'll need to spend a fair amount of time searching through them (especially the contents and indexes) to find the key quotes and ideas that will impress the examiners. You must include references to quite a few of these books if you want an A or B...

ALTMAN, RICK Film/Genre

BELL, JOYCE AND RIVERS Advanced Level Media

BENNETT, JACQUI AS & A2 Media Studies

BIGNELL, JONATHAN Introduction to Television Studies, An

BLANDFORD, GRANT, HILLIER (Eds) Film Studies Dictionary, The

BORDWELL AND THOMPSON Film Art: An Introduction

BRANSTON, GILL; STAFFORD, ROY Media Student's Book, The

BURTON, GRAEME More than Meets the Eye: An Introduction to Media Studies

CASEY, CALVERT, FRENCH, LEWIS (Eds) Television Studies: The Key Concepts

CLARK, VIVIENNE; BAKER, JAMES et al Key Concepts And Skills For Media Studies

CLARK, VIVIENNE; JONES, PETER et al Complete A-Z Media And Film Studies Handbook

COOK AND BERNINK Cinema Book, The

CREEBER, GLEN Fifty Key Television Programmes

CREED, BARBARA Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis, The

DUTTON, O’SULLIVAN, RAYNER Studying the Media

FERGUSON, ROBERT Representing 'Race' : Ideology, Identity And The Media

GANTI, TEJASWINI Bollywood

GAUNTLETT, DAVID Media, Gender and Identity

HARTLEY, JOHN Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts

HAYWARD, SUSAN Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts

HOLLAND, PATRICIA Television Handbook, The

LACEY, NICK Image and Representation / Key Concepts in Media Studies

LACEY, NICK Narrative and Genre / Key Concepts in Media Studies

MACDONALD, MYRA Representing Women

MACKINNON, KENNETH Representing Men

MALIK, SARITA Representing Black Britain: Black And Asian Images On Television

MARSHALL AND WERNDLY Language of Television, The

MARTIN, ROGER TV for A Level Media Studies

MISHRA, VILJAY Bollywood Cinema

NEALE, STEVE Genre and Contemporary Hollywood

NEALE, STEVE Genre and Hollywood

NELMES, JILL (Ed) Introduction to Film Studies, An

O’SULLIVAN AND JEWKES Media Studies Reader, The

O'SULLIVAN, TIM; DUTTON, BRIAN et al Studying The Media

PHILLIPS, PATRICK Understanding Film Texts

PROBERT, DAVID AS/A-Level Media Studies: Essential Word Dictionary

RAJADHYAKSHA AND WILLEMEN Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema

RAYNER, WALL AND KRUGER (Eds) Media Studies: The Essential Resource

RAYNER, WALL, KRUGER AS Media Studies: The Essential Introduction

ROBERTS AND WALLIS Introducing Film

SARDAR, ZIAUDDIN; VAN LOON, BORIN Key Concepts and Skills For Media Studies

STRINATI, DOMINIC Introduction to Studying Popular Culture, An

STRINATI, DOMINICA Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, An

TASKER, YVONNE Working Girls : Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema

WILLIAMS, KEVIN Understanding Media Theory

Med 5 Cw Tutorials

You will be each be receiving a crucial one-to-one tutorial with your Media teacher during January 2008. However, you must have completed all blog tasks (1-14) to be eligible for this so these need to be done by the day we return after Christmas (Monday 07-01-08). Also, when you attend the tutorial you must bring your fully organised research folder with you so get those in order now if you haven't done already.

Finally, the deadline for the completed first draft of the Independent Study is...

• Monday 4th February 08
  

This means that if you have a tutorial towards the end of the exam period you will only have one and a half weeks to get all 3000 words done (with footnotes and a full bibliography for it to be accepted) so the advice would be to get in early for a tutorial so you can start the essay as soon as possible.

Available times & confirmed appointments will be posted below for each class, so watch this space...

Med 1 Re-Sit Preparation

Your revision/preparation for the Module 1 re-sit in January should be...

• Revision of MIGRAIN - key questions to ask, keywords/glossary .

• Read through all Module 1 class notes, practices and handouts.

• Re-read Module 1 revision pack, focusing especially on the print info/examples.

• Timed practice - MIGRAIN analysis of a range of print texts...

1. film posters (of different genres/decades, using imdb & clicking on posters in the sidebar)
2. tabloid & broadsheet newspaper front & back pages (use del.ici.ous links to find them)
   
3. magazine & newspaper adverts (you actually need to buy a few here!)
   
4. front covers of magazines (again, different genres; & see this article that analyzes teenage mags)
5. CD, DVD & video game covers (try Amazon for examples)
   
6. paperback book covers (again, try Amazon)
   

It is vital that you practice under exam conditions - spend 15 minutes annotating/planning and then one hour writing your answer.

If you are short for time then you can always just do the 15-minute MIGRAIN note-taking exercise on some days but try to do this as often as possible in the run-up to the exam (every day?).

For homework over the holiday, you must complete at least three of these practice exams and post them up on your Module 6 blogs. Failure to do so will mean we will not pay for any further re-sits you wish to take. Deadline for this is January 7th 2008.

Please post up as comments on here a record of the practice you have done - it will be useful for people to share ideas about what texts are good to try, where you can get links to them online, and an opportunity to ask Macguffin any questions about any of the Key Concepts. Also, your teacher will be alerted when you've finished a timed essay and you can get some feedback on it.

And don't forget - you can bring in any hand-written timed essays during the one and a half weeks when we return after Xmas to show to your teachers before the exam on Wednesday January 16th at 1.30pm. ARRIVE at least 20 MINUTES EARLY!!

Finally, there is a compulsory REVISION CLASS next week - on Tuesday 18th December at 3.25pm - go to DF05.

Med 2 Re-Sit Preparation

Your revision/preparation for Module 2 re-sit in January (only a few of you) should be...

• Read through all notes, handouts and past essays on the key texts...

1. Film & Broadcast Fiction - 'Bullet Boy' , Kidulthood' (for 13c1, 13d1), 'Hidden' (for 13c2)
2. Documentary - 'Bowling for Columbine', 'Big Brother', 'Man With a Movie Camera', 'Triumph of the Will'.

This includes all the general handouts on documentary, film, etc. You can download study materials on 'Bullet Boy' and 'Bowling for Columbine' at Cineschool. Also, put any of the texts into Wikipedia - it usually has good background info/links.

• Make sure you watch the texts again. A lot are available online - just click on the links above or use this list (but some no longer work).
  

• Make new notes on each key text (above)...your own mini-revision guides, focusing on the Key Concepts for each one.

• Re-read Module 2 revision pack.

• Revision of MIGRAIN - key questions to ask, keywords/glossary + film language worksheets.

• Read through all 'Film & Broadcast Fiction' & 'Documentary' past questions.

• Write essay plans for as many different questions as possible.

Complete as many timed essays as you can (45 minutes/question).

And as with Module 1 - you can bring in any hand-written timed essays during the one and a half weeks when we return after Xmas to show to your teachers before the exam on Wednesday January 16th immediately after the Module 1 re-sit (in the afternoon...from 1.30pm).

Med 5 Cw Task 14

The following comprises TASK FOURTEEN. It also needs to be completed over Christmas and MUST be done for the day you return on Monday 7th January, 2008. Failure to do so will mean that you will not receive a one-to-one tutorial about your work in progress...

• Type out the full title of your independent study, highlighting what you consider to be the keywords in a different colour.
  

• Then write out the first paragraph and post it on your blog. This is usually the hardest in any essay (along with the last one!) Obviously, it must be a clear introduction that makes reference to the keywords in the title and outlines the various areas that you will be exploring in the course of the essay. It may introduce a hypothesis (something that you will seek to test/prove during the next 3000 words). For example, you may be arguing that 'Kill Bill' demonstrates a change in the representation of women. It's a bit like a debate in this sense - you are putting forward a proposition and making points that will back it up (although you will also be given credit here for considering both sides of the argument too).

Med 5 Cw Task 13

The following comprises TASK THIRTEEN. It also needs to be completed over Christmas and MUST be done for the day you return on Monday 7th January, 2008. Failure to do so will mean that you will not receive a one-to-one tutorial about your work in progress...

• Produce a detailed essay plan for your independent study, covering everything that you hope to include in your submission. Break your ideas and research down into sections and paragraphs with headings, summaries and a list of references that you hope to include at each step. You can see some excellent ones from previous years by clicking on Manjoth or Jatinder (and there are others too).
  

• Make sure that you label each point you hope to include by linking it to Key Concepts (MIGRAIN) and Wider Contexts (SHEP). (You could just include the initial letter in brackets). This way you can see whether you have covered everything that you need to in an even way. Also, ensure that you think about where you will include theories/theorists and media keywords. (Keep the 'Essential Word Dictionary' handy).

• This will make writing your essay so much easier. However, it is a big task as it requires you to read through all your research very carefully (including reviewing all the work that you've posted up in your blogs and checking through the comments/suggestions you've received).

You may want to produce this plan as a straightforward series of bullet points or as a more complex mindmap. If it's the latter you may have to do it by hand and then scan it in before posting it up on your blog. Or you may want to try out a free trial of some mind-mapping software or use an online tool like bubbl.us.

Historical Texts

The following task needs to be completed over Christmas and MUST be done for the lesson you return on Tuesday 7th January, 2008. Failure to do so will mean that you will not receive a one-to-one tutorial about your work in progress...

• Research a historical text that you can use to compare with your contemporary one (that is the main focus of your study). By 'historical' it is meant anything pre-1990 but the 40s, 50s, 60s or even 70s might be more fruitful because they pre-date many of the important changes that have occurred recently (such as the gains for women as a result of feminism). The purpose here is to be able to demonstrate how society has changed over the years and how these changes are reflected in different media texts.

• Ideally, you will watch at least one film/tv programme from the past, make notes on it and research it in Media/Film Studies textbooks and on the internet. The best option is to watch the whole text on DVD (you may be able to borrow it from us) or otherwise you might be able to see extracts on YouTube. How is it similar/different to your text? How does this show how the genre/society has changed? (A highly recommended text here is 'The Cinema Book', edited by Pam Cook and Mieke Bernink and available in the school library. If you follow the link here you can read the contents page and index online and this will be useful). Through this you will become aware of developments in the genre you are researching - look for a range of titles (at least five) that you can refer to in your essay - and you should be able to link them to the wider contexts that were present at the time.

• If you can't get hold of the text it's not the end of the world - you are stuck with doing just secondary research instead of this and primary research. Just make sure you do plenty of it.

• List your media texts, research, analysis and links/bibliography in a blog post entitled 'Historical Texts'.

Med 5 Cw Task 11

TASK ELEVEN
Mulvey

• In your own words, write a summary on your blog of the arguments that Laura Mulvey puts forward in her Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975). As you know, this is one of the key texts in Media Studies when considering the representation of women. You can consult the two handouts that you've been given so far on her ideas or do some additional research on the internet (and don't forget to check the Essential Word Dictionary). Try to include as many of the keywords that we have covered...

Freud, psychoanalysis, the unconscious, resistance, repression, scopophilia, voyeurism, castration, sadism/masochism, fetishization/fetish object, objectification, patriarchy, misogyny, identification, narcissism, idealization, anxiety, audience positioning/spectatorship, MALE GAZE, narrative cinema, phallic objects, womb/penis envy.

• Then post up on your blog a mini-essay about how the theory could be useful for you in your Independent Study. How can you apply it to your text and the representations within it? Again use as many of the keywords as you can. For most of you this will definitely be the case and even where it is not immediately obvious that you might be able to refer to it, try to be creative because it is a theory that you must know well. If there are men or women in your text then it's likely to be possible! Try to identify key scenes/moments where the theory is especially useful as well as considering the whole text/genre in the light of Mulvey's ideas.
  

• If you really feel that it's not relevant to you (although it's doubtful that this is the case) then you need to choose another theory/theorist that you haven't already covered and do the above with them.

13d1 Cover Work

Tuesday 11th December, periods 1, 5 & 6

A.

Ensure that all work from yesterday is completed (especially if you weren't in)...

1. Reading & highlighting the following double-sided handouts...

• "Gender Studies"

• "Women & Film"

2. Answer all checkpoints and action points on the sheets

3. Reading and highlighting "Why are women directors such a rare sight?"

B.

Today's work (enough for three periods plus homework ).

You must stay in the room period 1 but if you wish to work elsewhere periods 5 & 6 you can, provided you have the all the handouts you need (on the desk or available from Ms Jones) and you've written down all the instructions.

1. Reading & highlighting "a beginner's guide to...Laura Mulvey"

2. Reading & highlighting: "Psychoanalytic Models of the Viewer..."

3. Get in pairs and do Exercise 12.1 (or do alone if no-one else is around)

4. Post up 250 words on Med 6 blog summarising your conclusions to exercise 12.1 (for Thur 13th).

The deadline to complete all this work is this Thursday 13th December, periods 1 & 2 when I will be taking your double lesson instead of Ms Jones.