Year 13 Critical Investigation Proposal

13A need to produce the following on their blogs by the time we return after half term:

Working title

Include specific texts in the title and either 'how or 'why' or both, e.g.: To what extent and why are video games such as 'Call of Duty' and 'Grand Theft Auto’ becoming more violent?

Angle

E.g.: What impact are these increasingly violent games having on their audience? Is this simply a moral panic of the 21st century or is further regulation required?

Hypothesis

E.g.: Video games are psychologically damaging for young people, and audiences have become increasingly desensitised to screen violence.

Linked production piece

E.g.: Newsnight-style documentary video report looking at the impact of violent videogames on young people.

MIGRAIN

Apply the Key Concepts to your texts/topic by using the questions from the Summer Research Project to help you. (Include at least five bullet point/key concept). Include as many media keywords as you can.

SHEP

Apply the Wider Contexts to your text/topic, including at least three bullet points on each one.

Issues/Debates

Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using the Media A-Z to help you think about this:

• Representation and stereotyping
• Media effects
• Reality TV
• News Values
• Moral Panics
• Post 9/11 and the media
• Ownership and control
• Regulation and censorship
• Media technology and the digital revolution – changing technologies in the 21st century
• The effect of globalisation on the media

Theories

Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using keywords/specific theorists' names from the Media A-Z:

• Semiotics
• Structuralism and post-structuralism
• Postmodernism and its critiques
• Gender and ethnicity
• Marxism and hegemony
• Liberal Pluralism
• Colonialism and Post-colonialism
• Audience theories
• Genre theories

Contemporary Media Landscape

Explain how your study fits into this.

Research plan (media texts, academic texts and websites)

Media texts
What your main focus will be, E.g.:

Call of Duty
Grand Theft Auto

Other media texts

(at least five related examples)

TV documentaries
Research videos online, e.g.:

BBC One - Panorama, Addicted to Games? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wlmj0

Academic texts/books

(a minimum of five, including author/full title/year, e.g.:)
Barrie Gunter: The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked (1998)
James Newman: Playing with videogames (2008)
Nancy Signorielli: Violence in the media: a reference handbook (2005)
Peter Vorderer, and Bryant Jennings: Playing video games: motives, responses, and consequences (2006)

Internet Links

1. At least FIVE from Media Guardian or Guardian Culture or another newspaper website.

2. At least FIVE from university websites/academic papers online. The best place to start is MCS.

3. Any other relevant sites/articles - the more the better.

Use last year's archive of previous top-grade Critical Investigations to help you.

13C Critical Investigation research

Most of you have settled on an area for your Critical Investigation and a linked production piece. You now need to move on to your research. Over half-term, your task is as follows:

Complete your research plan for your Critical Investigation

This is NOT completing your actual research - it is completing your list of all the books, journal articles, magazine articles, websites, TV documentaries, films or music videos that you will use to build up your research for the coursework essay. You'll also need to ensure that the main text you focus on is recent - from within the last five years.

The best way to document all your research is to further develop your Critical Investigation Proposal blog post, but if you want to collect everything on a Word document and post it to your blog later that's fine.

After half-term, we will move on to the next stage which is completing the actual research.

Have a good half-term!

Mr Halsey

13C HW: Newspapers: The Effects of Online Technology

13C's homework (for Wed 24/10) is to read the following and post up a summary on your blogs...

Newspapers: The Effects of Online Technology

Also, don't forgot to post up your Media Guardian story for this week on your MEST3 blog (you should have FIVE in total now), with a summary in your own words and your opinion of it.

And you need to post up a comment on the most recent media story for the person below you on the 13C blog list (so Aftab does Ahmed, and Ahmed does Ali etc.). What's your view of the story? Write a paragraph debating with them.

Finally, all your homework will be checked this week so complete anything still overdue...

• The New & Digital Media Keywords, Examples, Theories, Quotes, etc. making sure you write your name after each word/example you add. There should be one added for EVERY tick you received in your timed essay.

• The Rise & Rise of UGC HW.

For reference, here are the links to the key articles we discussed in last week's lessons. Make sure you've read/made notes on them...

• How Twitter is winning the 2012 US election: Tweeters, not bloggers or pundits, will decide debate winners as politics shifts from a 24-hour news cycle to a 140-character one

• Rupert Murdoch apologises to Hugh Grant over 'love child' tweet: News Corporation boss makes second Twitter climbdown in less than 24 hours

Feminism: end of unit essay

Your end of unit essay for feminism is as follows:

To what extent do you agree with Judith Butler's theory that gender roles are socially constructed? Use examples from the media in your response.

Post your essay to your MEST3 exam blog.

Due: Monday 5 November

New & Digital Media Keywords, Examples, Theories, Quotes, etc.

A collaborative, revision document by 13C:

New & Digital Media Keywords, Examples, Theories, Quotes, etc.

Two A grade essays on the title of: To what extent has new and digital media created a media revolution, and how far do you agree that this has brought about positive changes? 

• Level 4+ 
• Level 4 

13A Feminism homework

Great lesson today - I'm sorry for inflicting Sweet Home Alabama on you. It had to be done!

Your homework is to read the following articles and apply the theorists Butler and McRobbie to them. Are they a good example of post-feminism? Do they empower women? Is this an example of socially constructed gender roles?

The first article is the Guardian blog on children's toys in Morrison's. Make sure you read the comments too - it'll give you an insight into different points of view.

The second article is also from the Guardian and reports that sexist stereotypes dominate the front pages of Britain's national newspapers. Again, apply our theorists to this and ask whether we are really in an era of post-feminism.

Please post your responses on your MEST3 exam blog and try and get some personal opinion or criticism in there too.

13C HW: The Rise & Rise of UGC

Due for Thursday 18/10.

A. In relation to the article, The Rise & Rise of UGC, answer these questions on your blogs...

1. What is meant by the term ‘citizen journalist’?
2. What was one of the first examples of news being generated by ‘ordinary people’?
3. List some of the formats for participation that are now offered by news organisations.
4. What is one of the main differences between professionally shot footage and that taken first-hand (UGC)?
5. What is a gatekeeper?
6. How has the role of a gatekeeper changed?
7. What is one of the primary concerns held by journalists over the rise of UGC?

B. Find and watch a YouTube citizen journalism clip for each of the examples listed in the article (the Rodney King beating, the Asian Tsunami, the 7/7 bombings, the Virginia Tech shootings, the Mumbai bombings, the Hudson River plane crash) and embed them on your blog.

Also, don't forget to post up another media story on your blog, with a summary in your own words, and your own views on it.

13C - Critical Investigation Proposal Form

A reminder to 13C that you need to complete your Critical Investigation Proposal Form by next Tuesday. As promised, here's an example to show what you need to include (the research texts are simply a starting point - you'll need plenty more when your proposal is approved).


Year 13 Critical Investigation proposal form

Working title
The media battleground: Why are video games such as 'Call of Duty' and 'Grand Theft Auto’ becoming more violent?

Angle
What impact are these increasingly violent games having on their audience? Is this simply a moral panic of the 21st century or is further regulation required?

Linked production piece
Newsnight-style documentary video report looking at the impact of violent videogames on young people.

Research plan (media texts and academic texts)

Media texts
Call of Duty
Grand Theft Auto

TV documentaries
BBC One - Panorama, Addicted to Games? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wlmj0

Academic texts
Barrie Gunter: The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked (1998)
James Newman: Playing with videogames (2008)
Nancy Signorielli: Violence in the media: a reference handbook (2005)
Peter Vorderer, and Bryant Jennings: Playing video games: motives, responses, and consequences (2006)

This is just a starting point but will hopefully be useful. There is also a superb archive of previous top-grade Critical Investigations available on this blog so take advantage of those.

Year 13 AS re-sit class

Thanks to everyone who attended the first AS re-sit class on Monday. If you didn't, you need to make sure you're there on Monday at 3.15pm. Here's what you missed:


You MUST see Ms Cunningham to enter for the MEST1 exam in January and pay £18.80 by Thursday 18 October.


Know your enemy: the exam is on Wednesday 9 January (AM) and lasts two hours. The sections:

• Section A: Unseen material, four short-answer compulsory questions
• Section B: Choose ONE question from two and write an extended essay referring to your case study/studies

Some people expressed frustration with the case studies they worked on last year. Our advice is NOT to start a new case study (it would involve a huge amount of work) but instead choose one of last year's case studies (Coldplay or Super 8) and use the information on our exam blogs (look on your peers' blogs for resources if yours is looking thin - especially those that got an A!)

We watched a short clip from Die Hard 4.0 and answered four exam-style questions as a class. The questions were:

Media Forms
How does the sequence fit with the conventions of the Hollywood action genre?

Media Institutions
Why would Die Hard 4.0 appeal to studio executives at 20th Century Fox?

Media Audiences
How does the sequence attract a variety of audience demographics?

Media Representations
How is gender represented in the sequence?

If you'd like to have a go at answering these questions with the clip, stick around for five minutes at the end of Monday's revision session and watch the clip then.

See you Monday - make sure you're there at 3.15pm! 

Feminism in the news...

For any of you thinking of going to university or studying feminism at the moment there was an interesting and quite shocking piece in the Independent yesterday about the sexual politics of freshers' week. It provoked quite a reaction, with the Indy following up today with a selection of comments.

Definitely worth a read - and I imagine this could also count as one of your homework posts for Mr Bush on something in the media (don't tell him I told you).

You can thank me tomorrow!

13A Media: Feminism lesson 08/10/12

Today we are moving on to the next part of our representation unit by looking at Feminism. Complete the following tasks:

Read this extract from The End of Men by Hanna Rosin that appeared in the Observer last week and answer the following questions in a blog post: 

To what extent do you agree with Rosin's hypothesis that women are taking over modern society? Give examples in your response.

Can we find examples in modern media that support Rosin's suggestion that women are taking charge? You may wish to argue the opposite - that men still dominate the media scene.

Research Judith Butler's approach to feminism. How might Butler respond to Rosin's writing in The End of Men?

Post-colonialism: end of unit essay

To finish our unit on post-colonial theory, write an essay answering the following question:

Does the British media reflect the modern, multicultural nature of British society? Refer to a variety of media texts and theories in your response.

Due: Monday 15 October

The Rise and Rise of UGC

For 13C, in Friday's lesson: Read the following article...

The Rise and Rise of UGC

13C Interim Assessment

You will be doing a one hour timed essay under exam conditions on Friday 12/10. This will form the basis of the interim grade you'll be receiving.

The title is: To what extent has new and digital media created a media revolution, and how far do you agree that this has brought about positive changes? 

Make sure you revise and plan beforehand. Use your lesson notes (including quotations/theorists etc.) from the Y12 New and Digital Media Lessons and notes from Episode 1 of The Virtual Revolution (watch it again if necessary: divided into six sections on YouTube).

Use the mark scheme as a checklist of what to include/prepare (scroll down to question 6 or 7 and refer to the Level 4 criteria).

13C Mr Halsey - Critical Investigation post

Once you have researched the specification for MEST4 (Critical Investigation) you need to start thinking about what you will research and create. Write a blog entry covering the following:

1) An honest assessment of your presentation to class

2) What your first thoughts are for your critical investigation

3) Possible ideas for your linked production piece