More resources! A Level Media Factsheets

We now have access to over 130 A Level Media Studies Factsheets that we have subscribed to - brilliant for both critical investigations and the exam topic.

You'll find our Media Factsheet archive here with a helpful guide as the first link.

Looking over them, the following will be useful for the exam:

050 'We-Media' and Democracy

053 Journalism in the New Media Age: The effect of online technology

071 Citizen Journalism: from Producer to Audience

076 News Values

088 The Impact of New Media on Politics

092 Globalisation and the Media

104 Audiences in the Digital Age

131 Social Media and the News Agenda

134 Press, Prominence and Persuasion – A Case Study in News and Social Media

There are plenty for you to look through for your Critical Investigation too - horror film, gender, post-9/11 Hollywood and more. One that all of you could use:

060 How to Write Academic Essays

Remember: these resources are all for you - the more you use them, the better you will do!

Critical investigation: academic writing

Having read quite a few opening paragraphs, I think some of us could use a little bit of help with formal academic writing.

This is a very different skill to other forms of written expression and will take time to master. Developing a strong, objective, critical style in Year 13 will prove invaluable when you go to university next year.

This brief powerpoint on academic writing will give you some useful tips as you write your Critical Investigation first drafts:



Good luck with your first drafts!

Critical Investigation Task #7

Critical Investigation - First Draft

The following needs to be completed by...

• Wednesday 6 January 2016

• Complete the first draft of your Critical Investigation.


• It must be a word processed 2,000 word essay (PLUS quotes - with a precise word count included at the end).


• Also, include correctly set out references, quotes and footnotes. Footnotes should take the following form - Author Surname, Author First Name Initial (Year of Publication), Page Number(s). e.g...Lacey, N. (2009). p. 122. They should not appear all together at the end of the essay but at the foot of the page where they appear.


• Where the next reference is from the same text and the same page use ibid. (in italics). This means 'in the same place' in Latin. If it's from the same text but a different page you include the new page reference too. e.g. ibid. p23.


• A full bibliography must be submitted at the end of the essay (this is NOT included in your word count). (See Critical Investigation Task #2 for help with this). Books should be listed in alphabetical order, by author's surname. If you're using the referencing system in Microsoft Word then all this will be done for you. Alternatively, you can use BibMe to help you do this correctly, using the APA format for books. e.g. Lacey, N. (2009). Image and Representation (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Here's a good example of a bibliography.


• Two copies are necessary. Hand in a hard copy (on paper) on the deadline day, and this needs to have 1.5 line spacing. Also paste it up (including footnotes and biblography) on your blog.

If you're in any doubt about what this all should look like then please check out some of the finished grade 'A' and 'B' essays from: (2015) (2014), (2013), (2012).

They will be helpful when thinking about how to write your essay (what to include in the introduction and conclusion, how to structure the work, how to set out quotes, the correct tone, and how much research to include - they each contain between 20 and 40 footnotes - you should aim for at least 30.)

But please ensure that all writing is done in your own words. Plagiarism is a very serious business and anyone found simply copying from other sources (either students or books/websites) will be in serious trouble. And you will be found out if you do! We're not stupid - we know how you write, and we know very well what was in the previous students' work (and there are numerous online checkers, or simply Google, that we can feed your work into to see if it has been plagiarised). 

Students guilty of plagiarism will be placed before the Greenford Plagiarism Panel made up of three senior teachers in the school - and students may be asked to leave the school.

This is the big one so no excuses and good luck!

NDM News: index

We have now completed our New and Digital Media unit focusing on the news industry. You now need to create an index to organise your revision for the upcoming assessment. 


January assessment

You will have a MEST3 Section B assessment in your first double lesson after Christmas. This will be an excellent opportunity to show the progress we are making towards our Media target grade and also develop the skills needed for the exam in June. You have a huge amount more to write about compared to the baseline assessment in September so we are expecting significant progress.

You need to revise everything you have covered in the Autumn term for New/Digital Media - including all of your weekly NDM stories.

Due: first Monday back

NDM News index

In today's lesson you need to create an index of all of your work this term for New/Digital Media and News. 

This process is an excellent start to your revision for the assessment and will also highlight if you've missed anything through absence or trips. Your index should include the following:

1) Institution: the impact of Google on the newspaper industry
2) Audience and Institution: how news consumption has changed
3) The future of newspapers: Build The Wall analysis
4) The decline of newspapers: the effect of online technology
5) Citizen journalism: Media Magazine article and questions
6) News Values: theory and updating them for digital media landcape
7) Marxism & Pluralism: Media Magazine article and questions
8) Media Conference: notes from speakers
9) Marxism and Pluralism: views and values question
10) NDM Section B essay on blog - consumption and production question
11) Marxism and Pluralism: Alain de Botton on the news - lecture and questions
12) Globalisation: questions and blog task
13) Globalisation: Media Magazine - Google Glass, techno-panics and data mining
14) News on the Tweet report and questions
15) Audience and Institution article and questions
16) Institution case study: NDM and News Corporation

For your index, the text should link to YOUR corresponding blogpost so you can access your work on each aspect of the case study quickly and easily. This also means you if you have missed anything you can catch up with the work and notes and won't underperform in the assessment due to gaps in your knowledge.


NDM story index

You also need to update your separate index of ALL of your NDM stories from the Autumn term. This homework was originally set on Friday 11 September which means you should have a minimum of 30 stories in your index this week. 

Your index should have the story number (starting with your first story back in September as #1), the headline and a link to your blog post for that story.

If you want to see an example of a top quality index, check out this blog post from one of our past students - you need this level of detail in your story index too. (Incidentally, she went on to a get an A in Media - and you can see why).


Important: your two exam indexes need to be completed during the lesson before working on the News Corp case study.

NDM institution case study: News Corporation

News Corp is one of the world's largest media conglomerates.  

In the UK (under two subsidiary companies, News International and BSKYB), its news interests include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun & The Sun on Sunday (plus their online versions) in addition to Sky News & Sky Sports News.

News Corp is a cross-platform, vertically integrated multi-media company.

Some of the ideas we have discussed in class regarding the impact of new and digital media on News Corp include:

• Online subscriptions/paywalls
• Price promotions for newspapers
• Impact on institution content and its appeal
• Paid subscriptions for TV content
• Quality of journalism
• User generated content
• Social media/online news providers (Huff Post, Ampp3d etc.)

Tasks

1) Research News Corporation’s response to the growth of new and digital media by listing each of the institution’s brands (Sky News, Times etc.) Have any closed, changed or been in the news in the last 10 years for any reason?

2) Develop examples of the impact that new and digital media has had on News Corp’s brands (paywalls, readership figures, audience share etc.)

3) Use what you have found out about News Corp to answer the following question:

Why and with what success are traditional media institutions adapting to the challenge posed by new/digital media?

Complete for homework if you don't finish it in the double lesson - due for first lesson back after Christmas (the day of your next assessment).

NDM: The key concepts of audience and institution

Much of our work for our NDM case study on the news industry has focused on audience and institution.

Media Magazine 52 has a good feature on the changing relationship between audiences and institutions in the digital age. Today you need to go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM52 and scroll to page 9. Read the article and complete the following tasks:

1) What was the relationship between audience and institution in the pre-digital age?

2) The article gives a lot of examples of major media institutions. Choose three examples from the article and summarise what the writer is saying about each of them.

3) The article ends with a section on the digital age. Summarise this section in 50 words.

4) How do YOU see the relationship between audience and institution in the future? Will audiences gain increasing power or will the major global media institutions hold sway?

Complete for homework if you don't manage to finish this in the lesson - due Monday.

Critical Investigation Task #6

Up-to-the-minute additional web research


Although books carry more authority, the internet is an excellent resource and you should be searching regularly to identify additional ideas and references related to your Critical Investigation.

In particular, you will find up-to-the-minute, current information and opinion about your topic and this always scores highly with the examiners so it's important to continue online research all the way through until you hand in your final essay. Remember, one of the key media debates that you should look to cover - New Media and Digital Technology - is constantly changing and you're already finding stories for that topic weekly for the exam too!

Remember, key places to keep track of this are...

• A Level Media Studies subscription sites - we have paid for you to have free access to Media Magazine (our online pdf archive is here), and MediaEdu (spend time, in particular, looking at the theory, new media and key concepts resources)...both are excellent and contain information pitched for Media students and teachers. Log in details for Media Edu are here.
• broadsheet newspaper sites, especially MediaGuardian (it's essential you get into the habit of reading this every week, preferably on a Monday), and the Independent Media;
• media education sites - the biggest and best is MCS; but there's also Media Literacy, Film Education, Screen Online...
• film review sites like IMDb (use the 'external reviews' link on the sidebar whenever you're on a chosen film) and Rotten Tomatoes;
• film magazines online like Sight & Sound, GuardianFilm, Empire, and Senses of Cinema;
• Wikipedia, naturally: a useful starting point for any web search, but make sure you avoid referencing this directly...it makes you look like a beginner. It provides, however, a good overview and, essentially, a list of 'References' and 'External Links' at the end of each entry;
• the best student essays from 2015, from 2014, from 2013, from 2012, from 2011, and from 2010: in particular, look at their quotes (usually highlighted by a footnote number) and bibliographies (at the end of each essay) as they will have often identified some of the best quotes for your topic. But, as ever, be wary of the temptation to plagiarise - you can only 'borrow' a key quote from another person's essay if you go and research the source yourself and make it part of your bibliography. Remember: it is incredibly easy to tell when an essay takes a sentence or paragraph from another writer and Greenford High School has a plagiarism committee made up of senior teachers in the school to deal with cases of deliberate cheating.

Over the holiday and into January, continue with your internet research, using the Google Search Tips you've been shown and all the fantastic online resources outlined above.

Task: Post up AT LEAST 20 additional quotes, with full article titles (and hyperlinked web addresses) added to your bibliography along a brief explanation about which section of your essay plan it could fit into. 

Due: January.

NDM case study: News on the Tweet

News on the Tweet is a report from Newsworks (a marketing organisation representing newspapers) and Twitter designed to show the positive impact new and digital media can have on traditional media.

Read the report and answer the questions on your blog. Include the News on the Tweet infographic above in your blogpost.

1. Why are respected news brands good news for Twitter?
2. Why in turn is Twitter good for respected news brands?
3. The report suggests that old and new media “are not, in fact, in direct competition, but often work extremely well together to enhance both the media eco-system and the consumer experience”. What evidence do they provide to support this idea? Do you agree with it?
4. On page 24/25 of the report, the focus turns to 'gossip' or 'banter'. What example tweets from journalists are used to illustrate this? 
5. Do you think the increasing amount of 'gossip' or 'banter' is harming the reputation of news and journalists?
6. What does the report say about trust in Twitter and journalists (look at pages 34-39)?
7. Finally, do you think new and digital media developments such as Twitter have had a positive or negative impact on traditional newspapers?

Finish for homework if you don't get it finished in the lesson - due on Friday.

13C exam work: are you up-to-date?

13C: you should now have an email from me with feedback for your NDM essay on consumption and production. 

You need to complete your learner response on that today and finish for homework. In total, you need to make sure you have the following on your blog for Monday morning:

1. NDM essay: learner response completed
2. NDM weekly news stories: we're up to a total of 24 stories (with at least one per week now focusing on something to do with new and digital media and journalism/news)
3. Globalisation: today's work reading the MM47 Google Glass feature and answering the questions
4. Globalisation: last week's questions on globalisation and news (cultural imperialism etc.)
5. Alain de Botton: lecture summary and questions

Important: make sure all of this is on your blog for checking Monday morning.

Globalisation and the media: wider issues

We have already explored globalisation with relation to news, cultural imperialism and the impact on audiences and institutions.

Now we need to explore some of the wider issues linked to globalisation and media - including privacy, 'big data', and techno-panics. These are crucial issues that are likely to come up in Section A of your MEST3 exam - as well as being relevant to your case studies for Section B.

Go to our Media Magazine archive and click on MM47 - the case study issue. You need to find page 31 and the Google Glass feature: a case study in Globalisation.

Read the article and answer the following questions:

1) Why was Google Glass controversial?

2) What are the positive elements to Globalisation that the article highlights?

3) What are potential negatives to Globalisation?

4) What is a techno-panic? How does it link to moral panics?

5) What is your opinion on the privacy debate and major corporations being able to access large quantities of personal data?

Finish for homework if you don't complete it during the lesson - due next week.

Critical Investigation Task #5

Write the introduction to your Critical Investigation essay.

This should clearly introduce your primary text, the media issue or debate you are addressing and what angle your essay will use to approach the question. It needs to engage the reader, pose some questions and give a clear indication of what direction the essay will take. The word count will vary but you want to aim for around 200-250 words.

You may find this brief Powerpoint guide to academic writing useful in approaching this task and can certainly refer to it for the rest of your first draft over Christmas.

This is a strong example of an opening paragraph from a previous year:

Do recent Hollywood films such as the Wolf of Wall Street suggest that audiences are still being influenced by negative gender stereotypes?

Despite the gains made by feminism over the last 30 years, Hollywood films still offer too many negative gender stereotypes. This is particularly clear in Martin Scorsese’s highly successful biopic of Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street (2012). In Scorsese’s film, women are presented as sex objects, prostitutes or housewives and there for the pleasure of the male characters (and arguably male audience). It is evident that negative gender stereotypes are still present in modern Hollywood films and it is hard to argue that audiences are not influenced by these representations. We can also see this in historical, successful Hollywood films such as Scarface, the original Wall Street and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Despite the fact that the gender gap between males and females has started to close – more so recently with respected activists such as Emma Watson speaking out publicly on behalf of the UN gender campaign – negative gender stereotypes in film show that the gap is still an issue in society. Hollywood films that are based around the idea of 'power' often portray negative stereotypes of women. The idea of power and riches appeals to a mass audience as Richard Havis explores in an interview with Scorsese about The Wolf Of Wall Street: "Look at young people and what the American Dream means to them. It's all about accumulating more, and doing what is best for you, in spite of how it affects anyone else.”  This essay will explore the negative gender stereotypes in Hollywood productions and the influence such films have on the audience.

Your introductory paragraph needs to be approved by your teacher along with your essay plan before you write your first draft. Due: Wednesday 9 December.

BFI Library trip: Monday 30 November

Don't forget the key details about our trip to the BFI Library:

Date: Monday 30 November

Meeting time and place: 10.00am

Meeting place: BFI Southbank main foyer

Full address details, a map and further information is available on our trip briefing handout - including what to do if you are lost or delayed.

You need to bring a pen, pencil, notepad and USB to the Library in order to make notes and capture scans to read at home later.

Planning your research

The Library staff will put together a pack of suggested reading made up of books and articles but you'll get even more out of the visit if you look through the BFI collection and find a few books that fit your critical investigation. The whole BFI Library catalogue is available online here - click 'Search' and then look for books that fit your topic.

Bring your list of potential books and journal articles with you to the BFI and you'll get even more out of the visit.

Critical Investigation Task #4

Essay plan

Produce a detailed essay plan for your critical investigation, covering everything that you hope to include in your first draft over Christmas. 

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 may also want to plan a rough word count for each section, remembering you are aiming for 2,000 words (not including quotes). You can see some excellent examples from previous years by clicking on Navneet's or, going back further, Sonam or Jaleesa.

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, issues/debates and media keywords. (Keep the 'Essential Word Dictionary' handy). You may find that the tasks we have completed recently such as textual analysis help you to plan certain sections too.

This will make writing your essay MUCH easier. However, it is a big task as it requires you to read through all your research very carefully and plan what you should include and what isn't relevant. This is the key academic skill that universities teach - expect it to be difficult and take time! You could also browse through each other's blogs as there may be some overlapping areas of research you could share with each other.

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 an online mind-mapping tool like bubbl.

Deadline: Friday 4 December

Note: You must get your essay plan approved by your teacher before Christmas so you are able to write the draft over the holidays.

Critical Investigation Task #3

Historical text analysis and research

Research a historical text that you can use to compare with your contemporary, primary text. 

By 'historical' we mean anything pre-2000 but the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s or even 80s might be more fruitful because they pre-date many of the important changes that have occurred more recently (such as the gains for women as a result of feminism; or greater equality for ethnic minorities now that we are - arguably - a more inclusive and multi-cultural society; or the ground-breaking developments in new media/digital technology). 

The purpose here is to be able to demonstrate...

• how society and the issue you are investigating has changed over the years and how these changes are reflected in different media texts, or - to put it another way...
• how popular culture reflects the 'spirit of the age' or zeitgeist

Ideally, you will watch at least one film/TV programme/video game/music video 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/play the whole text on DVD/online or otherwise you might be able to see extracts on YouTube. Answer the following questions:

• How is it similar/different to your main text?
• How does this show how the genre/society/issue has changed?

Through this you will become aware of developments in the genre you are researching. This task is designed to make sure you have a range of texts to refer to in your critical investigation essay (you'll need at least five including your main text and the historical text you analyse in this task). Remember: you should be able to link them to the wider contexts that were/are present at the time. It's also worth noting that you will be rewarded for considering your topic across different platforms.

If you can't get hold of an original copy of the text it's not the end of the world - you will be stuck doing secondary research. Just make sure you do plenty of it and find out information from a few different sources.

As ever, list your historical text(s), research, textual analysis and links/bibliography in a detailed blog post (or simply add to your ongoing Notes and Quotes post).

Due: Friday 4 December

NDM News: Globalisation

Today's topic is Globalisation - the handout is here if you need an electronic copy.

Having discussed these in class, you now need to answer the following questions on your blog:

1) Is our news influenced by American cultural imperialism? What examples can you think of?

2) Has the increased globalisation of news improved the audience experience? How? Why?

3) Has globalisation benefited or damaged major news institutions? How? Why?

Complete for homework if you don't get it finished in the lesson - due next week.

Critical Investigation Task #2

Academic research and bibliography

As you know, a detailed bibliography is crucial to reach the top grades in your coursework. Refer to our Essential Reading List which contains titles of 45 of the most important books for the Critical Investigation, most of which are either in the school library or media suite. We also have some excellent new books in DF07 that have been added in the last 12 months. If you haven't used any of these yet, make sure you take advantage of these excellent resources this week.

Those underlined on the list are the twenty most important or useful in previous years 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 (i.e. quotes or specfic references to theories/statistics/reports) to quite a few of these books if you want an A or B. These will be footnoted in your essay (this is called a citation). The more academic sources you have, the stronger your essay will be - so borrow them from the library, look at them in lesson or make a note of them for the trip to the BFI Library. If the book belongs to the Media department, you will have to do your research in class or in DF06 during a free period - the books can't leave school unfortunately.

Task #2 is to pull this information together in an updated blog posting of all your notes and quotes so far INCLUDING a complete bibliography of your research so far. Make sure you include the following:

• Author-Year-Title-Place-Publisher info;
• Quotes (+ Page References) from the book that can be linked to your study;
• A short explanation of each one explaining how it is relevant to you/your topic.
• Finally, post up on your blog a Complete Bibliography (so far) to include ALL the books you currently have quotes from. It MUST contain at least TEN different academic books or journals as well as all your online and Media Magazine sources.
• Note: your FINAL bibliography will be much more extensive than this - we are simply looking for a minimum of 10 academic sources from your research so far.

Most people find formatting a bibliography very difficult the first time - there are quite specific rules that you need to follow and universities are very fussy about how it is presented. Use this 'Guide to writing bibliographies' to help or try this really useful bibliography formatting and creation tool: 'BibMe'. Personally, I recommend using the Microsoft Word referencing feature to make managing your bibliography as simple as possible.

Deadline: Wednesday 25 November

Marxism & Pluralism: Alain de Botton on the news

*Note: I was going to post this for Friday's single lesson but I've had a request from a couple of students to post the video links up this week to help with the essay*

We are just finishing some excellent work on the News and Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony.

While you work on turning these ideas and approaches into a top-level essay, we have some additional homework on Alain de Botton's views on the News.

Here are the two videos we watched in class this week - you may want to watch them again (particularly the first one).




Now watch this lecture by Alain de Botton presenting his views on the News:



Answer the following questions on your blog:

1) To what extent do you agree with Alain de Botton's views on the News?

2) How can you link Marxism and Hegemony to de Botton's criticisms of the News?

3) How could you use Pluralism and new technology to challenge de Botton's views on the News?

4) Choose two news stories from the last six months - one that supports de Botton's views and one that challenges his belief that the News is used for social control. 

Due: Next week

Marxism & Pluralism: essay

A reminder of the question we've been looking at in lesson:

The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

We need to make sure we can write well developed paragraphs answering the question we are given. Remember what we said made for a good paragraph:

• Focus on the question
• Application of theories, issues/debates, wider contexts
• Detailed evidence; range of examples
• Well structured; clearly expressed

For the Marxist perspective, we looked at the following exemplar paragraph:

A Marxist perspective would argue that the so-called “information revolution” has done little to benefit audiences or to subvert the established power structures in society. Far from being a “great leveller” (Krotoski, 2012) as many have claimed, it has merely helped to reinforce the status quo by promoting dominant ideologies. The most popular news website in the UK by a considerable margin is the ‘Mail Online’, which receives more than 8 million hits every month and is continuing to expand rapidly – with forecasts that it will make £100 million or more in digital revenues in the next three years. Similar to its tabloid print edition, the website takes a Conservative, right-wing perspective on key issues around gender, sexuality and race and audiences appear to passively accept what the Marxist theorist, Gramsci, called a hegemonic view. When one of their chief columnists, Jan Moir, wrote a homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately in 2009 there were Twitter and Facebook protests but, ultimately, they did not change the editorial direction of the gatekeepers controlling the newspaper.

This includes plenty of excellent points, quotes, examples and uses of media language that help raise this to Level 4:

• Marxist perspective 
• “information revolution” 
• “great leveller” (Krotoski, 2012) 
• promoting dominant ideologies
• ‘Mail Online’, 8 million hits/month 
• £100 million in the next three years
• Conservative, right-wing 
• Gramsci, hegemonic view
• Jan Moir, homophobic - death of Stephen Gately, 2009
• gatekeepers

You now need to write a similar paragraph using the Pluralist perspective. 

The key aspects of Pluralism we discussed in lesson included:

• Pluralist perspective
• audiences: “conform, accommodate or reject” (Gurevitch)
• uses and gratifications theory
• Castells “culture of freedom” 
• “The Great Leveller”; “Paradigm shift” (Krotoski)
• Ferguson protests (tweets/hashtag); Tomlinson case (G20)
• Arab Spring, protests
• UGC, citizen journalism, blogs
• democratization
• “mutualisation of news” (Rushbridger, The Guardian)

Homework

If you don't finish the paragraph on Pluralism, ensure this is on your blog by Friday.

Your main homework is to answer the question we have been working on in lesson on your blog:

The development of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

This must be a complete response including everything we have learned in the unit so far: the decline of newspapers, paywalls, citizen journalism, hyperreality and UGC, news values, the impact NDM has had on audiences and institutions in the news industry (both positive and negative) and finally Marxism and Pluralism. 

Use the quotes you have been given wherever possible and a wide range of examples from across the news industry and beyond (this is where your regular NDM stories should be useful).

Due: next Monday (13C)

Critical Investigation Task #1

Before you know it, you'll be needing to write your Critical Investigation essay - which means we need to step up our preparations to make sure we have everything in place. We have designed a series of tasks to help you do this that you will need to complete over the next month. 

Final Deadline
All the preparatory tasks need to be finished by the week before Christmas: Friday 11 December. You will then have the Christmas holidays to write the first draft of your 2,000 word essay.

TASK #1 TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
TASK #1 DEADLINE: FRIDAY 20 NOVEMBER

Carry out close textual analyses of at least TWO chosen scenes/extracts/clips from your PRIMARY text and post them up on your blog. 

The extracts should be able to exemplify some of the key points you wish to make in your Critical Investigation and link with some of the following key areas raised by your text...

Issues and debates 
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
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.

Ideally, make sure it is an extract you haven't analysed before and embed the YouTube link in your posting if you can.

Think of each analysis as like a MEST 3 exam analysis but with one text instead of two - so you need to cover MIGRAIN and SHEP with detailed reference to specific aspects of the text. You are advised to watch the extract several times and to make detailed notes before embarking on the write-up, which should be in essay format (NOT in note form). 

Use our Key Concepts Glossary to help you think about terminology to use. You should be including as many of these keywords and ideas as possible in your analysis (where relevant...this won't always be the case). You should also include ideas from the essential Media Keywords A-Z - another fantastic resource you should be reading religiously.

Good luck!

Marxism & Pluralism: To what extent...?

NDM Question

Developments in new/digital media mean that audiences can now have access to a greater variety of views and values.  To what extent are audiences empowered by these developments?

Sample answer: Audiences are empowered by being able to access a wide variety of news and opinion using a single device such as their phone or tablet. The ease with which someone can check the Guardian website and Mail Online – both for free – means that they can access a wide variety of views before forming their own opinions on the news.

Blog task

You should have a variety of arguments that agree AND disagree with the idea audiences are empowered by new and digital media - thanks to your group task in the lesson. 

You now need to answer today's question on your blog in essay format covering both sides of the debate. 

Minimum word count: 500 words but you may want to write more.

Media Magazine conference - follow-up

Thanks to everyone for your attendance, focus and engagement with the Media Magazine conference. 

Despite their technical issues (quote of the day from Sarika: "This is nearly as bad as the Media Awards!") your concentration was very good and the vast majority of you made detailed notes.

This is just a reminder that you need to type up your notes from the conference - publish it on your coursework blog please.

Finally, the conference organisers have requested we complete feedback - please follow this link and answer the questions, it only takes a couple of minutes. I've already done it and been quite harsh on the technical side but very positive about the speakers!

For anyone who hasn't brought in the reply slip and money for the BFI Library trip, that is coming up in three weeks. I'll be sending the BFI a list of your critical investigation titles next week and will not send details for anyone who hasn't paid. Thank you to everyone who has already paid for the trip - much appreciated.

Mr Halsey

13A cover work 04/11/15: Mr Halsey

13A, please accept my humble apologies - it seems all my training and meetings outside school are on a Wednesday at the moment. However, you gain a two-day extension to get your Notes and Quotes document to 2,000 words and also have plenty more you can be getting on with.

The key focus for today's lesson is online research. You will already have a fair amount in your research plan but we have plenty more resources for you to search to improve your Notes and Quotes document.

All the online research sources are outlined in this blogpost - there will be plenty for you to work through, identify, read and research.

I will be starting my research tutorials with you on Friday and continuing them next week. In the meantime, make the most of the lesson time and email me if you have any issues.

Good luck!

Critical investigation: Media Magazine and online research

The next step for our critical investigation research is searching the archives of Media Magazine and other online sources.

Media Magazine archive

By now, you should have over 2,000 words in your Notes and Quotes document and will still have a huge amount to read and watch. Today, we’re going to focus on another brilliant resource for our research: the Media Magazine archive.

We have the last 23 issues of Media Magazine in pdf format and also in the archive is a Word document with the contents for each issue. This means it will be easy to go through all 20 issues and identify articles that could help with your topic.

You can also search the recently re-launched Media Magazine website - our exclusive Greenford log-in details are:

Username: greenford
Password: greenfordmm

Once you’ve identified the articles, you can then read and research them to add to your Notes and Quotes document.


Media Edu

Another online resource that contains a large number of case studies and articles on key media issues is mediaedu.

Click on the top right box 'Login' and use our exclusive Greenford Media log-in:

Username: greenford
P/W: greenfordedu

You may need to search for a few different aspects of your topic but you will find some excellent case studies, theories and more on this website.



e-Jump Cut online media journal

Jump Cut is an online contemporary Media journal with an archive dating back 40 years. It is published every year and each issue offers around 50 articles on aspects of film and media, often looking at controversial or niche topics. The current issue is available here and the archive can be found here.

It's definitely worth searching the e-Jump Cut archive for articles on your chosen topic – there are hundreds to choose from. Note, you don't need a log-in for Jump Cut, the material is available for free online.


If you have a problem with any of the links or log-ins then please let me know.

Good luck!

Media Magazine Conference - trip briefing

The Media Magazine Student Conference is on Thursday with an excellent line-up including Guardian journalist and campaigner Owen Jones.

You will receive a trip briefing sheet in one of your Media lessons this week with map and timings but it's here if you need an electronic copy.

Remember, we are meeting at 9.30am on Thursday outside Russell Square underground station.

Urgent note: if you haven't paid for the trip you MUST pay reception on Tuesday - tickets have now been purchased so you will be charged for the trip regardless as it is a compulsory trip for Y13 Media students.

See you at Russell Square station (on the street outside the entrance) at 9.30am on Thursday!

NDM: Marxism, Pluralism and Hegemony

Starter

I've got some reading to get you started. There is a reference to hegemony in a Guardian article about last year's Hunger Games film that could also be linked to feminism - read the article on the Hunger Games and at least 15 comments below the line. How does this link to what we've learned about hegemony?

Main task

Read the Media Magazine article ‘Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony?'. Go to our archive of Media Magazine issues and click on MM39 - the article you need is on page 58. Answer the following questions:

1) Research the Ian Tomlinson case. What would the traditional, hegemonic view of the police be in a case like this? How did new and digital media create a different story? What does the police officer's subsequent aquittal suggest about the power of new and digital media?

2) What does the author argue regarding whether hegemony is being challenged by Web 2.0? 

3) In your opinion, does new and digital media reinforce dominant hegemonic views or give the audience a platform to challenge them?

Complete for homework - due Friday.

Year 13: Folder check and NDM homework update

As we are at the half-way point in our New and Digital Media and News unit, we need to set a couple of pieces of homework that check we are keeping up to date with all the work so far. This means a folder check and creating an index of all our NDM homework stories so far.

Folder check
On Friday you need to bring an up-to-date folder to the lesson to show you are organising all of your notes, work, test papers and more. Specifically, we will be checking you've got the following:

• Ring binder folder or equivalent
• Dividers - section for each teacher
• Course outline/ print from spec
• Notes in chronological order/title/date
• Quality of note taking
• Blog print-out - to end of last half-term
• Marked NDM assessment
• Homework completed/quality

Due: Friday

NDM stories

Now we've covered half of the NDM News unit, we need to develop our collection of the NDM stories. Your ongoing, weekly homework from now on is as follows:

TWO New/Digital news stories on your blog EVERY week (including holidays). ONE can be general NDM (technology, social networking etc.) but you need AT LEAST ONE story every week that relates to news, journalism and New/Digital Media. Great examples of stories that fit this criteria have appeared in just the last few days:

Sun moves to scrap paywall

Can Twitter reinvent itself with packaged news before it gets sold?

Due: EVERY week on Friday (13C)

Task for this week

Compile an index of ALL of your NDM stories from the first half term. This homework was set on Friday 11 September which means you should have a minimum of 16 stories in your index this week. 

Your index should have the story number (starting with your first story back in September as #1), the headline and a link to your blog post for that story

If you want to see an example, check out this blog post from one of our past students - you need this level of quality and detail in your story index too. (Incidentally, she went on to a get an A in Media - and you can see why).

Due: Friday