New Media Magazine issue

The new issue of Media Magazine is out now - MM58.

This contains some superb articles for our ongoing work on critical investigations and new and digital media - including the music streaming, Brexit, Stranger Things, social media and black identity, screenwriting and media power.

Our Media Magazine reference guide is here - if you haven't searched this for your critical investigation topic then you are missing out on a brilliant resource. You can then find the article in our Media Magazine archive.

Take a look through and read any articles of interest - particularly if you want an A/A* in Media!

Critical Investigation Task #7

Critical Investigation - First Draft

The following needs to be completed by...

• Your first lesson back in January

• This is it: complete the first draft of your Critical Investigation.


• It must be a word processed 2,000 word essay (PLUS quotes - with a precise total word count including quotes but excluding bibliography at the end of the essay).


• 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 inspired by BibMe and this is an A* bibliography using Microsoft Word.


• 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/A* essays from 2016 (you can find top essays from 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012 on the blog too).

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: end of unit index

We have reached the end of our main new/digital case study on the news industry and need to update our indexes to ensure we have everything we need to revise.  

January assessment
Over Christmas, you will be revising for a MEST3 Section B assessment in January as well as working on your first draft of the critical investigation. It's therefore vital that you ensure that you are up-to-date with all your exam work NOW before the workload increases further. 

NDM News index

In today's lesson you need to update your index of all of your work so far for New/Digital Media and News. The quickest way to do this is to copy the HTML from your last index blogpost and simply update it for the latest tasks. 

Your index should include the following:

1) Institution: the impact of Google on the newspaper industry
2) Ofcom report: 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) The future of journalism: John Oliver and Clay Shirky
6) The decline of newspapers: Media Magazine case studies
7) Citizen journalism and hyper-reality: Media Magazine article and questions
8) News Values: theory and updating them for digital media landcape
9) Marxism & Pluralism: Media Magazine article and questions
10) Alain de Botton on the News: lecture and questions
11) Full NDM essay including paragraphs on Marxism and Pluralism
12) Globalisation and news: cultural imperialism
13) Globalisation: taking it further (Google Glass case study and capitalism)
14) Fake news and globalisation - Guardian and New York Times articles
15) News on the Tweet

Important: 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 so far. This homework was originally set on Friday 9 September which means you should have a minimum of 28 stories in your new index. 

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 - guidance for the original index we created last month (with top-level examples from previous years) is here.

Having already done this once, you can simply copy the HTML over from your previous index and just update it for the last eight stories. Remember, every story you post needs to be on a separate blogpost and the link in the index should go to YOUR blog post on that story, not the original article itself.

Index tasks due date: must be updated in lesson.

NDM case study: News on the Tweet

Our case study on news has focused heavily on the decline of traditional brands and the rise of social media. But do these two competing platforms actually need each other to be successful?

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. Do you think new and digital media developments such as Twitter have had a positive or negative impact on traditional newspapers?
8. Finally, how can we link this report to the vital current debate regarding fake news and Facebook? Do traditional news brands need protecting to ensure there are sources we can trust?

Finish for homework if you don't get it finished in the lesson - due in the first lesson after Christmas.

NDM News: Globalisation and fake news

The growing problem with fake news is a great example of the crossover between globalisation and the news industry. 

It has been linked with a range of political events across the world - from Brexit here in the UK to Trump's election in the USA. Many European countries are now worried fake news will influence their upcoming elections in 2017. 

Fake news: blog tasks

The Guardian & the global problem of fake news

1) Read this Guardian feature - Fake news: an insidious trend that's fast becoming a global problem 

2) What similarities do you notice between the different countries outlined in the article and their problems with fake news?

3) Is fake news an inevitable consequence of the "culture of freedom and innovation" that the internet has brought with it? Is there a way to stop it?


New York Times and the creation of fake news

1) Read this New York Times feature - Inside a Fake News Sausage Factory: ‘This Is All About Income’

2) Which fake news stories were particularly successful for Beqa Latsabidze, the 22-year-old student in Tbilisi, Georgia, who tried to make money from web articles on Trump? 

3) How much can Facebook and Google be blamed for this global rise in fake news?


Complete for homework if you don't finish in the lesson - due in your final lesson next week.

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 AQA 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 at some point in your essay - 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 2016, 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.

Continue your internet research over the holiday and into January using 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 Notes & Quotes document (AND bibliography) along with a brief explanation about which section of your essay plan it could fit into. 

Due: January.

Globalisation: taking it further

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 capitalism, 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 independent case studies for Section B.


Media Magazine: Globalisation case study

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?


Media Factsheet: Globalisation and capitalism


Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 92: Globalisation. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) Who coined the phrase 'a global village' and what multinational companies illustrate this?

2) What role does Slavoj Zizek suggest the media plays in global capitalism? How can you link this to our previous work on Marxism and Hegemony? 

3) What does 'capitalism with a conscience' mean? 

4) What is the (PRODUCT) RED campaign? 

5) Based on what you've read in the Factsheet, what is YOUR opinion of the (PRODUCT) RED brand? Is it a positive force helping to fight AIDS in Africa or a cynical attempt to make multinational companies look more ethical than they actually are? 

Finish for homework if you don't complete it during the lesson - due date set by your exam teacher.