Critical Investigation: Task #8

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). Aim for around 2,500 including quotes and you will be in the right ballpark.


• 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!

Critical Investigation: Task #7

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 have been emailed to you on your school email address.
• 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 - e.g. A Level Media blog, 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 (20 quotes) but then ongoing to Easter.

NDM News: end-of-term indexes

We have learned a huge amount this term on news and new/digital media - alongside plenty of crucial A2 Media theory. 

We now need to update our index posts for both the news case study and our weekly new/digital news stories to ensure we are up-to-date with everything. After Christmas, you will have your January assessment where we'll be able to see the progress you are making towards the vital MEST3 exam in the summer.  

NDM News index

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

This process is an excellent start to your revision for the MEST3 Section B January assessment (not to mention the exam in the summer) 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) Ofcom report: how news consumption has changed
3) Baseline assessment: learner response
4) The future of newspapers: Build The Wall analysis
5) The decline of newspapers: the effect of online technology
6) The decline of newspapers: Media Magazine case studies
7) The future of journalism: John Oliver and Clay Shirky
8) Citizen journalism and hyper-reality
9) Galtung & Ruge: News Values
10) Marxism & Pluralism: MM article ('Web 2.0: Participation or Hegemony')
11) Marxism & Pluralism: Alain de Botton on the News
12) NDM News: full Section B essay on blog ('consumption and production')
13) Globalisation: MM article and Factsheet questions
14) Globalisation and fake news: articles and questions
15) News on the Tweet: Newsworks report
16) A case study in news and social media - Factsheet questions
17) Blog essay feedback and learner response

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 Monday 11 September which means you should have a minimum of 26 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 - guidance for the original task from September (with top-level examples from previous years) is here.

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.

If you're missing a couple of stories, go back through our Twitter feed for links to good new/digital media stories from the last few weeks. Remember, we do this homework for you every week!

Index due date: anything you don't complete in the lesson needs to be posted by your last lesson before Christmas.

NDM blog essay: feedback and learner response

Well done on completing your new/digital media essays on your blog - they already show huge progress from the baseline assessment. 

We now need to use what we've learned from this process to prepare for the January assessment in the first week back. We're not necessarily expecting an A/A* response in that assessment but we DO want to see significant progress from the baseline assessment and good use of all the case study material we have covered.

NDM essay: learner response

Create a new blog post called 'NDM essay feedback and learner response' and read your feedback email from your teacher carefully. Then, complete the following tasks:

1) Copy and paste the email feedback (WWW/EBI/LR) into your blogpost.

2) Identify your strongest section. Which part of the case study do you know best - Marxism and Hegemony? Pluralism? The decline in the newspaper industry?

3) Identify your weakest section or any missing sections. Which part of the case study do you need to revise - News values? Baudrillard's hyper-reality? Alain de Botton's news as social control? Clay Shirky's news as social good?

4) Complete the LR task specified in your feedback - usually to re-write a certain section and then create a revision list for the January assessment. Please complete these LR tasks within this blogpost - don't go back and edit your original essay at this point.

If you do not finish this learner response in the lesson, this needs to be completed at home by your first lesson back after Christmas.

Christmas homework: revise for January assessment

Your Christmas homework on the exam side is simple: revise everything you've learned for your January assessment.

This assessment will be in the first week back and like your baseline assessment it will be a MEST3 Section B essay. Revise everything from your index and also look over your learner response for both the recent blog essay and your baseline assessment in September. That feedback will be important in identifying how you will improve in the upcoming assessment.

Christmas homework - additional revision/resources

There are plenty of resources out there to help you prepare for your MEST3 Section B assessment in January AND write your critical investigation first draft.

You will obviously be looking over your two indexes of our News case study work AND all the NDM stories that you have collected over the last term. However, there is plenty more out there. Anything you read in our Media Magazine archive will help to give you a wider perspective on media debates and every issue has several articles with a new/digital media focus. We also have an archive of 160+  A Level Media Studies Factsheets that we have subscribed to - in fact, these are brilliant for both critical investigations and the exam topic.

You'll find our Media Magazine archive here and the Media Factsheets are available on the M: Media Shared drive > Resources > A Level > Media Factsheets.

In particular, the following Factsheets 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

088 The Impact of New Media on Politics

104 Audiences in the Digital Age

131 Social Media and the News Agenda

There are plenty for you to look through for your Critical Investigation too - horror film, gender, post-9/11 Hollywood and more. Plus one that we could all use for both MEST3 Section B essays AND our critical investigations:

060 How to Write Academic Essays

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

NDM News: A case study in News and Social Media

To finish off our comprehensive case study on the impact of New and Digital Media on News, we will look again at the impact of social media on traditional news institutions.

This helpfully revises some of the work we have done over the last 14 weeks as well as adding a few extra examples, quotes and statistics that will be invaluable in a MEST3 Section B essay. Complete the following tasks to complete your case study:

Blog task: Factsheet #134 - Press, Prominence and Persuasion – A Case Study in News and Social Media

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 134: Press, Prominence and Persuasion – A Case Study in News and Social Media. 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) What does Guardian journalist and academic Emily Bell say has happened to the print news industry on page 1 of the factsheet?

2) How do news stories become prominent on social media?

3) What is EdgeRank and how does it work?

4) Why was the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri (after the shooting of Michael Brown) an interesting example of how Facebook's news algorithm works?

5) How did the news of Osama Bin Laden's death break?

6) How does news spread on Twitter?

7) What is YOUR opinion on editorial control at tech giants like Facebook and Twitter? Are they neutral or should they play an active role (such as blocking and deleting ISIS beheading videos)?

8) Spend some time exploring First Look Media. Is this a realistic future for quality journalism?

9) Read the About page for First Look Media. What are they trying to achieve and do you think they will be successful?

10) Finally, take a good look at The Intercept. Explain how The Intercept started and list three interesting stories on there from the last 12 months.

Complete this for homework - due next lesson.

Critical Investigation: Task #6

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 20 December.

NDM News: 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 next week.

NDM News: Globalisation and fake news

The recent phenomenon of '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 future elections and interfere with democracy. 

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 exam lesson next week Thursday/Friday.

Media Magazine Conference - trip details

The Media Magazine conference is always a great opportunity to see academics, journalists and media professionals speak about key media issues.

The trip briefing sheet with map and meeting details is here.

Trip date: Wednesday 6 December
Meeting place: Outside the venue - Friends House, Euston
Meeting time: 9.45am

Remember to bring pens and paper to make notes during the lectures. This is also great preparation for university!

NDM News: Globalisation

One of the topics that we need to cover in A2 Media is Globalisation - which has huge relevance to digital media, news and beyond.

You should have read the notes on Globalisation in class - the handout is here if you need an electronic copy.

Globalisation and news: blog tasks

Having discussed these issues in class in relation to our news case study, we now need to develop our own opinions on this issue before exploring the wider implications of globalisation.


Class debate: key opinions on globalisation

Firstly, answer the following questions on your blog to develop your own opinions on these issues:

1) Is our news influenced by American cultural imperialism? Give some examples arguing for or against this perspective.

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

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

Media Magazine: Globalisation case study

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.

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? 

There is a lot of work here - you'll need to finish it for homework if you don't complete it during this week's lessons - due date set by your exam teacher.

Critical Investigation: Task #5

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 quotes/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 around 2,000 words (not including quotes - probably around 2,500 with 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 and your historical text research 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 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 8 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.