Year 13: Weekly Media homework - news story archive

In Year 13, you have an ongoing homework EVERY week of the year without fail: to find, read and post TWO news stories on your blog.

We recommend putting this homework into your timetable so you have a regular slot you complete it every week.

The details: every week you must find, read, summarise and comment upon two news stories from across the media (A*-B candidates will do more). The focus of these news stories will change depending on the topic we are working on. The first focus for our news stories links to the Newspaper CSPs we have started studying:

Mail Online
The i newspaper website 

You'll also find stories related to the media linked from our Twitter account, @blogmacguffin (access it online here if you don't have the Twitter app) so make sure you're following that too.

Most importantly, you need to do the following on your blog for each story...

1. Provide the title and weblink;
2. Include a relevant image, graphic or screenshot;
3. Summarise the story in your own words: is this is an example of hard news or soft news?
4. Explain how or why this story appeals to an audience (use media terminology and theory here).
5. Comment on the story: to what extent does it reflect the values and ideologies of the newspaper? Is this an example of quality journalism or simply clickbait? 

You'll be presenting these to the class each week (we'll randomly select a student and you'll be expected to present from memory, so make sure you come prepared) and this will ensure you build up an archive of stories from across the media to widen your media knowledge base and provide examples to use in exam questions and essays. Indeed, by the end of the year, you'll have over 50 stories to demonstrate your knowledge of the wider media.

What will this look like? Although this was for a slightly different task for the old specification Year 13 exam, this blog post from one of our previous Media students gives you an idea of what a valuable resource these stories quickly become.

Due: EVERY week - no excuses. Exact day set by your exam class teacher.