OSP: Teen Vogue - Audience and Representation

Teen Vogue offers a huge amount to discuss and write about for the concepts of audience and representation.

The exam could focus on anything from the changing nature of digital audiences to how certain groups or issues are represented in Teen Vogue online.

Notes from the lesson

Audience

Although the brand name suggests a teenage audience, the typical Teen Vogue reader has evolved in recent years. The move to more political content has broadened the appeal and changed the genre – young women now expect more from their media.

The ‘Campus Life’ section in Lifestyle also suggests an older readership. However, the audience is still interested in celebrity content and beauty – which Teen Vogue addresses by featuring the ‘opinion leaders’ (two-step flow) of social media.

Generations

Generation X: Born between 1965 – 1980
Millennials / Generation Y: Born between 1981 – 1995
Generation Z (or iGen): Born 1996 – 2010

Teen Vogue: political positioning

Teen Vogue generally takes a liberal, left-wing political stance and positions its readers to become active in their support:

• Pro-feminist
• Pro-gender fluidity and gender identity
• Supports LGBT equality
• Pro-multiculturalism
• Supports Black Lives Matter
• Pro-environment (accepting science on climate change)
• Pro-choice (abortion)

Teen Vogue: audience interaction

How does Teen Vogue encourage audience interaction?

• Activism
• Social media
• ‘Clickbait’ and first-person headlines
• Events – Teen Vogue summit

Representation

Changing representations

Feminist bloggers and websites such as Rookie and liberal blog Jezebel have been credited with changing the representation of women and feminism in the digital age.


This can be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory with digital influencers changing the media landscape for women – and established mainstream brands like Teen Vogue are following to stay relevant.

Teen Vogue: Audience and Representation blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'Teen Vogue Audience and Representation' and work through the following tasks to complete the audience and representation aspects of your Teen Vogue case study:

Audience

1) Analyse the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What is the Teen Vogue mission statement and what does this tell us about the target audience and audience pleasures?

2) What is the target audience for Teen Vogue? Use the media pack to pick out key aspects of the audience demographics. Also, consider the psychographic groups that would be attracted to Teen Vogue: make specific reference to the website design or certain articles to support your points regarding this.

3) What audience pleasures or gratifications can be found in Teen Vogue? Do these differ from the gratifications of traditional print-based magazines?

4) How is the audience positioned to respond to political news stories?

5) How does Teen Vogue encourage audiences to interact with the brand – and each other – on social media? The ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ section of the media pack may help with this question.

Representations

1) Look again at the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What do the ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ (key events and features throughout the year) suggest about the representation of women and teenage girls on teenvogue.com?

2) How are issues of gender identity and sexuality represented in Teen Vogue?

3) Do representations of appearance or beauty in Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge traditional stereotypes?

4) What is the patriarchy and how does Teen Vogue challenge it? Does it succeed? 

5) Does Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge typical representations of celebrity?

Feature: how Teen Vogue represents the changing nature of media aimed at women

Read this Quartz feature - The true story of how Teen Vogue got mad, got woke, and began terrifying men like Donald Trump - and answer the following questions:

1) How was the Teen Vogue op-ed on Donald Trump received on social media?

2) How have newspapers and magazines generally categorised and targeted news by gender?

3) How is this gender bias still present in the modern media landscape?

4) What impact did the alternative women’s website Jezebel have on the women’s magazine market?

5) Do you agree with the writer that female audiences can enjoy celebrity news and beauty tips alongside hard-hitting political coverage? Does this explain the recent success of Teen Vogue?

6) How does the writer suggest feminists used to be represented in the media?

7) What is the more modern representation of feminism? Do you agree that this makes feminism ‘stereotyped as fluffy’?

8) What contrasting audience pleasures for Teen Vogue are suggested by the writer in the article as a whole?

9) The writer suggests that this change in representation and audience pleasures for media products aimed at women has emerged from the feminist-blog movement. How can this be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory?

10) Is Teen Vogue simply a product of the Trump presidency or will websites and magazines aimed at women continue to become more hard-hitting and serious in their offering to audiences?

There is plenty to work on here as this needs to cover two of the key concepts for this in-depth CSP. Complete for homework - due date set by exam teacher.

Coursework: Preliminary exercise

We are starting Year 13 coursework with a preliminary exercise: a chance for you to refresh your technical production skills prior to creating your actual production.

This is a vital element of the overall coursework as it gives you the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them without it impacting on your grade. However, we also strongly advise you to create a preliminary exercise that is linked to your real coursework concept - this may give you additional material to edit into your trailer later in the year.

Preliminary exercise: TV drama scene

Task: Create a scene from your TV drama (either family or crime drama as per brief).

Length: 30-60 seconds

Equipment: Your own camera, smart phone or sign out a Media department Canon SLR from Mr Shepherd (recommended).

Groups: None. You MUST work individually. However, other people can act in the film or operate equipment (e.g. camera, sound) as long as they are directed by the candidate submitting the work. Keep a note of who you use and how you directed them.

What your TV drama scene needs to include

Content: Your scene must include at least two characters that either reinforce or subvert stereotypes.

Camerawork: You must include an establishing shot, long shot, medium shot, close-up, extreme close-up, over-the-shoulder shot and either a high or low angle shot. You also must include both fixed camera (tripod) shots and camera movement (e.g. handheld, tracking, pan etc.)

Editing: You must include match-on-action, shot-reverse-shot and adhere to the 180 degree rule.

Sound: You must include dialogue and/or voiceover, non-diegetic sound (e.g. music), diegetic sound (e.g. dialogue, ambient sound, foley sound/SFX).

Mise-en-scene: iconography to establish genre - actor placement/movement, costume and make-up, props, setting etc. Only one setting should be used for this preliminary task.

Deadlines

Planning deadline: Wednesday 2 October 

Filming deadline: Friday 4 October

Final deadline: Friday 11 October


Research and planning tasks

Create a blogpost called 'Preliminary exercise: Research and planning' and complete the tasks below. First, watch this clip on the mistakes beginner filmmakers make - it will help you identify the errors to avoid when planning and shooting your film.



There are loads more tips and tutorials from Darius Britt (D4Darius on YouTube) that we would recommend watching as part of your research and planning. These include:

• How to brainstorm ideas for a short film
• How to write a short film - principles of drama
• Nine things to check before pressing the record button

Now complete the following tasks:

1) State the genre you have chosen for your TV drama - family or crime drama.

2) Choose at least three TV dramas similar to your concept and watch the trailer and one scene from each. Make bullet-point notes on everything you watch, commenting on camerawork, editing, sound and mise-en-scene.

3) Write a script for your TV drama scene. You'll find guidance for writing a script in the BBC Writers' Room (click on the Script Library to read real examples of professional TV scripts).

4) Write a shot list containing EVERY shot you plan to film AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. I advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word to set out your shot list - you can find an example here. 

5) Plan your mise-en-scene: what iconography are you including to ensure your audience understands the genre? Plan your cast, costume, make-up, props, lighting and setting. For this preliminary task, use just one location to keep it simple.

6) Plan a shooting schedule that will ensure everything is filmed by the deadline. Include when, where, who is required and what shots you will complete at each time/location.

Optional additional planning: Storyboard key shots from your scene. What visual style are you trying to create? Storyboard sheets are available in DF07.

Research and planning deadline: Wednesday 

Coursework: Ignite presentation learner response

There have been some excellent Ignite presentations with some brilliantly creative responses to the coursework brief. 

Hopefully, the presentations and Q&A sessions that followed have highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of your coursework proposal and may indeed have prompted re-drafts of your statement of intent. 

Your learner response is as follows and will take some time to do properly:

Create a new blogpost called 'Ignite presentation learner response'

1) Type up your feedback in full including the ratings out of five for each of the six categories. 

2) Use this feedback, comments from peers and your own reflection on your presentation to self-assess and write a detailed WWW and EBI for your own coursework concept and presentation as a whole.

3) Write a paragraph discussing how your presentation will lead into your actual coursework production. Do you need to update your statement of intent? Does your narrative offer enough clarity? Is it appropriate for the audience specified in the brief? Does it fit the genre you are aiming for? Can you add media terminology or theory to your statement of intent now you have reflected on your presentation and seen others?

You also need to ensure that ALL your research and planning from over the summer - including your current statement of intent - is posted to your Media 2 coursework blog.

If you continue this process at home, ensure it is completed by your next coursework lesson.

OSP: Teen Vogue - background and textual analysis

Our first Online, Social and Participatory CSP is Teen Vogue - the former print magazine turned online sensation.

Teen Vogue has generated a huge amount of coverage (and attracted a significant audience) by re-positioning the magazine as a socially conscious political hub for young women.

Notes from the lesson

Teen Vogue: background

Teen Vogue was launched in 2003 as a print magazine ‘little sister’ title to US Vogue. It focused on fashion and celebrity and was a conventional magazine aimed at teenage girls.

In 2015, in response to declining sales, the magazine cut back its print distribution and focused on digital content. After single-copy sales dropped 50% in the first six months of 2016 alone, the magazine went quarterly (four issues a year) before announcing the closure of the print magazine completely in November 2017.

Online growth
Led by digital director Phillip Picardi, the Teen Vogue website grew substantially as the print magazine declined. 

Between January 2016 and 2017, Teen Vogue’s online traffic rocketed from 2.9m US visitors to 7.9m. The magazine then surpassed 10m unique users later in 2017. In addition, the magazine has 6m Facebook likes, 3.5m Twitter followers and a huge following on Snapchat.

Evolution and activism

The spectacular digital growth of Teen Vogue has been credited to the editor Elaine Welteroth and digital guru Picardi leading the magazine in a radically different direction to traditional teenage magazines.

Focusing on politics, activism and feminism, the magazine has developed a reputation for high-quality journalism while recruiting millions of socially-conscious, educated readers.

'Woke'
Teen Vogue considers itself a ‘woke’ brand.

Woke definition: a political term of African American origin that refers to an awareness of issues concerning social justice.

This means Teen Vogue covers issues of politics, racism and gender identity… and amazingly has expanded the appeal and reach of the brand while doing do.

Teen Vogue: background reading and textual analysis blog tasks

Work through the following tasks to complete your first case study on Teen Vogue.

Teen Vogue: background reading

Read this Guardian feature from 2017 on Teen Vogue and answer the following questions.

1) What was the article that announced Teen Vogue as a more serious, political website – with 1.3m hits and counting?

2) When was the original Teen Vogue magazine launched and what was its original content?

3) How did editor Elaine Welteroth change Teen Vogue’s approach in 2015?

4) How many stories are published on Teen Vogue a day? What topics do they cover?

5) What influence did digital director Phillip Picardi have over the editorial direction?

6) What is Teen Vogue’s audience demographic and what does ‘woke’ refer to?

7) What issues are most important to Teen Vogue readers?

8) What does Tavi Gevinson suggest regarding the internet and ‘accountability culture’ with regards to modern audiences? Can you link this to our work on Clay Shirky?

9) What social and political issues have been covered successfully by Teen Vogue?

10) What do Teen Vogue readers think of the magazine and website?

Teen Vogue textual analysis and example articles

Work through the following tasks to complete your textual analysis of the Teen Vogue website and read notable Teen Vogue articles to refer to in exam answers. 

Homepage analysis

Go to the Teen Vogue homepage and answer the following:

1) What website key conventions can you find on the Teen Vogue homepage?

2) How does the page design encourage audience engagement?

3) Where does advertising appear on the homepage?

4) What are the items in the top menu bar and what does this tell you about the content of Teen Vogue?

5) How far does the homepage scroll down? How many stories appear on the homepage in total?

Lifestyle section

Now analyse the Lifestyle section of Teen Vogue (in the Identity section) and answer the following:

1) What are the items in the top menu bar for the Lifestyle section?

2) How is the Lifestyle section designed to encouragement audience engagement? Think about page design, images, text and more.

3) What do you notice about the way headlines are written in Teen Vogue?

4) What does the focus on education, university and ‘campus life’ tell you about the Teen Vogue audience demographics and psychographics?

5) Choose three stories featured in the Lifestyle section – why do they fit the Teen Vogue brand?

Five key articles

Read the following five notable Teen Vogue features then answer the questions below for EACH feature.

Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America

The new face of teen activism 

Black Teens Have Been Fighting for Gun Reform for Years

Netflix and strong female leads 

How to Break Away From the Gender Binary

For each article:

1) Who is the writer and what is the article about?

2) How does the article use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible.

3) Why is this article significant?

4) How does this article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?

There is plenty to work on here - you will need to complete the majority for homework but we will set an extended deadline due to the volume of work.

OSP: Clay Shirky - End of audience blog tasks

Our first topic for Year 13 is Online, Social and Participatory media (OSP).

This will allow us to build on the work we did in Year 12 while further exploring the impact of the internet on audiences and media industries. Our two in-depth CSPs are the Teen Vogue online presence (website, Facebook and Twitter) and The Voice website - the online home of the weekly newspaper for the black British community.

Notes from the lesson

Before studying the CSPs, we need to learn a key theorist for this topic - Clay Shirky's End of audience theories. This, along with the remarkable impact of the internet, will underpin everything we study for Teen Vogue and The Voice.

The internet: a brief history

The internet has been the most significant social, cultural and technological development of the last 30 years.

• In 1998, just 9% of UK households had internet access.
• In 2018, it had risen to 90%.
• Daily internet use in the UK has doubled since 2006.
• Smartphones are now the most popular device to access the internet. The iPhone was launched in 2007.

Source: ONS (Office for National Statistics)

The 'Information Revolution'

550 years ago, the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg meant that the number of books in existence rose from a few thousand to 20 million in just 25 years. This led to the Reformation, the Renaissance and the scientific revolution in which centuries-old modes of thinking were radically questioned.

The internet has been likened to the Gutenberg revolution – which means we’re living through this ‘Information revolution’ right now:

• “The most important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burke 2005) 
• “An application that will usher in The Information Age” (Castells 1996)

Clay Shirky: End of audience




Clay Shirky suggests the 20th century media model “with professional producers and amateur consumers” has been replaced by a more chaotic landscape that allows consumers to be producers and distributors. 

From the rise of collaborative projects to publicity campaigns run by volunteers, he believes that “organizations now have to understand, and respect, the motivations of the billion new participants in the contemporary media ecosystem.”

One of big changes with digital platforms is that “Every consumer is also a producer, and everyone can talk back.”  Yet what may be more significant is the simple math of how many people can reach each other through the connections in a network.  The result is always more connections. 

Shirky adds that media had been a hierarchical industry—in that one filtered first, and then published. “All of that now breaks down,” he says. “People are producing who are not employees or media professions.  So we now publish first, and then filter.  We find the good stuff after the fact.  This is dramatically different.”

Source: Internationalist Magazine Trendsetters profile 

Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks

Media Magazine reading

Media Magazine 55 has an overview of technology journalist Bill Thompson’s conference presentation on ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ It’s an excellent summary of the internet’s brief history and its impact on society. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 13 to read the article ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ Answer the following questions:

1) Looking over the article as a whole, what are some of the positive developments due to the internet highlighted by Bill Thompson?

2) What are the negatives or dangers linked to the development of the internet?

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?

4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?

5) Where do you stand on the use and regulation of the internet? Should there be more control or more openness? Why?

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody charts the way social media and connectivity is changing the world. Read Chapter 3 of his book, ‘Everyone is a media outlet’, and answer the following questions:

1) How does Shirky define a ‘profession’ and why does it apply to the traditional newspaper industry?

2) What is the question facing the newspaper industry now the internet has created a “new ecosystem”?

3) Why did Trent Lott’s speech in 2002 become news?

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

5) Shirky suggests that: “The same idea, published in dozens or hundreds of places, can have an amplifying effect that outweighs the verdict from the smaller number of professional outlets.” How can this be linked to the current media landscape and particularly ‘fake news’?

6) What does Shirky suggest about the social effects of technological change? Does this mean we are currently in the midst of the internet “revolution” or “chaos” Shirky mentions?

7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?

8) What does Shirky suggest regarding the hundred years following the printing press revolution? Is there any evidence of this “intellectual and political chaos” in recent global events following the internet revolution?

9) Why is photography a good example of ‘mass amateurisation’?

10) What do you think of Shirky’s ideas on the ‘End of audience’? Is this era of ‘mass amateurisation’ a positive thing? Or are we in a period of “intellectual and political chaos” where things are more broken than fixed? 

A/A* extension work: read Chapter 1 ‘It takes a village to find a phone’ and Chapter 4 ‘Publish, then filter’ to further understand Shirky’s ideas concerning the ‘End of audience’.

You will have lesson time to work on this but will need to finish for homework. Deadline specified by your Exam class teacher. 

Media blogs: setting the standard

Your Media blog is where you do the vast majority of your work as a Media student - so we need to make sure it looks professional.

These are the guidelines you need to follow when working on your Media blog:

1) Always write a post title that clearly states the piece of work you are producing. The correct post title will almost always be specified on the original blog task. Your post title goes here: 









2) Make sure your written English is perfect - just as you would in an exercise book or essay. This means capital letters, full sentences and accurate spelling and grammar.

3) If you are answering questions on your blog, make sure you clearly number each question. Leave a line break between each question too.

4) When completing larger case study tasks, make sure you use subheadings as directed in the original task.

5) Save your work regularly and publish it before you log off. You can always go back and edit or finish your work but it's vital you don't close your browser before saving and publishing because that's how you can lose work.

6) If you're looking for the higher grades in A Level Media, it's vital you answer questions in well-developed paragraphs and not single sentences. The depth and detail of you analysis will ultimately be what gets you to the top grades - so get into good habits on your blog from the beginning of the year.

Set a high blogging standard from day one this year and you will be making the first step on the way to a top grade in Media!

Coursework: Reminder - Summer Project 2019

The summer project is a vital element of your coursework - an opportunity to plan an outstanding TV drama trailer and then pitch it to class in a timed presentation.

Your summer project contains compulsory and optional elements; everybody will be researching TV drama trailers, investigating their chosen drama genre, creating a TV drama concept, writing a first draft Statement of Intent and presenting this to class as an Ignite presentation in September. However, if you wish to also plan and film your production over the summer while you have time and actors available we would fully support you in this approach.

Summer project tasks

Complete the following tasks on a blogpost on your coursework blog called 'Summer Project: coursework planning':

1) Research: TV drama trailer analysis 

You need to write detailed 250-word close-textual analyses of six TV drama trailers in your chosen genre. For each trailer, focus on a different aspect of media language, and embed each one on your blog:

TV drama trailer 1: Narrative and genre
How is narrative and genre communicated quickly and clearly to the audience?

TV drama trailer 2: Mise-en-scene
What do you notice about the use of mise-en-scene to create meanings for the audience? Think CLAMPS.

TV drama trailer 3: Camerawork
Here you are looking for particular camera shots and movement. E.g. Are close-ups used to introduce key characters to the audience? How are establishing shots used?

TV drama trailer 4: Editing
Analyse pace, transitions, number of shots and juxtaposition e.g. eyeline matches. Does the pace speed up towards the end of the trailer? 

TV drama trailer 5: Sound
Analyse both diegetic and non-diegetic sound - music, dialogue, voiceover, SFX, background or foley sound etc.

TV drama trailer 6: Trailer conventions, graphics, text-on-screen etc.
Here you need to explore trailer conventions - what does this trailer have that you've spotted in all the trailers you have analysed so far? Look for things like text on screen, graphics, title, release date, social media links and more.

You can find a range of TV drama trailer examples in this blogpost.

2) Planning: TV drama concept

In order to produce a successful trailer, you will need to plan out the overall narrative arc for the whole season or series of your drama. This will include the number of episodes, the narrative conflict driving the main protagonist, episodic narratives and cliffhangers and more. This overall picture of the drama will inform both your TV trailer and culture magazine feature.

Complete this TV drama pitch template to plan these elements (you can copy the questions into your blog or complete on Word and link from your blog) to demonstrate you have planned a complete TV drama series in your chosen genre. 


3) Statement of Intent

Write the first draft for your genuine 500-word Statement of Intent. This will be submitted to the exam board alongside your media products and is worth 10 marks of the overall 60 marks available.

Guidance is provided by AQA in their NEA Student Booklet but we strongly recommend you also look at our Statement of Intent questions to consider document too.


4) Ignite presentation

Prepare a 5-minute, 20-slide presentation using the Ignite format in which you present your coursework project. In effect, this is your statement of intent in presentation format. You must cover:

• Your TV drama concept: title, tagline, genre, narrative, character etc.
• Media language: how you will use conventions, camerawork, editing, mise-en-scene and sound to create an effective TV drama trailer.
• Media representations: how you will use or subvert stereotypes; representation theory.
• Media audiences: your target audience demographics and psychographics; audience pleasures; audience theory.
• Media industries and digital convergence: the potential companies or organisations that could produce or broadcast your TV drama; how your trailer will encourage audiences to discuss your new TV drama on social media.

Ignite presentations have very specific rules: you must create exactly 20 slides with each slide set to 15-second auto-advance. This means your presentation will be exactly five minutes followed by questions and comments from the class. You will deliver your presentation on your coursework planning in the first week back in September.

Your Ignite presentation will be marked out of 30 on the following criteria (each worth a possible 5 marks):

1) Research (through presentation AND blog) 
2) Concept
3) Language: terminology and theory
4) Representations
5) Audience and Industry
6) Delivery

You can find more information about Ignite presentations - including examples - in this Ignite presentation blogpost here.

Summer project deadline: all tasks above due in first week back in September



Summer project: optional extensions

Pre-production tasks

Some students have already expressed an interest in filming their TV drama trailers over the summer break. This makes a huge amount of sense - far more availability of actors, much more time to schedule filming etc. However, if you want to do this, you need to read this Guardian feature on how to create a film trailer and then complete the following aspects of pre-production:

Script
Write a script for your TV drama trailer. There is some debate with regards to whether trailers have scripts (the script would obviously be for the full TV drama series) but you absolutely need to plan out every aspect of your production and a script seems the most logical way to do it. It may well be that your trailer script contains a lot of stage directions/description but there will be dialogue (and possibly voiceover) in there too. You'll find guidance for writing a script in the BBC Writers' Room (click on the Script Library to read real examples of professional TV drama scripts from recent BBC drama productions).

Storyboard 
Sketch out a range of critical shots from your trailer, take a photo of the storyboard and upload it to your blogpost. What visual style are you trying to create? Storyboard sheets are available in DF07 or you can download and print out an AQA storyboard template from here.

Shot list
Write a shot list containing EVERY shot you plan to film for the trailer AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. I advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word to set out your shot list - you can find an example here. It makes sense to organise your shot list by scene or location rather than a huge list of every shot in the trailer in chronological order. 

Mise-en-scene
What iconography are you including to ensure your audience understands the genre you have chosen? Plan your cast, costume, make-up, props, lighting and setting. This can be simply completed using your blog or Microsoft Word - the key aspect is to have planned all the critical details. 

Shooting schedule 
Plan a shooting schedule for your filming over the summer. Include when, where, who is required and what shots you will complete at each time/location. Again, this can be on Word or Excel or you could simply use your blog. The most important thing is that you've planned it!

Non-assessed participants
You will need to provide a written record of all non-assessed participants in your production work (both TV drama trailer and culture magazine). Keep a record of everyone involved - actors, camerawork, sound etc. You will also need a keep a record of any non-original sound you used and note it on the Candidate Record Form. Keep these on your blog for easy reference when submitting your work in Year 13.

Production: Filming and photography

Once you have completed your pre-production tasks, you can film or carry out photoshoots as you wish.

Good luck!

Coursework: Reminder - Summer project Ignite presentations

Your summer project will involve researching and planning your coursework. You will then present this work to the class in the first week of September in the form of an Ignite presentation.

This will be a hugely valuable exercise as it will allow you to test your idea in front of a potential audience - and make sure the narrative and genre are communicated clearly. The Ignite presentation format offers a particular challenge and will force you to carefully consider how to pitch your project to the class.

The Ignite tagline is simple:

“Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

Ignite talks are a popular presentation format online. The rules are simple:

• 20 slides
• 15 second auto-advance
• 5 minutes
• 1 topic

Here's a good Ignite talk about giving an Ignite talk:

Here are some media-related examples:

And here's another Media-related example that shows you why PRACTICE is so important - the speaker never keeps up with his slides and therefore the whole presentation is rushed:

Summer project: Ignite presentation

Your Ignite presentation will be on your coursework plan - effectively a presentation version of your Statement of Intent. This means telling your audience the genre, title, narrative, media language choices, representations, audience and industry factors in just 20 slides and 5 minutes. You can find all the Summer project tasks in the original blogpost here.

Good luck!

Coursework: Reminder - TV drama trailer examples

Learning the conventions, pacing and construction of TV drama trailers will be essential to achieving a top grade in your coursework.

The following TV drama trailers will hopefully give you an idea of what we need to produce:

Killing Eve (BBC)



Wild Bill (ITV)



Bodyguard (BBC/Netflix co-production)



Holby City (BBC) - first two minutes to introduce multi-strand narrative



Friday Night Lights (ABC - extended trailer - family drama)



Black Earth Rising (BBC/Netflix co-production)



Broadchurch




Luther