Easter revision links and tips

The Easter holidays are a critical time for revision and final coursework improvements.

This is the time to be revising the exam topics, practising questions and making any final improvements to your production work. It's also important to have a break too! Make sure you give yourself a few proper days off amongst the school work.

Coursework deadline

The coursework deadline is Wednesday 20 April - all details on this blogpost here. Please remember that although the production work is due after Easter your Statement of Intent cannot be changed after Friday 1 April so whatever we have on that date will be your final Statement of Intent.

Exam revision

Remember that AQA have given us advance information for the 2022 exams that will really help us focus our revision and preparation. 

Here's what you need to revise with links to the original blogposts:

Paper 1

Section A: Language and Representation

• Unseen analysis
• Music Video - Letter to the Free
• Advertising and Marketing - Score hair cream and Maybelline That Boss Life

Section B: Industry and Audience

• Film Industry - Blinded By The Light
• Radio - War of the Worlds and BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat

Paper 2

• Unseen analysis
• Magazines - Men's Health and Oh Comely
• OSP - Teen Vogue and The Voice
• Television - Capital and Deutschland 83

Revision links and guidance

We've got plenty of resources to help you with your revision and preparation for the upcoming exams.

Here's a link to the PowerPoint we've been using to revise key topics so far. 

Here's the sample questions and answers we've been working on in our revision lessons. 

Note that you'll need your Greenford Google login for these resources as they are only for GHS Media students.

We also gave you a paper copy of the Theoretical Perspectives resource which covers all the theories in the A Level Media specification. Let us know if you didn't get one!

Finally, here's a short blog on what makes a good flashcard - always useful to get top tips on effective revision techniques.

Walk-and-talk Paper 1

As promised, we'll be doing a walk-and-talk mock exam to practice the timing and style of questions for Paper 1. It will follow the advance exam information that AQA have released so revise the links for Paper 1 above. This will be in the second week back after Easter so be prepared for that.

Good luck with your revision!

Coursework: FINAL DEADLINE

The final deadline for A Level Media coursework is Wednesday 20 April.

You will have the lesson on the Wednesday to submit your work. After this date, we will be marking and moderating the coursework before sending it to AQA for approval.

Submitting your coursework

You will submit your work to Mr Harrison for collection and packaging up for the exam board. It is YOUR responsibility to make sure Mr Harrison has the following:

1) Video file of final three-minute TV documentary opening sequence - format H264/mp4
2) Three PDF copies of your print posters
3) Statement of Intent Word/Google document

In class this week we will be completing the Candidate Record Forms and writing a list of non-assessed participants - basically any other students who were involved in the production of your coursework.

Final deadline: Wednesday 20 April

Good luck!

Newspapers: The decline in print media

Our final topic in A Level Media s newspapers: an industry that has changed hugely in the last 20 years due to the impact of the internet.

We now know that this won't be coming up in the final exam but it's still something we have to cover and could be very useful for a synoptic question on either the Magazine CSPs or Teen Vogue/OSP.

Notes from the lesson

In the lesson, we looked at the history of the newspaper industry and the decline in the last 20 years:

The decline of newspapers

In the last 20 years, the newspaper industry has faced a sharp decline due to the rise of the internet.

In 2003, almost 30 million newspapers were sold in the UK every day. By 2017 that was down to 12.4 million (source: Ofcom). 

Newspapers have traditionally made their money in two ways: through the cover price and by selling advertising. With so much news available for free online, audiences are not buying newspapers so both these sources of income have been decimated.

The Wall Street Journal produced a short video demonstrating how the industry has changed in the last 100 years:

Once you've watched the video and considered the decline in the industry, work through the blog tasks below.

Blog tasks: The decline in print media

Part 1: Ofcom report into news consumption 2019

Read this Ofcom 2019 report on the consumption of news in the UK. Note down the key statistics and changes that Ofcom highlight and answer the following questions:

1) Look at the key findings from the report on pages 2-3. How do UK adults generally get their news? 

2) Read the overall summary for adults on pages 7-8. What do you notice about the changing way adults are getting their news?

3) Look at the summary of platforms used on page 13. What do you notice about newspapers and how has it changed since 2018?

4) Now look at the demographic summary for news platforms on page 15. What audience demographic groups (e.g. age, social class) are most and least likely to read newspapers?

5) Read Section 3 on cross-platform news consumption (page 20). What newspaper brands can you find in the list of most popular news sources across platforms?

6) Now turn to Section 6 focusing on newspapers (page 33). How has the circulation of national newspapers decreased between 2010 and 2018?

7) What are the most-used newspaper titles?

8) What are the most popular titles when print and online figures are combined (look at page 38)?

9) How does the i compare to the Daily Mail?

10) Now study the demographic details for our two CSP newspapers on page 39. What is the breakdown of the Daily Mail audience and the i audience? What differences do you notice?

11) Read section 7 of the report: news consumption via social media (pages 40-52). Pick out three statistics from this section that you think are interesting and explain why.

12) Look at the summary of readers' attitudes for newspapers on page 76. What statements for Daily Mail readers tend to agree with?


Part 2: Factsheet - The death of print media

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 165: The death of print media. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or you can find this factsheet online here.

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) What has happened to print media in the last 30 years?

2) Why is the Independent newspaper such a good case study for the decline in print media?

3) What was the Independent newspaper famous for?

4) What did the then-owner of the Independent, Evgeny Lebedev, say about the newspaper's digital-only future?

5) How do online newspapers make money?

6) What did the Independent's longest-serving editor Simon Kelner warn regarding the switch to digital?

7) What is the concern with fake news? What does 'post-truth' refer to?

8) What is your view on the decline in print media? Should news be free? Is it a concern that established media brands such as the Independent can no longer afford to exist as a printed newspaper?

Complete for homework if you don't get it finished in the lessons: due date on Google Classroom.