Look! A free NDM story for your homework...

Zulq has suggested that there is always something better to do with your time than read the Guardian... but those of us who live these miserable lives of interest and curiosity sometimes find relevant stories for our NDM homework.

Here's one about whether the internet is killing general knowledge and it's written by a professor of journalism at Kingston University.

Feel free to use it for one of your stories this week.

13D: Critical investigation learner response

On your MEST4 coursework blog, complete the following learner response:

1) Type up your level and comments from your first draft.
2) Write what level/grade you are aiming for in your second draft.
3) Write a numbered list of five things you will do or change for your second draft that will help you get there. Be specific and explain in detail.
4) Write a minimum three-point 'wish list' for the BFI Library trip - what do you specifically want to take away from the BFI in terms of issues, theories or particular sections of your essay?

Due: Tuesday 4 February

13E homework: newspapers in decline

Your homework this week is to develop the work we have done in class on the decline in newspapers. It involves three tasks:

1) Finish the work from the lesson: What audience pleasures or gratifications does online news content offer?

Answer this question in detail (with examples/theories) on your MEST3 exam blog. Use the handout to help you. Minimum 400 words.

2) Your regular homework: two NDM stories on your MEST3 exam blog (numbered #11 and #12) with one covering something to do with journalism or news.

3) Read Telegraph group takes a great leap into the digital unknown from the Guardian website this week. It's the ideal example of a NDM story that covers news and journalism and I'd like you to summarise the story in 50 words and answer one question: 

Has the Telegraph made a good or bad decision in sacking editor Tony Gallagher? 

Answer on your MEST3 exam blog.

Due: Thursday 6 February

13E: New and Digital Media stories

We've had plenty of excellent discussions in class sparked by the NDM stories you've been sharing - but I'm seriously disappointed to see that this isn't being replicated on your blogs. By now, you should have an absolute minimum of 8 stories on your blog with posts every week. You homework this week is to ensure all previous stories are up on your blog AND this week's two are complete. As stated when the work was originally set on this blogpost, you need to do the following:

• Provide the title and link;
• Include an image or graphic;
• Summarise the story in your own words;
• Produce a list of bullet points of any key data/statistical information;
• Comment on the story: What's your view? (At least one paragraph).

To show your progress, I want you to number the story or stories in your title from now on - so this week's post or posts will be NDM story #9 & #10.

The whole point of doing this is to have a bank of 25+ stories to revise from in April, May and June. It isn't asking much of you and will pay off massively in the exam.

13D: Olympics Opening Ceremony/Multiculturalism

Write a short analysis on your MEST3 exam blog of the representation of race and ethnicity in the two texts we studied today: the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony and the subsequent opinion piece on the Daily Mail website.

Use the theorists Alvarado and Fanon (as well as any others) and make specific references to the texts.

The links you need:

• The Olympic Opening Ceremony on YouTube - from 101.30 (music section based around the surburban-style house) and 46.00 (NHS section);

• Daily Mail article.

(And also consider an alternative view from The Guardian).

13E: The Future of Newspapers

Today's lesson is going to begin by sharing the New and Digital Media stories we have found this week. Be ready!

However, the main objective is to continue looking at the impact new and digital media has had on the newspaper industry.

Read this article from the Economist on the future of newspapers.

On your blog, write a paragraph summarising the argument the article makes. Then answer the following question: 

Do you agree with its view that it is ‘a cause for concern, but not for panic’?



Homework
You have some serious homework this week - in addition to finding two weekly NDM stories - which will provide excellent preparation for university. David Simon, creator of critically acclaimed TV hit The Wire and a former journalist, has written a passionate defence of the newspaper industry in the face of the new and digital media onslaught. This will take a couple of hours - make sure you put the time in.

The article, Build The Wall, is available here on the Columbia Journalism Review website.

Your tasks are as follows:

1) Read the article in full.

2) Create a blogpost on your MEST3 Exam Blog called 'Build The Wall analysis'. 

3) Summarise each section in one sentence:

• Section 1 (To all of the bystanders reading this…)
• Section 2 (Truth is, a halting movement toward...)
• Section 3 (Beyond Mr. Sulzberger and Ms. Weymouth…)
• Section 4 (For the industry, it is later than it should be…)

4) Summarise David Simon’s overall argument in 250 words.

5) Choose three comments from below the article, copy them in to your blogpost and explain whether they agree or disagree with David Simon’s argument and why.

6) Finally, what is your own opinion? Do you agree that newspapers need to put online content behind a paywall in order for the journalism industry to survive? Would you be willing to pay for news online? Critical autonomy is the key skill in A2 Media - you need to be able form opinions on these issues.

Due: Thursday 30 January

*UPDATE* Laurie Penny lecture cancelled

Unfortunately, today's Laurie Penny lecture has been cancelled.

We will let you know when we have a re-scheduled date.

Calling Year 13

The school is incredibly lucky to have a high profile guest speaker coming in on Tuesday lunchtime and we are making it compulsory for all A Level Media students to attend.

Laurie Penny is a journalist, feminist and prolific user of new and digital technology to challenge widely held viewpoints in the mainstream media. She will be talking in the lecture theatre at 12.20pm on Tuesday 21 January and will provide a perfect additional case study for our New and Digital Media topic and a fascinating perspective on the representation of women in modern media.

We will be taking a register of all Year 13 Media students so see you there!

13E homework - how has news changed?

How has news changed in the last 20 years?

Finish your extended blogpost answering this question.

Consider the impact for both audiences and institutions.

Who has benefited most?

You must give explanations for your answers.

You also need to be posting your TWO new and digital media stories a week - one linking to the news industry.

All of this is due on Tuesday 21 January.

You also need to bring your reply slip and £7.50 to reception for the BFI Reuben Library trip by the end of next week.

13D, 16/1, p3

13D: Mr Babu will be taking the register/supervising you.

Watch a Post-colonialism tutorial to remind you of the key points.

Add to your notes from last lesson (especially covering Orientalism)

Carry out some further internet research into the following...

• Post-colonialism;
• Frantz Fanon: "Black Skin, White Masks"
• Alvarado: exotic, dangerous, humorous, pitied

...on your blogs, summarise - in your own words - the theories, including some quotes (at least three for each) from other theorists.

Don't forget to upload TWO NDM stories onto your blogs again this week (making it four since the start of term). One should be on any NDM subject; the other on journalism/news. Make sure you summarise and give your point of view.

13E p5/6, 13/1/14

Make sure you've made all the changes/improvements to your Critical Investigations that were advised last week, including...

- a quote from the text you're studying to introduce the title;

- at least twenty footnotes, correctly referenced;

- a full bibliography, divided into sections: works cited, works consulted - with books, websites, moving image texts in each;

- a minimum of 5-10 books in the works cited section;

- spell-checked, grammar-checked, proofread very carefully;

- a word count at the end (not including quotes);

- an updated electronic version (#2) posted on your blog.

Hand in your printed copy (with full bibliography attached) to Mr Babu during the lesson. He will be supervising most of the time but I will come in to check on progress. 

You can use p5 to finalise the above, if needed. 

Then, once complete, please start planning your Linked Productions. Write an individual blog post - to be completed for homework, due tomorrow (14/1) - in which you...

- summarise your idea;

- explain who you're working with and why;

- make at least three links to your Critical Investigation;

- explain what elements you've learnt when doing your essay that you'll apply in the production;

- identify the target audience (demographics, psychographics);

- explain where/which channel/when it would appear and how your text will appeal to them;

- list ten additional genre conventions you aim to incorporate. 

The impact of new and digital media on news

Task 1

Type up your table/notes on the impact new and digital media has had on news audiences and institutions. You also should make notes of any theories or media debates that are relevant, although this is a column we will be returning to later in the unit.


Task 2

Research the major players in terms of UK news providers and make notes in a detailed blogpost. List companies, publications/ channels/programmes, owners, statistics and anything else you find relevant.

You must include all three platforms (print, broadcast, e-media) and both commercial and non-commercial institutions. 


Finish both of these tasks for homework - due Thursday 16 January.

13E Learner response and homework update

First and foremost, log on to your blog and have a look at your feedback for your essay on the positives and negatives of the internet. Your learner response is as follows:

Learner response
Read back over your work and feedback. Choose three statistics, quotes or examples that you will take from the essay and use for your exam revision. Add these as a new comment below mine.

Clearly, if you haven't posted the essay up do so now.

Weekly homework: additional task

Most of us are starting to build a good portfolio of new and digital media stories that we can refer to in the exam in June. We're now going to add an extra story each week due to the fact that we've started our case study on the impact of new and digital media on news.

Post TWO new and digital media stories each week to your blog - one general and one specifically about news or journalism. 

Please make sure the stories are relevant to new and digital media - you can't just post up anything you've read in the news. It needs to be about new technology, social media, online content, mobile communications or - obviously - the impact of new and digital media on news.

My original blogpost setting this homework has plenty of links and a clear outline of what you need to publish on your blog for each story.

As ever, we will be choosing a few people at random each lesson to share their stories from that week. Do you feel lucky???

13E NDM: lesson task 07/01/14

Today we are starting our new topic - New and Digital Media and News.

Read this article looking at the impact Google has had on the traditional newspaper business.

Answer the following questions on your blog:

1) Why has Google led to the decline of the newspaper industry?

2) Do you personally think Google is to blame for newspapers closing and journalists losing their jobs? Why?

13E New and Digital Media: end of unit question

We have reached the end of our unit introducing New and Digital Media and looking at the internet. Using your notes and anything relevant from the NDM stories you have read and posted online answer the following question:

There are always concerns about new technology. In your view, what are the possible benefits and problems attached to the Internet? 

You must include the following:

• An introduction
• Both sides of the argument
• At least three theorists or theories (e.g. Pareto's Law)
• Your opinion

Feel free to discuss the question with the person next to you but you MUST answer on your blog and be prepared to discuss your response at the end of the lesson.

If your essay is not finished in the lesson (all four bullet points need to be covered), you must finish it for homework - due Tuesday 7 January.

AND a reminder of your ongoing homework - a New and Digital Media story every week leading up to your exam in June. This morning we've seen big news from the USA regarding the Edward Snowden case - a great example of contemporary debate concerning new and digital media.

Critical Investigation Task #6

Critical Investigation - First Draft

The following needs to be completed by...

• Monday 6 January 2014

• Complete the first draft of your Critical Investigation.


• It must be a word processed 2,000 word essay (PLUS quotes - with a precise word count included at the end).


• 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. (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.


• Two copies are necessary. Hand in a hard copy (on paper) 1.5 on the deadline day, and this needs to have one and a half line spacing. Also paste it up 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' and 'B' essays from: (2013) (2012) (2011), (2010), (2009), (2008), (2007), (2006). But remember that those from 2009 and earlier were for a different specification and had to be 3,000 words, unlike yours (which should be 2,000).

They will be helpful, though, 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 studies (and there are numerous online checkers, er Google, that we can feed your work into to see if it has been plagiarised).

This is the big one so no excuses and good luck!

Critical Investigation Task #5

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 the examiners so it's important to continue online research all the way through until you hand in your final essay. A great example just this week: Beyonce releases a new album that bypasses traditional music promotion AND makes a point in the feminism debate - that fits many of our critical investigations and is just one story from the last week. Another crucial platform that you really ought to cover - 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 both the MediaMagazine (search the archive or browse through past copies), and MediaEdu (spend time, in particular, looking at the theory, new media and key concepts resources)...both are excellent and contain information pitched just right at your level of understanding. Passwords are here: MediaEdu and MediaMagazine. 
• 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. 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 2012, from 2011, from 2010, from 2009, from 2008, and from 2007: 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 should only 'borrow' a key quote from another person's essay if it's completely relevant and fully referenced! Remember: it is incredibly easy to tell when an essay takes a sentence or paragraph from another writer.

Over the holiday and into January, continue with your internet research, using the Google Search Tips you've been shown to help you refine your searches and, of course, the Google academic search engine: Google Scholar.

Task: Post up AT LEAST 20 additional quotes, with full article titles (and hyperlinked web addresses) and a brief explanation about each one saying how it's linked to your study. Due: January.

Exemplar Critical Investigations

Use these from 2013 to help you in terms of style/presentation/use of quotes/footnotes/bibliographies, etc.

13E: New and Digital Media

I hope you've got your new and digital media story ready to share for Tuesday's lesson - there is so much out there, this article about Trinity Mirror's new website Ampp3d being a good example.

Once we've gone around the class discussing our NDM articles, you need to answer the following questions on your blog to finish off Pareto's Law:

1) What is Pareto's Law? Sum it up in a paragraph.

2) What other industries or examples can you apply the 80/20 rule to?

3) List three arguments in FAVOUR of Pareto's Law applying to the internet:

4) List three arguments AGAINST Pareto's Law applying to the internet:

Finally, answer the following question:

5) Even if Pareto's Law applies to internet ownership, does it still apply to the content we read online?

If you don't get a chance to finish this in the lesson, complete for homework - due on Tuesday.

NDM - starter read for 13E

The New and Digital Media articles just keep on coming - here's a follow up to the Elan Gale hoax in today's Guardian (original hoax article here).

We'll be looking at Pareto's Law today but have a read of this article to get started.

Don't forget your weekly homework: a New and Digital Media story published each week.