year 13 baseline learner response

 

1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

solid effort throughout.     i know csp but missed the purpose of the question
link theories

2) Focusing on the BBC Newsbeat question, write three ways it helps to fulfil the BBC's mission statement that you didn't include in your original assessment answer. Use the mark scheme for ideas.

Stuart Hall’s reception theory is arguably more useful than traditional effects theories in analysing audience reaction – some would have believed it (preferred reading?), other sections of the audiences would have challenged or rejected it entirely. Even then, was Welles’s intention to genuinely panic listeners (i.e. the preferred reading)? This is questionable.

3) Question two asked you how useful media effects theories are in understanding the audience response to War of the Worlds. Complete the following:

• Gerbner's Cultivation theory: useful or not useful? Why?

• Gerbner’s Cultivation theory is very useful in understanding how American radio’s recent convention in the 1930s of ‘breaking news’ (‘We interrupt this broadcast to bring you…’) may have made audiences more likely to believe the fictional radio play was real.

• Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle model: useful or not useful? Why?

• The Frankfurt School’s hypodermic needle theory is arguably supported by the reported audience panic following the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. However, this theory has been widely discredited and considering a media audience as ‘empty vessels’ is overly simplistic and not useful.

• Stuart Hall's Reception theory: useful or not useful? Why?
• Stuart Hall’s reception theory is arguably more useful than traditional effects theories in analysing audience reaction – some would have believed it (preferred reading?), other sections of the audiences would have challenged or rejected it entirely. Even then, was Welles’s intention to genuinely panic listeners (i.e. the preferred reading)? This is questionable.

4) Write a full essay plan for the 25-mark Magazines question. The mark scheme contains plenty of ideas you can use here. Your plan should include notes/bullet points addressing the following:

• Introduction: one sentence answering the original question and laying out your argument clearly.
• Paragraph 1 content/ideas:
• Paragraph 2 content/ideas:
• Paragraph 3 content/ideas:
• Paragraph 4 content/ideas:
• Conclusion: sum up your argument a final time in one sentence

• Magazine offers a range of audience pleasures to its target audience: Uses and Gratifications – personal identity and surveillance. Readers may see their lifestyle and ambitions reflected on the pages.

• Audiences feel part of the magazine, are rewarded for their knowledge and have their expectations met.

• Decline in print due to rise in new/digital media: GQ has declined sharply over the last 10-15 years. Even in the last 5 years its circulation has dropped 25,000 (from 110,000 to 85,000). Therefore it is fair to ask whether GQ has been successful in targeting its audience in the digital media landscape. 

• One aspect that may be considered more successful is the way GQ has diversified in order to maintain or expand its target audience. In addition to a changing approach to masculinity, Will Welch has moved the magazine’s focus away from traditional print towards digital, social media and video content. 

• This reflects the generational difference in terms of the distribution and consumption of media products. Younger audiences are not engaging with print products and therefore GQ has changed its product to move with this technological change. Video content such as the Netflix Heartstopper actors responding to key scenes or Bukayo Saka talking about his essential lifestyle items demonstrates how technological convergence is allowing GQ to keep targeting its audience but in new ways.

• The Gentlewoman has a very strong, distinctive brand and clearly positions itself to attract an audience that perhaps wouldn’t buy other women’s lifestyle magazines. Only printing twice a year, largely selling via subscription and charging a premium price (£10 per issue) can all be presented as examples of how the magazine has directly and successfully targeted its audience. 

• Twice a year publication perhaps reflects the digital revolution in society. Its worldwide distribution (many copies paid by subscription rather than newsstand) reflects the change in the way audiences buy and consume their media. The Gentlewoman has cleverly positioned itself as a print product yet used the global, digital landscape to successfully target its audience.

• The Gentlewoman reflects a changing media marketplace with small, independent producers finding gaps in the market to connect with niche audiences. It is successfully using the digital landscape to connect with its target audience (global distribution etc.)

• The Gentlewoman target audience of ‘confident, independent and stylish women and men from a strikingly broad range of age groups’ arguably values print (particularly the thick, quality ‘art book’ style) and therefore the magazine has been less hit by rise in digital publications. Unlike GQ, The Gentlewoman was launched in the digital age.

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5) Finally, identify three key skills/topics you want to work on in A Level Media this year before the final exams in the summer.

actually revising properly in advance

applying theories

analysis