Year 13 baseline assessment 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).

WWW:
Good knowledge + understanding of BBBC's remit in relation to the Newsbeat CSP

Good knowledge of both the magazine CSPs

EBI:

Q2 - reference/validate other media effect theories

Q3 - consider your argument, your position of the essay-style Q

At times, you drift away from the focus of the question. Also, be careful of your grammar/topic sentences

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.

-  For example, Newsbeat will contain pretty extensive reports from major sporting events such as Wimbledon or the World Cup and will also cover music or film awards ceremonies more than some other BBC news programmes.

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?

Useful, because it shows how the audiences are influenced with what they see in the media.

-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?

Not useful, because its theory was too simplistic and widely discredited

• Stuart Hall's Reception theory: useful or not useful? Why?

Useful, because it shows the different responses in audiences, depending on how they portray the news/media.

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: 

GQ media audiences:

CSP pages that support this view include the Robert Pattinson cover shoot (Art and Fashion issue) and the extended interview and fashion photoshoot with actor Jonathan Bailey. Specific analysis might include the unusual, subversive font and typography on the Pattinson cover or the Virgil Abloh feature that offers a ‘Golden age of creativity’. 

In contrast, students may point to the Francis Ford Coppola feature on The Godfather as reinforcing a more traditional masculine interest in gangster films and violence. Similarly, the Jonathan Bailey fashion suit certainly subverts traditional masculinity in many ways (alongside the actor’s discussion of his sexuality in the interview) but it could also be argued the costume of suits and jackets, the formal shoes, the serious expressions and the low-angle shots to signify power actually reinforce some masculine stereotypes. 

• Paragraph 2 content/ideas:

Media Industries:

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.

 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).

• Paragraph 3 content/ideas:

Media audiences:

The magazine certainly reflects the feminist movement and therefore does show a product responding to changing social and cultural contexts in order tosuccessfully target its audience. Editor Penny Martin talks about wanting to represent “how modern women live” and reflect “women as they actually look, sound and dress”. 

CSP edition front cover features Scarlett Johansson but construction of cover certainly reflects the creative and unusual way the publication uses media language and representation of celebrity in order to attract its target audience. 

• Paragraph 4 content/ideas:

Media Industries:

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 internet has provided an opportunity for magazines like The Gentlewoman to find a global audience and not need to rely on major institutions/publishers/distributors/ retailers. The fact it is one of just a couple of magazines published by Dutch independent publishers Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom demonstrates an understanding of its target audience and the market in which it operates.

• Conclusion: sum up your argument a final time in one sentence

Answer the question if GQ and Gentlewoman did get affected by the impact of the digital media.

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.

Try to create a proper structure for essays 

Explain and clarify my points

Use more theories, media terminology and examples