Media Paper 1 PPE - Learner response

1) Type up your feedback in full (you do not need to write mark/grade if you do not wish to).
WWW- Such impressive knowledge + revision... real detail to your responses and excellent engagement with the issues, debates and theories. Well done!

EBI- Revise ideological positions + Gilroy (Q1 & Q4) 
        Revise cultivation theory
        Needs a little more sophistication to reach target grade

2) Did you succeed in meeting or exceeding your target grade for A Level Media? If not, how many additional marks do you need to achieve your target grade in this paper?
I did not succeed in meeting my target grade. I was 10 marks away.

We don't know exactly what grade boundaries AQA will set as this is a new specification. These are the boundaries we've used, based on last year's A Level exam but reduced slightly to account for the new specification (out of 84):  

A* = 78; A = 68; B = 56; C = 44; D = 32; E = 21.

Now read through the AQA mark scheme. This is vital as the paper was an official specimen exam paper and therefore the mark scheme tells us a lot about what AQA are expecting us to produce. The original question paper is here if that is helpful too.

3) Write a question-by-question analysis of your performance. For each question, write how many marks you got from the number available and identify any points that you missed by carefully studying the AQA indicative content in the mark scheme:

Question 1: 6/8 marks
Points missed: 

• More sophisticated media language (e.g. 'the medium shot of...shows...)
• More points required regarding the values and ideologies - 
• The composition of the male and female signifies the hierarchy of success – male dominant and female passive. The composition suggests male ownership of the female.
• Iconography signifies a particular type of success attached to wealth – tuxedo, leather seats, limousine, designer dress.The use of celebrity status to reinforces this – light flashes of paparazzi cameras.
• Direct address to the audience through the male model’s gaze is a form of complicity with the audience which the woman is unaware of.
• Capitalism and the idea of audiences as consumers is reinforced

Question 2: 9/12 marks
Points missed: 

• Both adverts are contemporary 
• Need more points regarding social/cultural contexts
• They are both contemporary adverts but with two completely different representations - products must reflect the cultural values of their target audiences in order to be successful but these may be diverse and can explain the differences in representation.
• The products seem to be reflecting the values and ideologies of the their target audiences

• Fendi- an older, more sophisticated, white upper class (AB) target audience. 
• They therefore have a more traditional view of how the world should be: the woman as possession of the male is reflective of continued inequalities in gender in a contemporary society
• The representation of gender is binary and oppositional
• The signifiers of female desirability/beauty are traditional – white, blonde, thin, decorative, submissive

• Maybelline- a younger, more open-minded target audience. 
• They therefore have a more contemporary view of how the world should be: gender as fluid and performative (Butler)
• Both male and female are equally interested in the product – the mascara
• The woman in the advert isn’t objectified or sexualised
• The male and female characters are represented as equals and friends rather than part of a power relation
• The representation of gender beyond binary divisions is reinforced by representations of other categories such as race and ethnicity. (bell hooks - intersectionality)

Question 3: 7/9 marks
Points missed: 

• A more detailed explanation of why the advert reinforces that gender is a performance
• More on Britain's post-colonial values
• A feminist's point of view on the advert 
• The usefulness of the theory: it allows an understanding of media products as polysemic – and changes over time 
• it demonstrates how meaning is created by audiences and therefore suggests their power over producers.

• The process of encoding – the intended message of the advertisers about the effects of the product.:
• the desirability connotes power and dominance in society which is linked to a fantasy about the past
• the product will make the user more attractive to women – the encoded message is about patriarchy and heterosexuality as ideals
• Perhaps it’s supposed to be funny or playful (the use of costumes and dressing up might indicate this). - I don't necessarily agree with this point as the advert was produced at time of anxiety of changing ideologies regarding the power surrounding men and women (i.e. equal pay act introduced and women becoming more equal) so it's very unlikely that the representation was done as part of a 'joke' but it may be an interesting point to add in an exam.

• The process of decoding – the intended message may be accepted, interpreted in different ways – or rejected:
• decoding may be placed in the context of advertising – this may alter the audience interpretation (taking it less seriously etc)
• the advert is read as a natural representation of male power, making inequalities in gender attractive

Question 4: 17/20 marks
Points missed: 
May be better to argue that Gilroy’s theory of black Atlantic is valid in both CSPs but more valid in Common’s letter to the free

Common:

• The culture of the Black Atlantic is a result of the slave trade; Letter to the Free explicitly references the history of the slave trade in the lyrics and imagery; “slavery is still alive, check amendment 13”, the use of prison cells, “no excessive noise” on the walls, etc.
• Letter to the Free references a range of cultural styles – artistic, experimental, - not conventionally associated with African American musical styles; the use of black and white throughout the whole music video and the fact that it is shot in long shot. The music video is also very slow paced, breaking traditional conventions of music video where they are fast-paced with lots of close-ups 
• The diversity of the style and imagery of Letter to the Free could be read as transcending a specific culture – the nature of the lyrics are an appeal to people of colour beyond national borders = “freedom come”
• Letter to Free may seem to more obviously validate the theory but it could also be argued that similar ideas about cultural hybridity are apparent in theories of postmodernism (ask sir bout this one)

Billie Jean:

• Use of references to a range of popular culture – particularly Hollywood genres such as film noir – is more linked to white rather than African American culture 
• The reinterpretation of white cultural references through a black star raises questions about the representation of identity (MJ, born a black man, must confine to some white ideologies/conventions in order to become successful in his time- however, he has incorporated part of his heritage (black hip hop dancing) and made something new; reinforces Gilroy’s ideas)
• Billie Jean is a product of white-dominated industry – the video could be interpreted as a way of representing that inequality (which Black Atlantic culture is a response to). = At first, MTV refused to air the music video on their channel.
• The fact that MJ had to confine in the use of Hollywood genre in order to become successful shows how inequality is present 
• Bell hooks – intersectionality (MJ is black and comes from a lower class background?- check this) which suggests how he had to work more to get to where he is

Question 5.1: 1/2 marks

• Mainstreaming (the way things become part of mainstream culture) is also associated with cultivation theory.
• Mean World Index (the belief that the world is worse than it actually is) is also associated with cultivation theory.

Question 5.2: 4/4 marks

Could have also said: 

• Programmes deal with controversial and difficult topics-Provides a safe space for the target audience to discuss issues relevant to them
• Output focused on social and cultural concerns of the youth audiences - Direct address is appealing to the target audience

Question 6: 8/9 marks

Points missed: 

• The watershed - The surgery was broadcasted after the watershed but Life Hacks is now broadcasted before the watershed = Regulation focuses on content including use of language, impartiality, protection of under 18s 
• The availability of non-regulated broadcasts via the internet poses a challenge both for the regulator and the regulated radio broadcasters 
• The need to deal with difficult issues and build an interactive audience relationship via new technology whilst also adhering to taste and decency guidelines 
• As radio has moved online and to podcasts, regulation has become more complex, in response the government launched a digital radio action plan and Ofcom produces a review each year 

Question 7: 16/20 marks

Points missed: 

Responses may challenge the extent of the importance of representations in this context – using media theories (eg reception theories) to question the effect of representations on the audience
represented through processes of selection and combination


• The way the media through re-presentation construct versions of reality
• The processes which lead media producers to make choices about how to represent events, issues, individuals and social groups
• How media representations convey values, attitudes and beliefs about the world and how these may be systematically reinforced across a wide range of media representations

• How representations may invoke discourses and ideologies and position audiences

4) Choose your weaker of the two 20-mark questions. Write a full essay plan for this question using the indicative content in the mark scheme and with enough content to meet the criteria for Level 4 (top level). This will be somewhere between 4-6 well-developed paragraphs planned in some detail.

To what extent do newspapers use representations of particular groups in order to construct an ideological position? You should refer to your newspaper Close Study Products, The i and The Daily Mail. [20 marks]

Intoduction:

• Newspapers use representations of particular groups in order to construct an ideological position to a large extent. 
• The newspapers' readership will often have the same values and ideologies as the newspaper - they have chosen to become readers of a particular newspaper because they reflect their values and beliefs.
• Galtung and Ruge identified a set of news values that producers use when deciding what to include in their newspaper. This process of gatekeeping ultimately shapes ideological views as different meanings and interpretations can be created from the same event.
• I will be discussing how the Daily Mail provides a right-wing ideology in its newspaper but its website is completely profit driven and controlled by the clicks of the audience, therefore hiding its values and ideologies.
• The i, on the other hand, promotes a balanced and liberal ideological position but there is some evidence of a more centre-left ideological position, meaning that the i is contradicting itself.

Daily Mail:

• Give short into of newspaper - mid-market, black top, right-wing conservative view politically, socially and economically, 1.2M copies sold daily, etc
• Explain and provide evidence for how a right-wing ideology is shown: the Royal family on the front cover of the 21st of September issue, sympathy for Theresa May, negative representations of immigrants and Muslims (cultivation theory), etc
• Daily Mail provides evidence for how ideologies can shift depending on leadership- the newspaper has become less strict under new editor Geordie Greig (features black woman on the front cover with a positive representation)
• The audience may provide reasons for the traditional representations and stereotypes put forward by Daily Mail- mostly older people over 65 with 2/3 being ABC1- they are likely to have traditional views and reject changes in society

MailOnline:

• Give short intro of website- layout, clickbait, views, soft news etc
• Give examples of stories that MailOnline provide and how irrelevant they are to society
• Industry (conglomerate) is clearly motivated by financial intentions rather than ideological positions
• The decline in readership of newspapers and the struggles faced by journalists is perhaps an explanation for the nonsense stories
• Order of stories driven by audience clicks (Clay shirky-end of audience)- suggests that the audience are less interested in politics or real news as initially expected

The i and the i website:

• Short into of the i: launched in 2010, 20p at launch, aimed to close the gap in the market, circulation of 244,000 today, etc
• Explain and provide evidence for the attempt of the i to be neutral in terms of ideological positioning: sympathy for Theresa May but also provides facts from event, 21st September edition also features Royal family story but it is much less relevant compared to how it was presented in Daily Mail, etc
• Explain and provide evidence for the i being more centre-left rather than completely neutral: some evidence of clickbait on website, seem to support the labour party, etc.
• Going against their promise of being "free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence"
• Audience demographics: 61% aged 18-39, reformers, left-wing ideology. May explain the more centre-left ideological positioning, the i provides its readers with the stories it wants

Conclusion:

• Newspapers use representations of particular groups in order to construct an ideological position to a large extent. 
• Sometimes, however, the need to please the readership by providing stories that appeal to them in order to survive in a constantly declining newspaper business leads to decisions that contradict that ideology and lots of soft, click-bait news.

5) Based on the whole of your Paper 1 learner response, plan FIVE topics / concepts / CSPs / theories that you will prioritise in your Easter Media revision timetable.

• Cultivation theory (Gerbner)
• Gilroy's theory of diaspora
• Reception theory
• DailyMail and MailOnline - specific examples + stats
• The i and the i website - specific examples + stats