A2 Media Studies Induction Project Week 2: Research

Lesson Objectives:

To complete research into genre conventions, and media representations of young people.

To be able to identify conventions of your chosen genre, and explain how young people are typically represented in that genre.

In your groups you will be researching, planning, and producing an extract from a moving image product with a focus on the representation of young people. Your product should be between two to five minutes long. You can choose the type of moving image product you wish to produce. Possible products include a film trailer, an advert, scenes from a film/TV programme, the credits and opening scene for a film/TV programme, a music video, news report, extract from a documentary, etc.

Remember you will have to explain how you have represented young people in your product.

The A2 Induction Project will allow you to develop important skills and knowledge to help you succeed in A2 Media Studies including:

Moving image pre-production skills Production skills Editing Key theoretical concepts Media issues – representation of young people

Task One: Research into the genre

Once you have decided which type of moving image product you are going to produce you will need to complete research to identify conventions.

What are the conventions of your chosen genre? Think about: Technical conventions (typical use of camerawork, editing, sound, mise-en-

scene) Narrative conventions (what are the stories usually about, key themes,

structure) Character types Iconography

Choose an example of a text from your genre and analyse the ways in which it uses conventions, using specific examples to support the points you make.

Genre theorist Steve Neale suggests that genres help audiences to understand texts. Do you think knowledge of genre conventions would be important to the audience of the product you analysed?

Feedback on what you found out about the genre conventions. How might this research help you when you plan and produce your product?

Task Two: Analysing the Representation of Young People

How are young people typically represented in your chosen genre? Identify a range of examples and think about what messages about young people they communicate. Consider whether the representations tend to be positive/negative, stereotypical or unstereotypical.

Choose one example and analyse the representation of young people in one sequence. You should think about:

How the representations are constructed? What signifiers are used? What message about young people do the producers want to communicate

(the preferred reading)? What have they done to communicate this (encoding)?

Feedback on what you have found out about how young people are represented in your chosen genre. What messages about young people do they communicate? What effect may these messages have? How might this influence the way in which you represent young people in your product?

Resources for this topic are available on the Media Studies Department blog: