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A2 Media Studies

Critical Perspectives in Media Exam

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Coursework

Revision Guide

A2 Media Studies Exam – Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Coursework

In Section A you answer both 1(a) and 1(b).

Question 1(a) will ask you to discuss the development of your skills from AS to A2 in relation to one or two of the following aspects:

Digital Technology Creativity Research and Planning Post-production Using conventions from real media texts

In the exam you should spend about 30 minutes answering question 1(a). In order to do well on this question you must remember to:

Discuss both your AS and A2 coursework Demonstrate progress from AS to A2 Refer to specific examples from your coursework productions Use terminology

Digital Technology

Think about the different digital technologies you used at AS and A2, this is likely to include cameras (still/video), editing software, image manipulation software.

How has digital technology helped you capture your ideas for media production?

How did digital technology allow you to be creative? What benefits do digital technologies offer? Are they any disadvantages? How did digital technology influence your work in post-production, e.g. in

the creation of video effects, or editing images?

Think about the different digital technologies you used at AS and A2 and evaluate the use you made of them. You need to discuss what digital technology allowed you to do, e.g. editing techniques you used, your use of digital cameras, editing images, adding sound to a video.

Identify two or three examples for AS and for A2. Remember you need to show progression from AS to A2.

Creativity

How were you creative during your AS and A2 coursework? What elements of your coursework are original? What media texts influenced you? How did technology help you create the product you imagined?

Try to think of specific examples of creativity. You may want to discuss coming up with ideas for your product, or creative/inventive use of technical elements such as camerawork, editing, sound, and mise-en-scene. You could also consider how you used creativity to solve problems. Evaluate the effectiveness of your creative choices.

How has your creativity progressed from AS to A2? Was your Foundation production more reliant on conventions than your Advanced portfolio? Did the

different briefs at AS and A2 encourage you to be more creative?

Research and Planning

How did your research into genre help you with your production? How did your research into audience contribute to your production work? How did your research into institutions responsible for the production and

regulation of the media influence your production work? What pre-production planning techniques did you employ (scripting,

storyboarding, shot-listing, etc.)? How effective was your planning – how did it help you in the production

phase? What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to

improve your planning for the second? How did you use audience feedback to influence your production work

while it was in progress?

Consider the research and planning activities you did at AS and A2. What was the purpose of these activities? How successful were they? How did your research and planning skills develop from AS to A2?

Post-production

Post-production means everything you do after filming for video work, and everything you do after gathering material (photos, text) for print work.

How much of your text was created only in post-production? What technologies did you use to modify your raw material? How did this

change the meaning of your work? How did you use sound in post-production? How did you encode meaning in post-production?

Remember to think about the type of technologies you used, what they allowed you to do, and how your skills developed from AS to A2?

Using conventions from real media texts

How and why have you used media conventions? How successful was your use of conventions? How and why have you broken/challenged conventions? How successful was this? How has your use of media conventions developed?

Remember you need to consider how your use of media conventions developed from AS to A2.

Question 1(b) will ask you to select one of your coursework products, either AS or A2 and analyse it relation to one of the following specified theoretical concepts:

Narrative Audience Genre Representation Media Language

You will need to spend about 30 minutes answering question 1(b) in the exam. In order to do well you should:

Demonstrate your understanding of media theory Relate theory to a range of specific examples from your coursework

product Use theoretical and production terminology well

Narrative TheoryTodorov Todorov argued that narratives follow a

common structure of equilibrium, disequilibrium, and resolution. The significance of Todorov’s theory lies in the state of equilibrium and the resolution. What is the status quo at the beginning? How is the narrative resolved? What has changed? What ideological messages does this suggest?

What structure does your narrative have? What values are embodied by the equilibrium, and the way the narrative is resolved?

Propp Propp identified a group of characters common to the narratives of folk tales who perform essential functions in the development of the story. They are: hero/subject (character searching for something), villain (opposed the hero), donor (provides an object to help the hero), dispatcher (sends the hero on the quest), the false hero, the helper, the princess (the hero’s reward), and the father (who rewards the hero).

Did you use any of Propp’s character types? How did you signify the character types you used? Why did you choose to use/not use these character types?

Levi-Strauss

Levi-Strauss argued that stories move from one stage to the next by setting up conflicts between two opposing elements that have to be resolved. Pairs of binary oppositions structure narratives. Often one element within a pair will be dominant over the other.

What binary oppositions are used? Are any elements of the pair dominant? What message does that suggest? How do the binary opposition relate to the main theme of your product?

Barthes Barthes argues that the meaning of a text is produced through five ‘codes of intelligibility’. The enigma code is the questions that the narrative answers. When we want to know what happens next we are responding to the enigma code. The action code is the events that move the narrative forwards. The semic code refers to the elements which signify meaning. The symbolic code relates to the pairs of binary opposites that express the key meaning of the text. The cultural code refers to things which are common knowledge.

What elements of the narrative codes would be used to make sense of your narrative? What questions would the audience want answered (enigma)? What signifiers are used (semic)? Link your discussion of the symbolic to binary oppositions?

Audience TheoryUses and Gratifications, Blumler and Katz

This model suggests that audiences have expectations which they expect to be satisfied by media texts.

The audience needs are:surveillance – telling us about the world around us, personal identity – influences how we see ourselves and our place in society,personal relationships – develop relationships with media characters; aids social interaction,diversion – provides escapism from daily life

Which of these needs are likely to be satisfied by your product? Are there any other pleasures your product offers?

Encoding Decoding Stuart Hall

The preferred reading of the text is encoded using technologies and conventions of the medium (technical and professional codes).Audience members will respond to the text in different ways. The possible responses are:dominant – the reader shares the text’s code and accepts its preferred readingnegotiated – understands the text’s code, generally accepts the preferred reading but modifies it according to their social position and experiencesoppositional – understands the code but rejects the preferred reading. The audience member will be reading the text from an oppositional position (e.g. a feminist reading).

What is your preferred reading? How did you encode it through your use of technical aspects (camerawork, editing, sound, mise-en-scene)? What different readings might the audience produce?

Social Context, David Morley

Reception theory – ‘the politics of the living room’. The meaning of the text will be constructed differently depending on the audience member’s position in society.Differences based on things like social class, gender, and ethnicity, may determine an individual’s cultural tastes.People from different social groups will have a knowledge of the codes of different types of media text

How might the social background of your audience members effect their interpretation of your product?

Genre TheoryAltman Media institutions use genres as it allows for

product differentiation. This means different genres of products are produced to appeal to different target audiences.

What is the genre of your product? Who is the target audience? What different genres in your chosen media might appeal to different audiences?

Cawelti Genres are like myths. Genres tell a society about itself. The popularity of a genre suggests it reflects the values of society.

What values are suggested by your product?

Ryall Genre supervises the relationship between the producers and the audience. Genre guides the production of the text by the producers, and the interpretation by the audience.

How did you use genre when producing your product? How did genre make it easier to for you to communicate meaning to the audience?

Neale Genres are made up of not just groups of films, but also audience expectations, and discourse including marketing, and media discussion. Genres help audiences understand texts.

What expectations might your audience bring to your product? How would genre help them make sense of your product?

Representation TheorySaussure Meaning is constructed by the creation and

interpretation of signs. A sign is made up of the signifier (the object, word, etc.) and the signifier (the meaning it creates). Representations are constructed through signs which signify a meaning. Signs can be polysemic, meaning they have more than one meaning (polysemy).

What signifiers did you use to convey meaning to your audience? What other meanings may the signifiers signify?

Mulvey Female characters tend to be displayed for the visual pleasure of male characters and male spectators. For Mulvey, men look, women are looked at. Women are the object of the gaze (looked at), whilst male characters/spectators are the subject of the gaze (or the bearers of the look – the people looking). Women connote ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’, and are the focus of a clearly male gaze. Mulvey identifies an important process whereby women are coded as the object of the gaze (and represented sexually). Her work has been criticised for only focusing on the male, heterosexual spectator, and ignoring the possibility of the male providing visual pleasure. Dyer has also questioned her distinction between object of the gaze=passive, subject of the gaze=active. A postfeminist perspective may view the position of object of the gaze as a position of power, and the subject of the gaze as a submissive position.

What are the differences in how males and females are represented in your product? Which characters provide visual pleasure? How does this relate to Mulvey’s argument? Which characters are represented as looked at (objects of the gaze) and which characters are shown to be looking (subjects of the gaze)?

Dyer Dyer suggests that stereotypes perform a number of functions in media

Do you use stereotypes? What

representations. He argues that stereotypes reinforce the idea that there are big differences between different types of people.

messages do the stereotypes convey?

Baudrillard Baudrillard is a postmodern theorist. He argues that representations no longer refer to real things. The representation has become more real to us than the reality, and has actually replaced it. Simulacrum – when a copy replaces the original. For Baudrillard images are now hyperreal – they have no relationship to the real. Celebrities are a good example of hyperreality – their media image constructs a reality which does not refer to an actual reality. Baudrillard would question the concept of representation as a process which represents the real.

Do your representations refer to a reality, or do they refer to other representations?

Media Language – this is the way the medium you used communicates meaning to its audience.Narrative How does the structure of your narrative reflect the genre of

your product? Is your narrative determined by the medium you use, e.g. how does your narrative structure reflect the conventions of the music video?

Genre How did you use generic codes to communicate to the audience? What are the specific generic codes of the medium you used? With music videos you need to consider the generic codes of music videos generally, generic codes of the genre of music, and possibly generic codes of the mode of the narrative (e.g. romance).

Technical Aspects How did you make use of camerawork, editing, sound, and mise-en-scene to communicate meaning to the audience?

Representation How did your use of media language allow you to construct representations?

Remember – Question 1(a) you must discuss both AS and A2 products. Question 1(b) choose either AS or A2. For both sections you need to have specific examples from your coursework products to support the points you make.There is quite a lot of overlap between the different topics you may be asked on, so many examples could be adapted to the specific focus of the question.

All resources for Section A of the A2 exam are in the Media Shared Area in a folder called A2 Media Resources Summer 2010.

If you have any questions, or have completed practice exam questions you would like me to mark email me.

Take one hour to complete the questions below.

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production

In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media production work you have undertaken.

1(a) Describe how your creativity developed through the production of your coursework. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

In question 1(b) you need to choose one of your media productions to write about.

1(b) Analyse media language in one of your coursework productions.




1 (a) In your own experience how did your post-production skills develop through your coursework productions?


1 (b) How would you expect an audience to respond to your coursework production?




1(a) Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.


1(b) Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.




1 (a) “Digital technology turns media consumers into media producers”. In your own experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?


1 (b) “Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives”. Explain how you used conventional and/or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.




1(a) Describe how your use of media conventions developed during the production of your coursework. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.


1(b) Analyse the role of genre in one of your coursework productions.




1 (a) Describe the development of your skills in digital technology and post-production in your coursework. Refer to a range of examples to explain how your skills developed over time.


1 (b) In what ways did you create a narrative in your coursework production?

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