AQA Minutes Template - WordPress.com...Q4 (synoptic) How valid are reception theory’s claims about audience responses? You should refer to the CSPs Oh Comely and Men’s Health in

Non-confidential

A-level Media Studies Developing confidence

Activities and guidance

Published: Summer 2018

2 of 40 AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.

Contents

Contents Page

Online resources – Music Videos, Magazines and Online Media 4

Activity 1 5

Teacher guidance - genre 6

Activity 2 11

CSP guidance booklet extract 13

Online resources - Advertising 14

Activity 3 15

NEA briefs 20

Activity 4 28

NEA submission guidance 29

NEA marking criteria 32

AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.

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Online resources Music video, magazines and online CSPs Letter to the Free youtube.com/watch?v=KO7tVuPHOxA Billie Jean youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y Oh Comely albionmill.org.uk/?page_id=2463 Men’s Health albionmill.org.uk/?page_id=2456 The Voice voice-online.co.uk/ TeenVogue teenvogue.com


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO7tVuPHOxA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y

http://www.albionmill.org.uk/?page_id=2463


http://voice-online.co.uk/

http://www.teenvogue.com/

Activity 1 From Media One sample assessment material Steve Neale argues that the appeal of genres is that they are ‘instances of repetition and difference’. Evaluate the validity of this claim with reference to your music video close study products, Billie Jean and Letter to the Free. What would the students need to know to be able to successfully respond to this question?


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Teaching guidance Genre



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10 of 40 AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in

England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.

Activity 2 From Media Two sample assessment material Q2 (extended response) According to reception theory, ‘the media attempts to transmit specific messages to audiences, but audiences are free to interpret these messages in a variety of ways – or even reject them’. What would the students need to know to be able to successfully respond to Q2?


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Q4 (synoptic) How valid are reception theory’s claims about audience responses? You should refer to the CSPs Oh Comely and Men’s Health in your answer. To what extent have digitally convergent media platforms had an impact on the production, distribution and consumption of media products? Refer to The Voice and Teen Vogue to support your answer. What would the students need to know to be able to successfully respond to Q4?


CSP guidance booklet Extract


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Online resources Advertising CSPs Maybelline Boss Life pt 1 youtube.com/watch?v=PfJD5i3yIdM Score albionmill.org.uk/?page_id=2461


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfJD5i3yIdM


Activity 3 Working with CSPs • Score advert (1967) • Maybelline Big Shot mascara advert: That Boss Life part 1 (2017) These are targeted CSPs with a focus on Media language and Representation. The following is adapted from the CSP guidance booklet. Theoretical area What the students need to know

Media language Mise-en-scene analysis Production values and Aesthetics Semiotics: how images signify cultural meanings How advertising conventions are socially and historically relative The ways in which media language incorporates viewpoints and ideologies How developing technologies affect media language Intertextuality and hybridity The significance of challenging or subverting advertising conventions The ways in which adverts can attract a range of responses and interpretations How adverts create desire for the products Narrative How do the adverts position their audiences? How do the adverts construct a narrative which appeals to their target audiences?

Representation The processes which lead media producers to make choices about how to represent social groups The way the media through re-presentation constructs versions of reality How and why stereotypes can be used positively and negatively How audience responses to interpretations of media representations reflect social, cultural and historical attitudes The effect of historical contexts on representations


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Theories of representation including Hall Theories of gender performativity including Butler Feminist theories including bel hooks and van Zoonen Theories of identity including Gauntlett

• Students need the theoretical knowledge • Students need to apply the knowledge to the CSPs • Students need to use examples from the CSP to support their ideas. Making observations

Score Maybelline Media language The m-e-s is dressed to look like a

jungle

Genre The conventions of a YouTube lifestyle video are combined with conventions of make-up adverts

Narrative The positioning of the man signifies his ‘heroic’ role

Representations New York is represented as a glamourous, aspirational location


Textual analysis

Observation How? Why or to what effect? The m-e-s of the Score advert is dressed to look like a jungle

New York is represented as a glamourous, aspirational location

Theoretical ideas

Score Maybelline Media language Males and females are shown in

binary opposition in the advert (Levi Strauss) The connotations of the jungle include ideas about Britain’s colonial past (Barthes)

The advert supports Neale’s idea that genres are repetitive but that they also need to change if they are to continue to create audience appeal

Representations The women in the advert represent the idea of a patriarchal culture oppressing the feminine (bell hooks) The advert offers women to be looked at in the advert (van Zoonen)

The advert offers diversity in terms of gender and sexual identity (Gauntlett)

Observations of this nature are good as they link the products to the theoretical idea. To make an excellent point, details from the products should be used to show how they do this and students should be encouraged to consider why.


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Context issues

Score Maybelline Advertising and marketing Finding and targeting audiences

Attracting and appealing to the audience Selling an idea/product Persuasive techniques

Media language choices are used to meet the needs of an advertising product. Each advert targets a specific audience segment using media language choices Specific techniques are used to sell and persuade.

Social, political, cultural Gender/gender politics, attitudes to race, attitudes to sexuality, celebrity culture, social media influencers

Media language construct the representations that create ideas about gender, race, celebrity etc.

Economic Consumerism, materialism, aspirational lifestyles. The decline of traditional media and the rise of e-media in terms of advertising spending

Consumerist and materialistic values are communicated within each advert Specific ideas are set up as aspirational ideals Both adverts speak of the technological context of their time Score is a simple print advert aiming to appeal to a mass, but male, audience. Maybelline reflect the change from analogue to digital and the shifts in institutional power


Discussion points Score Media language • How is media language used to identify and address the target audience? • What attitudes and values about men and women are communicated by the advert? • How does the advert create a narrative? • What cultural meanings do you think were intended for the 1967 audience? • What interpretation may modern audiences make? Why? • In what ways do you think print advertising targeting men has changed since 1967? Focus on

media language choices and persuasive techniques. Representation • Compare and analyse the specific choices that have been made in the representation of gender

in the adverts. How has media language been selected and combined to create meaning? • How are stereotypes used in these adverts? • How do the representations in the adverts position the audience to want to desire the product

being sold? • How are representations of masculinity shaped by cultural and historical contexts? Maybelline Advertising theory • What is a brand ambassador? • What is a social media ‘influencer’? • What is a collab/collab video? • How do the brand images of Maybelline, Manny and Shayla all benefit from the Big Lash

promotional campaign? • Why is traditional media less effective for brand promotion today than it used to be? • Why do brands like to use social media celebrities to help promote their products? • How does the advert attempt to create: Attention? Interest? Desire? Action? Media language • How does the Maybelline advert identify its target audience? • How is media language used in the advert to help create desire for the product being sold? • Is this advert a typical make up advert? In what ways does it follow and/or subvert make-up

advert codes and conversations? • What ideas are created through the use of symbolic imagery in the advert? Consider the way

meaning is created through the use of connotation and myth. Representation • How is Maybelline represented? How is a brand identity created in the advert? • In what ways does the advert subvert and/or reinforce traditional ideas about gender and/or

sexuality? • What type of lifestyle is represented in the advert? How are these representations created?


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NEA briefs



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24 of 40 AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in

England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.


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Activity 4 The NEA Looking at the sample student work, identify its strengths and weaknesses in terms of: • the ideas expressed in the statement of intent • the use of media language • the creation of representations • the engagement with audience and industry issues. Statement of intent

/10 Media language /15

Media representation /15

Industry and audience /20

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NEA submission guidance


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NEA marking criteria



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Notes



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Contact us T: 01483 556301 E: [email protected] aqa.org.uk


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AQA Minutes Template - WordPress.com...Q4 (synoptic) How valid are reception theory’s claims about audience responses? You should refer to the CSPs Oh Comely and Men’s Health in