1) Type up your feedback in full
Total=59 Goal=71
www-There is a lot to credit here: clearly an excellent knowledge of new/digital media debates and a great range of wider examples for British identity here too. With a few tweaks to exam techniques, I think you will be pushing for an A grade.
ebi-You don't use your case study and when you do it drifts you away from the question. This is a great lesson for the real thing.
Also, paragraphing /organising your ideas s essential of Q2/3 in section A. Make it easy for the examiner to see you have explored both sides of the debate and used a range of examples from across the media.
2) Read through the mark scheme. Pay particular attention to pages 6-8 that have suggested content for each of the questions in Section A. How many of these potential points did you make? Did you successfully answer the questions? The original question paper is here if that is helpful.
Q1
- Use of camera / direct address to audience
- Pace of editing
- Use of soundtrack
- Human interest stories that audience can relate to
- Use of a variety of ages / ethnicities etc to encourage audience identification
- Text on screen to appeal to audience sensitivity
- Use of emotive and somewhat persuasive language
Q2
- Awareness of the issue of what it means to “be British”?
- Awareness that “being British” might mean different things to different people, based on history, age,
- perceived social class, ethnicity etc
- Changing role/presence of social media in contemporary life – impact on how others view us and
- how we view them
- Role of PSB/independent media producers – to what extent are our values & opinions shaped by
- the media we individually and collectively consume?
- Extent to which audiences CAN have their values and ideologies altered as a result of engaging with
- media products
- Changing socio-economic circumstances, particularly, perhaps, post the Brexit vote
Q3
- Celebrity culture positive and negative
- Transient v public sphere nature of social media ‘events’
- Quality TV proliferation of TV channels
- Agenda is in the hands of a few institutions challenged by new media forms
- Establishment of a consumer culture
- Move towards a secular society
4) Which was your strongest question in Section A? Why did you do better in that particular question?
Q1 - 8 marks
- Sophisticated understanding of media concepts, in particular media language within both media products.
- Supported by detailed references to both media products. Articulate and engaged
- A sophisticated analysis, showing very good critical autonomy.
- A lot of indicative content
Q3 - 12 marks
- Misinterpreted and made reference to the exam texts when this was not necessary.
- Need to make reference to wider context
- Need to learn more films that I can reference + utilise them in my answers.
6) Now look at pages 12-13 of the mark scheme for Section B - New/Digital Media paying particular attention to the suggested essay content on page 13. How many of the broad areas suggested by AQA did you cover in your Section B essay? Did you successfully answer the question?
Q7 - With reference to your case study, explore whether the range of social media platforms
available encourages social and political engagement.
- 24/7 media via smartphones etc - means audiences have instant access to trending topics
- Citizen journalism enables the public to have their own voice
- Issues of moderation - who instigates / controls the debate?
- Online debate - both positive (increased engagement?) and negative (trolling?)
- Can social / political engagement be generated just because online platforms explore debate
- topics? Some audiences may not want to become, for example, politically engaged
- Online media possibilities / opportunities are “endless” – how do audiences know what to trust /believe in?
- A sophisticated and comprehensive essay, showing very good critical autonomy.
- Sophisticated and detailed understanding of the impact of new/digital media.
- A sharp focus on the question throughout.
- Sophisticated application of a wide range of media issues/debates/theories and
- wider contexts.
- A comprehensive individual case study, with a wide range of detailed examples.
- Well structured, articulate and engaged.
I need to fully understand/learn the case studies and become confident applying them n my essay and revise key figures, quotes, statistics etc.
Also, I need to develop a stronger sense of critical autonomy.
Q1
"students really do need to respond to the wording of each question as it appears on the examination paper."
"This question is worth 8 marks, and given the duration of the paper it isadvised that students spend no longer than fifteen minutes writing their response."Q2
"Some students did not read the question properly"
"Few responses, though, got to perhaps the heart of the issue, which is that, given the multi-cultural and diverse nature of twenty- first century Britain, the concept of identity is fragmented and subjective."
Q3
"explore the concept of real-life issues did provide some excellent work. Students who achieved marks in the top band showed some superb insight, that made much use of particularly contemporary news stories."
"having an up-to-date knowledge of global news events is probably a very good thing, particularly given that this subject is Media Studies."
Q7.
"Students who were able to engage with the social and political element of the question made some particularly astute and insightful comments, notably about Donald Trump’s use of social media, differences between the social media platforms available in Western cultures and platforms such as Weibo. There were also some very specific case studies about social media access in North Korea, cat-fishing and online stalking. These responses made excellent use of media theory, with the ideas of Clay Shirky and Eli Pariser appearing in a number of essays."8) Choose your weakest question in Section A and re-write an answer in full based on the suggested content from the Examiner's Report:
Question 3 - Section A
It could be argued that many popular media products are superficial, preventing us from
engaging with real-life issues. To what extent do you agree with this point of view?
You should refer to other media products in order to support your answer.
The notion of 'superficiality' has been a term placed to describe social media on a regular basis. The idea of the media essentially serving as a superficial platform has been supported by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard who proposed the theory of hyper-reality. Hyper-reality refers to an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies such as social media. In other words, the media represents something and audiences struggle to distinguish that representation from real life and more than often accept the social media's representation more than the real-life version of it. This reflects on the false nature of social media and suggests that because of the possibility of entirely constructed representations, some serious real life issues are idealised through the social media. For instance, celebrities who may be on holiday representing third-world countries as luxurious, yet this is not the reality of that place. This is more than likely to make us less aware of the severity of real life problems, and therefore dismiss them as a result of social media creating false conceptions in its consumers.
Similarly, sometimes the media can construct more negative, pessimistic representations, sometimes even creating moral panics (Cohen). This may alternatively lead to overly represented issues that evoke unnecessary concern. This leads to preventing us dealing with real life issues, because society is too busy dealing with overly represented issues, that may not be as important as social media might suggest.
In contrast, we can argue that in fact the media is having the reverse effect and is actually beneficial to society, as it can bring awareness to real-life issues appropriately. For instance, recently a documentary called 'addicted to porn' was released. This documentary explored the huge societal damage pornography can cause and has resulted in further research into the adverse effects of pornography. Also, social media websites such as Twitter can even be used to start campaigns. The movement called black lives matter began in 2013 with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on twitter. The historic political project was launched in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin to explicitly combat implicit bias and anti-black racism and to protect and affirm the beauty and dignity of all Black lives. This was extremely useful to society and reducing a serious issue we face - all as a result of the media.
Yet, we cannot ignore the overwhelming representations media influencers create. These perceptions are very idealistic, with no perception of risks or flaws. This suggests audiences are seen as deluded - remaining ignorant about real-life issues. It is clear that media institutions support the belief of the hypodermic needle model, whereby audiences are seen as passive, absorbing all the content they are exposed to. However, as the transgression of society has progressed, critics have regarded the needle model as far too outdated and now believe audiences are much more active. This is seen in the increased use of social media used by its consumers to voice their opinions and their news. This is called user generated content and suggests we as users, are no longer passive. So perhaps media institutions still create false, superficial representations of real-life issues but in fact audiences have adapted to this false nature of the media, and are much more active, not allowing themselves to be exploited by the representations they see.
No comments:
Post a Comment