MIGRAIN index and January assessment revision

As we reach the end of the Autumn term, you need to create a new MIGRAIN index and start revising for your January assessment.

The index, as you know, is a critical way of making sure you are keeping on top of the workload and not missing any topics or concepts. Your December index should have the following work in it:

1) Introduction to Media: 10 questions
2) Media consumption audit
3) Semiotics blog tasks - English analysis and Icon, Index, Symbol
4) Language: Reading an image - advert analyses
5) Reception theory - advert analyses part 2
6) Genre: Factsheets and genre study questions
7) Narrative: Factsheet questions
8) Audience: classification - psychographics presentation notes
9) October assessment learner response
10) Audience theory 1 - Hypodermic needle/Two-step flow/U&G
11) Audience theory 2 - The effects debate - Bandura, Cohen 
12) Industries: Ownership and Control
13) Industries: Hesmondhalgh - The Cultural Industries

Remember, your index needs to link to YOUR blogpost for each piece of work. If you've missed anything, catch up with it over Christmas and make sure the index is up-to-date before you come back in January.

January assessment details

This assessment will be in the second week back and will be similar in format to your October assessment. Revise everything from your two indexes - MIGRAIN Introduction to Media and Film & TV Language. In addition, look over your learner response for the assessment in October. That feedback will be important in identifying how you will improve in the upcoming assessment.

Christmas homework: revise for January assessment

Your Christmas homework is simple: revise everything you've learned so far in Media this year for your January assessment.

In addition, there are plenty of resources out there to further help you prepare for your January assessment. For example, we strongly recommend you get hold of some of the books on our A Level Media reading list - including the AQA textbooks which cover all the key concepts and many of the Close-Study Products. 

You will obviously be looking over your MIGRAIN index as outlined above. However, there is plenty more out there. Anything you read in our Media Magazine archive will help to give you a wider perspective on media debates and every issue has several articles which focus on interesting examples, theories and debates that will help you in a Media exam. You'll find our Media Magazine archive here. 

Remember: these resources are all for you - the more you use them, the better you will do!

Have a great Christmas break - you've earned it!

Film & TV Language: final index

We have completed our first major A Level Media unit: Film & TV Language. We now need to create a final index to ensure we haven't missed any vital notes or skills.  

Keeping an index of all your work is extremely good practice from a revision perspective. Not only does this keep the concepts and media terminology fresh in your mind but it will also highlight if you've missed anything through absence or self-isolation. 

Film & TV Language index

Your final Film & TV Language index should include the following:

1) Film poster analysis
2) Mise-en-scene blog tasks
3) Mise-en-scene video recreation or plan
4) Lighting blog tasks
5) Sound blog tasks

6) Sound: parallel and contrapuntal video feedback and learner response

7) Cinematography blog tasks
8) Cinematography video task and learner response
9) Editing video task and learner response
10) Editing blog task - 750 word analysis

For your index, it needs to link to YOUR corresponding blogpost so you can access your work on each key concept quickly and easily. This also means you if you have missed anything you can now catch up with the work/notes and won't underperform in future assessments/exams due to gaps in your knowledge.

Important: your index needs to be completed during the lesson. Any missing work MUST be caught up over the holidays.

MIGRAIN: The Cultural Industries

One of the most important aspects of the Industries key concept is how the cultural industries are structured and the influence they have in society.

Academic and media theorist David Hesmondhalgh has written extensively about the Cultural Industries and A Level Media students need to develop an understanding of his work.

Cultural Industries: notes

Hesmondhalgh discusses the way the cultural industries operate and explores their effect on audiences: “Of one thing there can be no doubt: the media do have influence.”

He points out that societies with profitable cultural industries (e.g. USA, UK) tend to be dominated by large companies, have minimal government regulation and significant inequality between rich and poor.

Do cultural industries reinforce these conditions?

The cultural industries: a risky business

Hesmondhalgh acknowledges that media companies are operating a risky business. There is no guarantee a creative product will be a success.

They offset this risk both creatively and through business structure. In terms of media products, they use stars, sequels and well-known genres.

In terms of business, they use vertical integration and diversification to spread their risk and maximise profit.

Commodification

Hesmondhalgh discusses commodification in the cultural industries (turning everything into something that can be bought or sold).

He suggests this creates problems on both the consumption and production side. For the production side, he points to certain areas of the cultural industries where people are not fairly rewarded.

Hesmondhalgh: diversity in the media

Hesmondhalgh has explored whether the cultural industries truly reflect the diversity of people and society.

Hesmondhalgh references Mosco (1996): “There is a difference between multiplicity – a large number of voices – and diversity – whether or not these voices are actually offering different things from each other.”

Despite their size, are the cultural industries dominated by a narrow range of values and ideologies?

Cultural Industries: blog task

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 168: David Hesmondhalgh’s ‘The Cultural Industries’. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) What does the term 'Cultural Industries' actually refer to?

2) What does Hesmondhalgh identify regarding the societies in which the cultural industries are highly profitable?

3) Why do some media products offer ideologies that challenge capitalism or inequalities in society?

4) Look at page 2 of the factsheet. What are the problems that Hesmondhalgh identifies with regards to the cultural industries?

5) Why are so many cultural industries a 'risky business' for the companies involved?

6) What is your opinion on the creativity v commerce debate? Should the media be all about profit or are media products a form of artistic expression that play an important role in society?

7) How do cultural industry companies minimise their risks and maximise their profits? (Clue: your work on Industries - Ownership and control will help here) 

8) Do you agree that the way the cultural industries operate reflects the inequalities and injustices of wider society? Should the content creators, the creative minds behind media products, be better rewarded for their work?

9) Listen and read the transcript to the opening 9 minutes of the Freakonomics podcast - No Hollywood Ending for the Visual-Effects Industry. Why has the visual effects industry suffered despite the huge budgets for most Hollywood movies?

10) What is commodification? 

11) Do you agree with the argument that while there are a huge number of media texts created, they fail to reflect the diversity of people or opinion in wider society?

12) How does Hesmondhalgh suggest the cultural industries have changed? Identify the three most significant developments and explain why you think they are the most important.

Complete for homework - due date on Google Classroom.

Film & TV Language: Editing video feedback and learner response

Your short editing videos should contain crucial techniques for narrative film and television.

The ability to use cutting on action, shot-reverse shot and adhering to the 180 degree rule will be vital to your success in coursework later this year. Once we've screened the videos in class, you need to complete the following tasks on your blog:

Editing video feedback/learner response

Create a new blogpost called 'Editing video feedback and learner response'. Make sure your video is on YouTube and embedded in this blogpost. 

1) Type up your feedback/comments from your teacher.

2) Type up your feedback from fellow students.

3) Now reflect on your video. Did you meet the brief and successfully include the three key editing aspects we have learned?

4) What were the strengths and weaknesses of your final film? Write a detailed analysis picking out specific shots, edits and any other aspect of film language you think is relevant.

5) Learner response: what aspect of editing did you find most difficult? What have you learned from this process that will help you when you start the actual coursework later this year?

Complete this for homework if you don't get it done in the lesson - due date on Google Classroom.

Don't forget you need to complete your Editing analytical task too!

MIGRAIN: Industries - Ownership and control

Industries is a major key concept in A Level Media and covers a wide variety of different aspects.

You'll need to study the following topics for a full introduction to this concept:

• The companies or organisations behind the media – owners, publishers, developers, channels, distributors,  film studios etc.
• How new and digital technology has changed media industries.
• The regulation and control of media in the UK.
• The role of public service broadcasting and not-for-profit media.
• Who has the power in the media: audiences or institutions?

Industries: Ownership and control notes




In our first lesson on media industries, we learned the following terminology:

Conglomerate ownership
A conglomerate is a large company composed of a number of smaller companies (subsidiaries).

A media conglomerate, or media group, is a company that owns numerous companies involved in creating mass media products such as print, television, radio, movies or online.

Examples include Comcast, 21st Century Fox or Disney.

Vertical integration

Vertical integration is when a media company owns a range of businesses in the same chain of production and distribution. 

For example, a company might own the film studio that makes a film, the distributors that sell it to cinemas and then the movie channel that premieres it on TV.

Vertical integration allows companies to reduce costs and increase profits – but it is not always successful if the parent company lacks expertise in certain areas.

Horizontal integration

Horizontal integration is when a media company owns a range of different media companies that are largely unrelated e.g. magazines, radio stations and television.

Horizontal integration helps media institutions reach a wider audience.

Integration & synergy

Synergy is the process through which a series of media products derived from the same text or institution is promoted in and through each other. 

Look for links or consistent branding across different media platforms and products. E.g. Harry Potter – films, merchandise, stage plays, theme parks, videogames etc.

Diversification
Diversification is when a media company branches out into a different area of the industry. For example, many media companies have had to diversify to internet-driven distribution (e.g. streaming) as a result of new and digital media.

In the music industry, major labels such as Warner Music have had to embrace streaming in order to reverse years of declining revenue.

Cross-media regulation
When two companies wish to merge or diversify (e.g. vertical or horizontal integration) it needs to be cleared by a regulatory body to prevent any one company becoming too powerful in a given market.

In the UK, this is decided by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Currently, the CMA is deciding whether to allow Rupert Murdoch to complete an £11.7bn takeover of Sky by 21st Century Fox.

Industries: Ownership and control blog task

Create a new blogpost called 'Industries: Ownership and control' and complete the following tasks:

Media conglomerate research

1) Type up your research notes from the lesson - what did you find out about your allocated media conglomerate? Selection of companies: Alphabet, The Walt Disney Company, Comcast, 21st Century Fox, Facebook, Viacom, News Corp, Time Warner. If you were absent or didn't have time in the lesson to make these notes, research any of the companies above and find examples of all the terminology outlined in the notes at the start of this blogpost.

2) Do you agree that governments should prevent media conglomerates from becoming too dominant? Write an argument that looks at both sides of this debate.

Media Magazine reading and questions

Media Magazine 52 has a good feature on the changing relationship between audiences and institutions in the digital age. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM52 and scroll to page 9 to read the article 'Two Key Concepts: The Relationship Between Audience and Institution'.

1) Briefly describe the production, promotion and distribution process for media companies.

2) What are the different funding models for media institutions?

3) The article gives a lot of examples of major media brands and companies. Choose three examples from the article and summarise what the writer is saying about each of them. 

4) What examples are provided of the new business models media companies have had to adopt due to changes in technology and distribution?

5) Re-read the section on 'The Future'. What examples are discussed of technology companies becoming major media institutions?

6) Do you agree with the view that traditional media institutions are struggling to survive?

7) How might diversification or vertical integration help companies to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing media landscape? 

8) How do YOU see the relationship between audience and institution in the future? Will audiences gain increasing power or will the major global media conglomerates maintain their control?

Complete these blog tasks for homework: due date on Google Classroom.

Film & TV Language: Editing blog tasks

Editing is the last aspect of our Film & TV Language unit - but absolutely crucial to the way meanings are created and communicated to the audience. 

Editing can completely change the audience’s understanding of narrative and character. Charlie Brooker deconstructed the editing in the reality TV genre:

Editing notes

Key terminology for editing:

• Transitions
• Continuity editing
• Montage
• Pace
• Juxtaposition

Continuity editing

Most editing of narrative film is continuity editing.  This is when shots are placed logically so that one event follows on from the next.  We, as the audience, automatically try to make sense of one shot joining the next one.  For example, if we see an exterior shot of a school and the following shot is a classroom, we assume that the classroom is inside the school building we saw in the previous shot.  

Transitions

• A straight cut is the most common method and the audience are so accustomed to seeing these that we rarely notice them when they occur.
• A fade out – the screen fades to black.
• A dissolve - one image blurs into the next.
• A wipe – one part of the screen wipes across the other.
• A jump cut – an unexpected edit where the audience’s attention is forced to focus on something very suddenly.  

Pace

The speed at which the film cuts from one shot to the next makes a huge difference to the experience for the audience.

Generally, slow-paced cuts build tension while fast cuts suggest action and excitement.

Juxtaposition
The word juxtaposition literally means ‘the act of placing together side by side’.

In film, two shots may be placed together to create meaning for the audience. E.g. A shot of the hero may be followed by a shot of his love interest to link these in the audience’s mind. This may also take the form of an eyeline match where a character looks in a certain direction and the next shot cuts to whatever they are looking at.

Montage

A montage sequence involves shots being placed next to each other that do not necessarily convey a linear narrative.  Instead, the shots tend to convey a message, provide an overall impression or shorten a story that takes place over a much longer period time.  For example, a sequence that included consecutive shots of a school building, classrooms, students playing football and teachers in the staffroom may be aiming to give an overall impression of school life.    

Editing: blog task

There are some truly fantastic clips for the Editing part of the Film & TV Language unit. 

Your final analytical blog task is to find a film or television clip on YouTube that you feel has been edited in a distinctive way and write a 750 word analysis of the clip.

Use as much media language as you can - and remember to highlight it. Try and use the key words we've learned for editing and any other aspects of film language you can apply.

There is a wonderful example online of an editing analysis of The Godfather baptism scene (a clip which also appears as task 6 of the editing section in the Film and TV Language unit). This gives you an idea of how to write in-depth media analyses focusing on aspects of film language. 

If you're not sure what clip to pick, you will find plenty of lists online if you search for 'great film editing sequences' or similar. One example that comes up when you do this is the shootout scene from Michael Mann's Heat (3mins - 6mins particularly, but it's all brilliant):

Complete this for homework - due date on Google Classroom.