LESSON 126016: EXAMINATION WEEK

Here we are at examination week!

Remember that for the paper you will have the by now familiar Section A where you will answer 4 questions based on the unseen clip that you will be shown 3 times. You need to spend 15 minutes on each question.

Section B is the case-study that you have been preparing for last week. You need to answer one question and use your own research to provide examples.

The Section A task will require a response that shows awareness of branding and brand identity - issues we looked at in the John Lewis 'more than a woman' campaign last lesson - as well as an audience based task that will require you to think about the audience theories we have been looking at in lessons both prior to and after the Xmas break.

Use the blog and booklets in tandem to revise the theories and debates.

LESSON 125916: MORE THAN A LESSON TO ME

In the lesson we examined the John Lewis advert more than a woman. We saw how what was the intention of the store to communicate what they termed 'the DNA of the brand' and to 're position the brand in the marketplace' lead to the construction of an advert that drew heavily on the influence of an Italian hosiery company's successful campaign. The advert was encoded with what they thought to be the core values of the brand - always there to support customers through the journey of life - and then how this was decoded by the audience in two very different ways.
One section of the audience saw a nostalgic glimpse of a woman's life, one that stressed the brand's attempt to lock in with its key demographic, whilst the other had many women seeing instead a sexist and regressive stereotype of womanhood.
This allowed us to consider STUART HALL'S encoding-decoding theory again where we could think about intention versus outcome.
We also considered how the advert used media forms such as music and editing to compress a life into a 60 second slot.

LESSON 125816

LESSON 125715: PANIC ATTACKS

New term, same old media issues. Next week is examination week and we need to ensure that we're all ready for what it will bring.

Remember that the mocks are key to us helping you in showing the areas of learning we need to target over the coming weeks in the run up to the main event in May.

Over the next few sessions we will be looking at the examination in terms of technique and how to apply the theory and ideas learned over last term. We will also be focussing on the case study so that you can have a go at answering what will be the most important task in the May examination.

We will begin by reminding ourselves of what is being assessed and how. The assessment objectives.

• AO1 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of media concepts, contexts (and critical debates)
• AO2 Apply knowledge and understanding when analysing media products  and processes to show how meanings and responses are created

The examination paper section 1 is unseen - a media product that you will be shown 3 times during a period of some 12 minutes with the opportunity to make notes. You will then have 60 minutes to answer 4 questions based on the product. the questions will take the form of 

MEDIA FORMS [MEDIA LANGUAGE]

REPRESENTATION

AUDIENCE

INSTITUTION / VALUES

You should take time to consider beyond the surface features of the product as each task requires that you come up with a range of points [ 4 or 5 per task ] and that you are able to develop each of these in the classic PEEL structure by providing Evidence, Evaluation and  Link to the task. There will be marks allocated for SPAG and application of media language and theory to each task.