Summer tasks

Introduction to the course:

Welcome to Media Studies! Over the 2 years of A Level Media Studies course you will be studying the following subject areas:

Language

Industries

Audience

Representation

Each of these areas covers a range of different skills. You will be looking at these areas and learning how:

• The media represents events, issues, individuals and social groups in different ways.

• To create your own media products, using industry standard software.
• To develop your research and analysis skills through the study of a range of media forms such as magazines, posters, film and television.

• To analyse how the media uses conventions and techniques to create meaning for an audience.

Different media are targeted to specific audiences.


To evaluate professional media to understand how the producers and directors aim to make an audience think or feel.

Summer Tasks:

Summer Task 1 - Media Language (how the media through their forms, codes, conventions and techniques communicate meanings)

Analysis of why a director/producer has made certain decisions in creating a product is a key part of Media Studies. Write a 500 words analysis of ONE aspect of the Deutschland ‘83 trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb0yFr2jVAU and discuss the director’s use of camera, editing, sound and mise en scene (costumes, lighting, actors, makeup, props, setting) etc

Summer Task 2 - Media Industries (how the media industries’ processes of production, distribution and circulation affect media forms and platforms)

Research Task:

When talking about the film industry, what do we mean by the 'Big Six'? Why might this become the Big 5.

Who are the 'Big Six'? What other companies do they own?

Find an example of a major media product that each of the 'Big Six' have produced within the last year, and research key information about these productions (budget, cast (if relevant), advertising campaign, release dates etc.)

Summer Task 3 - Audience (how the media forms target, reach and address audiences, how audiences interpret and respond to them and how audiences become producers themselves)

Choose any magazine front cover or film poster - annotate and analyse how the product is tailored and targeted for a particular audience.

Summer Task 4 - Representation (how media forms portray events, issues, individuals and social groups)

One of the key principles underpinning the A Level Media Studies course is the concept of representation and the role the media plays in shaping our understanding of the world. Media theorist David Gauntlett argues that:

"Popular media has a significant but not entirely straightforward relationship with people's sense of gender and identity." ('Media, Gender and Identity', 2002)

Find a front cover of the Guardian and the Daily Mail from a major event, for eg the Trump visits or Boris this past week that show the role the media plays in shaping our views and opinions on any one group in our society. Is this representation positive or negative? https://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/uk-top-10-newspapers.cfm


Look at advertising analyse the banned Are you beach body ready and compare with This Girl Can advertising campaign.

(e.g. specific groups within gender, age, disability, regional identity, ethnicity, sexuality, class/status etc.)

REMINDERS:

If you need help – there are countless tutorials on the internet, and the research skills you develop whilst finding information will also be invaluable for your Media A Level! Feel free to email with any questions kbr@gbhs.co.uk