Media Studies
Specification – to be confirmed
Media Studies explores the wide variety of media industries and products that surround us
and, at A-Level, encourages students to develop a critical understanding of them. Living in
a culture which is media-saturated, as we do, therefore results in the mass media arousing
strong passions in us.
The course consists of four units of study:
Unit 1: Media Representations and Responses
This unit provides students with the skills with which to read media texts, focussing on
narrative, genre, technical codes and the use of language. Text may include advertising
images, tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, magazine covers, radio sequences, film and
television extracts, computer game extracts and websites. Students also study issues
surrounding representation and various theories of audience responses to media.
Unit 2: Media Production Processes
This coursework unit requires the production of three linked pieces of work: a preproduction
reflecting research and demonstrating planning techniques; a production which
has developed out of the pre-production, and a report of 1200-1600 words.
Unit 3: Media Investigation and Production
This coursework unit requires the production of three linked pieces of work: a research
investigation into an area of study focussed on one of the following concepts: genre,
narrative or representation, and investigating two media texts; a production using audiovisual
or print based media that is informed by the student’s research, and a brief
evaluation of between 500 and 750 words.
Unit 4: Media – Text, Industry and Audience
This unit involves studying in depth three media industries, such as television, radio, film,
music, newspaper, magazine, computer games and advertising. Three main media texts
(of which at least two must be contemporary and one British) are studied for each industry.
The final assessment for this unit is a written examination of 2 hours 30 minutes