Y13 Baseline assessment: Learner response

 1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

WWW- Q1+Q2 are excellent, top level responses that show you know the CSPs and audience theories. Q3 also has potential and with a couple of tweaks will have you pushing towards the top grades.

EBI- You need a sharper question focus for Q3... a couple of inaccurate stats to revise too.

The key issue for the CSP edititions. You mention FGM at one point to illustrate an aspect of Oh Comely but need a lot more than this. One for both revision and exam practice.

2) Focusing on the BBC Life Hacks question, write three ways it helps to fulfil the BBC's mission statement that you didn't include in your original assessment answer. Use the mark scheme for ideas.

Life Hacks informs Radio 1 listeners about topics and issues they may be experiencing in their own lives such as managing debt, dealing with gender identity issues or relationship problems.

Life Hacks offers educational content by addressing issues listeners may not know much about such as sexual health or mental illness.

Either side of the advice segments, Life Hacks plays music from the Radio 1 playlist which provides entertainment for its audience. In addition, audiences may enjoy a sense of diversion and personal identity in listening to problems and advice that they can relate to.

3) Question two asked you how useful media effects theories are in understanding the audience response to War of the Worlds. Complete the following:

Gerbner's Cultivation theory: useful or not useful? Why?

Gerbner’s Cultivation theory is very useful in understanding how American radio’s recent convention in the 1930s of ‘breaking news’

Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle model: useful or not useful? Why?

The Frankfurt School’s hypodermic needle theory is arguably supported by the reported audience panic following the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. However, this theory has been widely discredited and considering a media audience as ‘empty vessels’ is overly simplistic and not useful.

Stuart Hall's Reception theory: useful or not useful? Why?

Stuart Hall’s reception theory is arguably more useful than traditional effects theories in analysing audience reaction – some would have believed it (preferred reading?), other sections of the audiences would have challenged or rejected it entirely. Even then, was Welles’s intention to genuinely panic listeners (i.e. the preferred reading)? This is questionable.

4) Write a full essay plan for the 25-mark Magazines question. The mark scheme contains plenty of ideas you can use here. Your plan should include notes/bullet points addressing the following:

Introduction: one sentence answering the original question and laying out your argument clearly.

I think that Men's Health and Oh Comely have been successful in attracting their target audiences, despite the impact on digital media on traditional print industries.

Paragraph 1 content:

Magazine offers a range of audience pleasures: Uses and Gratifications – personal identity and surveillance.

Men’s Health has moved with the changing face of masculinity while retaining elements of hypermasculinity. Five cover lines emphasise diet or weight loss – a very different masculinity compared to 50 years ago.

Men’s Health is willing to move with the times – mental health feature; ‘Marathon Man’ feature focuses on older men maintaining active lifestyle.

Paragraph 2 content:

Decline in print due to rise in new/digital media: Men’s Health declined sharply, came back up slightly three years ago but has dropped again (around 150,000 circulation currently). Fair to question how successful magazine has been with rapidly declining circulation.

Older audience perhaps maintained by winning formula – well established front cover conventions. Central image, cover lines, masculine colour scheme, mix of serif and sans serif typefaces.

Paragraph 3 content:

Oh Comely has a very strong, distinctive brand and clearly positions itself to attract an audience that perhaps wouldn’t buy other women’s lifestyle magazines.

Content arguably reflects the interests of an educated, largely middle-class, feminist audience – gender fluidity, powerful women (‘Speaking Out’; ‘surprisingly strong things’), current issues (FGM, women in tech etc.)

Applying Uses and Gratifications theory, Oh Comely provides a strong sense of personal identity, personal relationships and surveillance on issues not covered by mainstream media

Paragraph 4 content:

Oh Comely reflects a changing media marketplace with small, independent producers finding gaps in the market to connect with niche audiences.

The internet has provided an opportunity for magazines like Oh Comely to find an audience (and contributors) and not need to rely on major institutions/publishers/distributors/retailers.

Paragraph 5 content:

Has Oh Comely been successful? Lack of independently audited evidence such as ABC figures (which Men’s Health does provide). Website claims 25,000 readers per issue (so readership rather than circulation) and 100,000 social media reach – again, arguably not huge.

Conclusion: sum up your argument a final time in one sentence

I think both Men's Health and Oh Comely have been successful in attracting their target audiences. For Mne's Health they have used both traditional male stereotypes to attract conventional old fashioned men as well as keeping up with the times by talking about mental health and attracting older men. Whereas Oh Comely isn't interested in attracting mass audiences, rather it targets a specific niche audience of educated, progressive and independent women.

5) Finally, identify three key skills/topics you want to work on in A Level Media this year before the final exams in June.

I need to revise Magazines: audience, industry

Revise Life Hacks- audience

War of the worlds-audience, narrative theories