1. Aim: to revise the key texts and themes and consider how to answer the essay question
Monday 14th September

2. Where are these images from?
What is similar about these two texts?
What is different?

3. Unit 4 – Critical Perspectives in Media 2 hour exam 50% of A2 (25% of overall A-Level)
Section A Theoretical Evaluation of Production.
(50 marks)
Section B Contemporary Media Issues.
(50 marks)

4. Section B – Contemporary Media Issues
One question answered from a choice of six topic areas (there will be a choice of two questions for each topic area).
Our chosen topic is Media and Collective Identity – Representation of Youth and Youth Culture.
You will prepare specific case studies, texts, debates and research in advance of exam.
Demonstrate knowledge of at least two media and a range of texts, industries, audiences and debates.

5. Each topic is accompanied by four prompt questions – you must be able to answer an exam question that relates to one or more of these prompts:
How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic/ social/ collective groups of people in different ways?
How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?
What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?
To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’?

6. Key words in exam questions: Mediated / mediation:
The media place us at one remove from reality: they take something that is real, a person or an event, and they change its form to produce whatever text we end up with. This process is called mediation. You should reflect critically (analytically) on the meaning communicated to an audience and consider how the media text signifies meaning and how it elicits a preferred reading from the audience. How do the media - whether through film or TV - mediate the real world? How does this mediation affect your response to the subject(s)?

7. Social implications:
Media representations, particularly those with a high degree of verisimilitude and those rooted within a familiar realist narrative, can have real-world implications, even consequences, for the subject(s) being represented. When Fiske writes about the media as an enabler of real social change, he is presenting the idea that the way people are represented in the media can affect the way they are perceived and dealt with in real life. So a barrage of negative, stereotypical representations of youths on film and TV could foster a critical perception of teenagers and youth culture in the real world

8. Collective identity
When we talk about collective identity, we are considering how identifiable groups of people and, by extension, the individuals within such groups, are perceived by those within and outside of the collective. As the identity of such groups is often established as the result of mediation, we, as Media students need to be alert to how these identities are constructed by films, TV programmes, etc. Stereotyping is often used by the media to establish clear signifiers for the audience, shaping their response to the collective identity communicated by the text. For example: youths in hoodies signifies a potential threat.

9. Finishing Mommy
“From the first, an oddity strikes you – the screen's aspect ratio is reduced to the "portrait" shape of a selfie taken on an upright mobile phone. Later Dolan will show, poignantly, that this screen-shape relates to the characters' restricted horizons.” The Guardian (May 2014)

10. Home learning Imagine you are promoting one of our key texts.
Create a poster to be show on a billboard to advertise it. It should include:
Film name/date and names of other important people
A tag line which you could make up
At least 3 quotations taken from reviews of the film
Any awards it has won/been nominated for
A key image(s) from the film which you feel is significant
Any other important information.

11. Mommy – Matt
Quadrophenia - Toby
Rebel - Reece
Grease - Danni
Misfits – Ben

12. Task
Complete a revision sheet for Mommy using the template.

13. For your essay to be successful, you must:
1. Provide a clear, critical and developing argument.
2. Demonstrate confident analysis of textual detail.
3. Analyse a range of texts across at least two media.
4. Refer to relevant texts from past decades.
5. Refer to contemporary texts.
6. Show some consideration of future representations.
7. Consider the impact of digital and new media.
8. Engage with relevant media theory and debate.
9. Engage with real-world social issues and debate.