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:
You have clearly revised audience + theory.
EBI:
Need to look again at effect of theories + how useful.
Your Q3 essay is just two long paragraphs ... no real argument, organisation or question focus
 You need to revise the CSPs in more detail.

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.
-In addition, audiences may enjoy a sense of diversion and personal identity in listening to problems and advice that they can relate to.
-The BBC’s remit demands that it offers informative content to all audience demographics and this helps fulfil its remit for reaching teenagers and young adults.
-BBC helps fulfil its educational remit by allowing listeners to contact the show via text, phone or social media to share their

problems.

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?

War of the Worlds reinforces Gerbner's Cultivation theory due to it being the first of media consumption through radio. This lead to influencing many of the audience as they were unfamiliar with the dangers of the media. 

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

The hypodermic needle model is not useful in understanding the audience response to War of the Worlds since some of the news that is presented to the audience is exaggerated therefore, some audience may start to conclude that its fake. 

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

Stuart Hall's Reception theory can be conveyed as being useful however some aspects of it can be regarded as  not useful. For example, for the negotiated reading, some audience may challenge what the producers want them to believe. For instance, some news being exaggerated can change the danger of being influenced. 

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.
• Paragraph 1 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.

• Paragraph 2 content:

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:

Diversification has strengthened Men’s Health brand with move into home gym equipment and supplements.

• Paragraph 4 content:

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 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

The magazine has been less hit by rise in digital publications. Unlike Men’s Health, Oh Comely was launched in the digital age.

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 would like to focus on learning all the CSPs in full detail and to be able to quote certain things from the CSP. I would also like to improve on my structure of my writing and mostly exam technique. 

Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks

Media Magazine reading

Media Magazine 55 has an overview of technology journalist Bill Thompson’s conference presentation on ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ It’s an excellent summary of the internet’s brief history and its impact on society. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 13 to read the article ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ Answer the following questions:

1) Looking over the article as a whole, what are some of the positive developments due to the internet highlighted by Bill Thompson?
Bill Thompson discovered we could email and exchange files with people at other universities.Today, the network is becoming invisible, as connectivity becomes seamless, pervasive and fast enough to just work most of the time. Bill Thompson also realised that we had access to a way to talk to hundreds of thousands of other computer users around the world. 

2) What are the negatives or dangers linked to the development of the internet?
Extremists and radicals can use the network to try to influence people to join their cause, and fraud, scams, ripoffs and malicious software are everywhere. Then there’s the dark web, made up of websites and online services accessed via specialised browsers.

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?
Open technology refers to the open society based around principles of equality of opportunity, social justice and free expression. I do not agree with the idea of 'open technology' since it also opens up to a a lot of risks towards the society. For instance, the audience could filter the internet in a malicious way to influence users negatively.

4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?
Some of the challenges and questions for the future are:
-Access to dissenting or distinct voices could be limited and managed.
– what could the internet do for you and your friends, and what could you make  it do?
-We know you care about privacy – and why wouldn’t you, I certainly do. So how can the network deliver that?
-How do we deliver news media that can operate effectively online and still make money?

5) Where do you stand on the use and regulation of the internet? Should there be more control or more openness? Why? 
I believe as a user of the internet, we should have more freedom when accessing the internet. The reason for this is because, the audience should not feel restricted from doing what they want. If they are told not to access some parts of the internet, that should be their parents responsibilities not the regulators who regulate the internet.

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody charts the way social media and connectivity is changing the world. Read Chapter 3 of his book, ‘Everyone is a media outlet’, and answer the following questions:

1) How does Shirky define a ‘profession’ and why does it apply to the traditional newspaper industry?
A profession exists to solve a hard problem, one that re-quires some sort of specialisation.
In the case of newspapers, professional behaviour is guided both by the commercial imperative and by an additional set of norms about what newspapers are, how they should be staffed and run, what constitutes good journalism, and so forth.

2) What is the question facing the newspaper industry now the internet has created a “new ecosystem”?
We've long regarded the newspaper as a sensible object because it has been such a stable one, but there isn't any logical connection among its many elements. What holds a newspaper together is primarily the cost of paper, ink, and distribution; a newspaper is whatever group of printed items a publisher can bundle together and deliver profitably.

3) Why did Trent Lott’s speech in 2002 become news?
"There had to be a reaction" that the network could air alongside Lott's remarks, and "we had no oncamera reaction" available the evening of the party, when the news was still fresh. By the following night, he adds, "you're dealing with the news cycle: twenty-four hours later that's old news."

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?
Mass amateurization refers to the capabilities that new forms of media have given to non-professionals and the ways in which those non-professionals have applied those capabilities to solve problems (e.g. create and distribute content)

5) Shirky suggests that: “The same idea, published in dozens or hundreds of places, can have an amplifying effect that outweighs the verdict from the smaller number of professional outlets.” How can this be linked to the current media landscape and particularly ‘fake news’?

These types of news get more recognition and attention because they are essentially everywhere. Therefore, news that are published by professional outlets are completely ignored. This pluralist model has led to fake or soft news being at the top. 

6) What does Shirky suggest about the social effects of technological change? Does this mean we are currently in the midst of the internet “revolution” or “chaos” Shirky mentions?
This suggests that we are socially constructed by the transformation of the internet revolution becuase the internet enables as to create significant changes to the world. This means that the internet is currently at 'chaos' due to huge industries struggling to cope with technological changes to the internet.  

7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?
Shirky is suggesting that the audience are no longer the consumers but now have  adopted the ability to create and filter what has been published. This generates confusion amongst the world about who is a real journalist since everyone has the capabilities to become one but not really be named as one. 


8) What does Shirky suggest regarding the hundred years following the printing press revolution? Is there any evidence of this “intellectual and political chaos” in recent global events following the internet revolution?
The changes brought about due to the Gutenberg/Printing Press Revolution created great anxiety amongst those who prided themselves on their work/lives as scribes.

9) Why is photography a good example of ‘mass amateurisation’?
Photography is a good example of mass amateurisation because it really easy to take a really professional photo and upload it on any social media due to the continuous evolving high quality cameras on mobile phone in this digital age. 


10) What do you think of Shirky’s ideas on the ‘End of audience’? Is this era of ‘mass amateurisation’ a positive thing? Or are we in a period of “intellectual and political chaos” where things are more broken than fixed? 
I agree with Shirky's ideas on the 'End of audience'. This is because the audience no longer depend on the internet for information however, in this digital age, audience are now able to create and produce their own content, as well engage with other creators. Shirky adds that media had been a hierarchical industry—in that one filtered first, and then published. “All of that now breaks down,” he says. “People are producing who are not employees or media professions.  So we now publish first, and then filter.  We find the good stuff after the fact.  This is dramatically different.”


A/A* extension work: read Chapter 1 ‘It takes a village to find a phone’ and Chapter 4 ‘Publish, then filter’ to further understand Shirky’s ideas concerning the ‘End of audience’.