Baseline assessment learner response

 Baseline assessment learner response

Create a new blog post called 'Y13 baseline assessment learner response' and complete the following tasks:

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:this is a useful lesson in how much we need to revise and practice final exams in year 13. Q2 is a mid level answer so we need to build on that.

 

EBI:in Q1 and Q3 you need much more from the csps.

2) Focusing on the BBC Newsbeat 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.

Newsbeat informs Radio 1 listeners about the news – important events going on in the UK

and around the world including breaking news and developing stories. This includes politics,

economics, crime, sport and entertainment. 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 with news content.

• Newsbeat offers educational content through some of the news stories selected to be in the

daily bulletins. Examples include a Newsbeat story on a project highlighting street

harassment of women which serves to educate both male and female listeners on the

impact of harassment on victims. The construction of news stories within Newsbeat bulletins

also contributes to this – for example, with expert interviews adding an educational element

to news packages.

• The news topics in a Newsbeat bulletin tend to offer entertainment to listeners. Although

the top story will usually be serious (hard news) every Newsbeat bulletin will contain some

sport or entertainment content which helps to fulfil the remit to entertain. For example,

Newsbeat will contain pretty extensive reports from major sporting events such as

Wimbledon or the World Cup and will also cover music or film awards ceremonies more

than some other BBC news programmes.

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?

useful-Gerbner’s Cultivation theory is very useful in understanding how American radio’s recent

convention in the 1930s of ‘breaking news’ (‘We interrupt this broadcast to bring you...’)

may have made audiences more likely to believe the fictional radio play was real.

• Gerbner’s idea of ‘mean world syndrome’ – that heavy consumers of media are more likely

to see the world as dangerous – is perhaps reinforced by the reported audience reaction to

the broadcast.

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

useful-The two-step flow theory is useful in understanding how audiences may have been

convinced by Orson Welles’s broadcast. The regular use of academic experts and

government departments gave the broadcast authority – these came across as ‘opinion

leaders’ that audiences were less likely to question and more likely to respond positively to

or believe.

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

useful- 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.
• Paragraph 1 content/ideas:
• GQ: Media Audiences
• • Magazine offers a range of audience pleasures to its target audience: Uses and Gratifications
• – personal identity and surveillance. Readers may see their lifestyle and ambitions reflected
• on the pages.
• • Audiences feel part of the magazine, are rewarded for their knowledge and have their
• expectations met
• • GQ audience: wealthy, middle to upper middle class men (average HHI of £138k, 61% ABC1• Global Editorial Director Will Welch has championed a ‘New Masculinity’ that has seen cover.
• shoots that challenge gender stereotypes and a move away from style advice to self-
• expression. This reflects a magazine that understands its target audience is changing.
• Paragraph 2 content/ideas:

GQ: Media Industries

• Decline in print due to rise in new/digital media: GQ has declined sharply over the last 10-15

years. Even in the last 5 years its circulation has dropped 25,000 (from 110,000 to 85,000).

Therefore it is fair to ask whether GQ has been successful in targeting its audience in the

digital media landscape.

• One aspect that may be considered more successful is the way GQ has diversified in order to

maintain or expand its target audience. In addition to a changing approach to masculinity,

Will Welch has moved the magazine’s focus away from traditional print towards digital,

social media and video content.

• This reflects the generational difference in terms of the distribution and consumption of

media products. Younger audiences are not engaging with print products and therefore GQ

has changed its product to move with this technological change. Video content such as the

Netflix Heartstopper actors responding to key scenes or Bukayo Saka talking about his

essential lifestyle items demonstrates how technological convergence is allowing GQ to keep

targeting its audience but in new ways.

• Paragraph 3 content/ideas:

The Gentlewoman: Media Audiences

• The Gentlewoman has a very strong, distinctive brand and clearly positions itself to attract

an audience that perhaps wouldn’t buy other women’s lifestyle magazines. Only printing

twice a year, largely selling via subscription and charging a premium price (£10 per issue) can

all be presented as examples of how the magazine has directly and successfully targeted its

audience.

• Twice a year publication perhaps reflects the digital revolution in society. Its worldwide

distribution (many copies paid by subscription rather than newsstand) reflects the change in

the way audiences buy and consume their media. The Gentlewoman has cleverly positioned

itself as a print product yet used the global, digital landscape to successfully target its

audience.

• Applying Uses and Gratifications theory, The Gentlewoman provides a strong sense of

personal identity, personal relationships and surveillance on issues not covered by

mainstream media.

• Paragraph 4 content/ideas:

The Gentlewoman: Media Industries

• The Gentlewoman reflects a changing media marketplace with small, independent producers

finding gaps in the market to connect with niche audiences. It is successfully using the digital

landscape to connect with its target audience (global distribution etc.)

• The Gentlewoman target audience of ‘confident, independent and stylish women and men

from a strikingly broad range of age groups’ arguably values print (particularly the thick,

quality ‘art book’ style) and therefore the magazine has been less hit by rise in digital

publications. Unlike GQ, The Gentlewoman was launched in the digital age.

• The internet has provided an opportunity for magazines like The Gentlewoman to find a

global audience and not need to rely on major institutions/publishers/distributors/ retailers.

The fact it is one of just a couple of magazines published by Dutch independent publishers

Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom demonstrates an understanding of its target audience

and the market in which it operates.

• Like GQ, The Gentlewoman has diversified into experiences and events – aware that its

target audience requires more than a paper magazine in the digital age.

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

The Gentlewoman

Club reinforces this, an exclusive series of events where attendees are hand-picked by Penny

Martin and take place in conjunction with luxury brands. Although some may criticise the

pretension and privilege, this does suggest an understanding of their audience and a

successful ability to target them 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 the summer.

To revise for csp before the actual test then do past papers on it