Hi everyone and welcome to your collective identity exam blog. Here I will upload useful resources, past papers, your presentations and any other useful links and documents.
Media and Collective Identity
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’?
20 marks for Explanation, analysis, argument
20 marks for use of examples
10 marks for terminology (including ‘theory’)
Candidates might explore combinations of any media representation across two media, or two different representations across two media.
The link to exemplar papers and past exams :
http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/type/gce/amlw/media_studies/documents/index.html
What is representation? How are we to decipher media's representations of young, working class Brits? Take note of Stuart Hall's key words.
Teen 24 - Young People and the Media - BBC News 24 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpd1J6-xs3s
Interesting to see also read the comments.
Media and Collective Identity
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’?
What is it to be working class? Does it have to do with family, education, peers, politics, work, media, culture, values and attitudes? How much of what we think about people in Britain comes from the media? Why do the media want to represent small groups in a certain way? Think mods and rockers/Dove campaign etc.
Really useful resource: http://petesmediablog.blogspot.com/
Go through all of these in your revision:
OCR mark scheme : http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/ms_10/ocr_56250_ms_10_gce_g325.pdf
Independent article - seven out of ten of us belong to middle Britain
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/class-exclusive-seven-in-10-of-us-belong-to-middle-britain-2247052.html?service=Print
How are working class youth represented in (MAIN CASE STUDIES)
MISCHIEF NIGHT 2006
Film 4 review of Mischief Night
Observer Review of Mischief Night
ADULTHOOD 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidulthood
http://www.film4.com/reviews/2006/kidulthood
FISH TANK 2009
Guardian review of Fish Tank
Fish Tank wikipedia link
Read and learn the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_structure_of_the_United_Kingdom
You be the teacher -
You are going to be given separate research assignments investigating these questions:
Group 1 - Class Dismissed - How TV frames the working class
Group 2 - Newspaper/Online images of various classes
Group 3 - Underclass background, examples and meaning
Group 4 - Working class mobility - celebrity
Group 5 -Working class mobility - politics
Group 6 - Working class jobs, what are the lines between working class, underclass and middle class?
Group 7 - Working class leisure - look at holidays, cultural tastes, spare time, sport, drinks, food etc
Group 8 - The welfare system, education and the breakdown of nuclear family.
On wikispaces so far:
- Research cinema
- rep of working classes table
- Quadrophenia/Cathy Come Home
- tv working class presentations
- your mocks
- working class representations
Good luck with your mocks. Here's how to answer questions 1a and 1b. These were the questions in January 2010.
The first steps for these two questions is to read the instructions! You also need to consider the number of marks available relative to the time for the exam as a whole. It's two hours long and worth 100 marks, so a 25 mark question should be completed in a quarter of that time (30 minutes). that's how long you should devote to each of these questions. If you prefer to do Section B (the 50 mark question) first, that's fine- you can answer questions in any order. Just make sure you do answer all three and you devote the right amount of time to each.
So in terms of instruction, the main things to note here are that for 1a you write about ALL of your work across the course (and you can write about anything else you might have made on other courses or in your spare time too!) and for 1b you just write about ONE of your productions. Try not to overlap too much, so that each answer is different.
1a is entirely concerned about skills development, but the area that comes up will be quite specific. So as you can see, in January, it was about development of skills in research and planning; the other areas which can come up are skills in:
digital technology use
post-production
use of real media conventions
creativity
It is possible that a question might refer to two of these categories, so be prepared to talk about any/all of them!
a few tips on what they mean:
digital technology refers to hardware, software and online technology, so the cameras, the computers, the packages you used and the programs online that you have worked with. It is worth considering how all this inter-links.
post-production would actually fall under digital technology as well, so if that comes up it would probably represent an expansion of points you'd make in one section of digital technology. It is really about everything you do after constructing the raw materials for your production; so once you have taken photos and written text, how do you manipulate it all in photoshop or desktop publishing for a print product or once you have shot your video, what do you do to it in editing.
research refers to looking at real media and audiences to inform your thinking about a media production and also how you record all that research; planning refers to all the creative and logistical thinking and all the organisation that goes on in putting the production together so that everything works and again gives you the chance to write about how you kept records of it.
Creativity is the hardest one in many ways because it involves thinking about what the creative process might mean. Wikipedia describes it as "a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight." For your projects it might involve considering where ideas came from, how you worked collaboratively to share ideas, how you changed things or even how you used tools like the programs to achieve something imaginative.
Use of real media conventions involves consideration of other texts that you looked at and how skilfully you were able to weave their conventions into your work or ways in which you might have challenged them.
You will notice that most of the above were areas that you covered in the evaluation task at the end of each of your productions. This time, you are putting together ideas from evaluations and standing a bit further back to look across your production work and reflecting on how you developed across the course. You should feel free to acknowledge weaknesses and to reflect upon how you learned from them and how you overcame problems. It is not a place to be defensive about your work but to really reflect on it!
so how would you organise an answer?
paragraph 1 should be an introduction which explains which projects you did. It can be quite short.
paragraph 2 should pick up the skill area and perhaps suggest something about your starting point with it- what skills did you have already and how were these illustrated. use an example.
paragraph 3 should talk through your use of that skill in early projects and what you learned and developed through these. again there should be examples to support all that you say.
paragraph 4 should go on to demonstrate how the skill developed in later projects, again backed by examples, and reflecting back on how this represents moves forward for you from your early position.
paragraph 5 short conclusion
Remember it's only half an hour and you need to range across all your work!
Question 1b
I like to think of this question as being about moving a couple of steps away from your production work and imagining you are someone else looking at it for the first time. How would you analyse this music video, this magazine or whatever? Imagine you didn't make it but that it is a real media production.
Again the question will specify an area/concept for you to apply. The areas that could come up are:
Audience
Narrative
Genre
Representation
Media Language
For each area there are theories or ideas which your teachers will have introduced you to which you need to know a bit about and then you have to apply those ideas to ONE of your productions and analyse it accordingly. Decide in advance which piece you will write about and make sure that whatever the concept, you can actually do it. Again, here is a bit of a breakdown of what the five concepts might involve.
Audience can refer to how media products target audiences, which audiences actually consume media products, but most interestingly how media audiences actually read or make sense of media products and what they might do with them. There is a lot of interesting material on all this and you should certainly be familiar with some of it.
Genre is all about the ways in which we categorise media texts. Whatever you have made will in some way relate to other examples of the same genre, whether it be in print, audio, video or online. Again a lot of different media critics have written their own 'take' on genre and this would be useful to apply to your work.
Narrative is about how stories are told. Applying different models of narrative structure to your work may reveal unconscious things that you did in the way you have constructed it. Again a familiarity with some of these models or theories will be helpful in the exam.
Media Language is probably the most open one if it comes up, because it allows you to talk about the other areas as well (genre, narrative, audience) as it is about the techniques and conventions of different forms of media (how shots are organised in film, how text is laid out on a page).
Finally, representation particularly focuses on the ways in which particular social groups are presented back to us by the media. So in your case how have you portrayed young people or females or males in your work? what messages are implied in what you have constructed and what would particular types of criticism (e.g. feminism) make of it?
so again, how do we write about this in half an hour?
para 1 Intro: which of your projects are you going to write about? briefly describe it
para 2: what are some of the key features of the concept you are being asked to apply? maybe outline some of the theories briefly
para 3; start to apply the concept, making close reference to your production
para 4: try to show ways in which ideas work in relation to your production and also ways in which those ideas might not apply/could be challenged
para 5; conclusion
Presentations on tv representation of young working classes:
Lizzie - Waterloo Road - Earl
Sarah - Vicky Pollard and Lauren from Catherine Tate show
Leonie - Eastenders
Tom D - Misfits - Simon
Jack - Shameless - Carl
Zoey - Shameless - Ian
Ellie - Coronation Street - David
Emily - Misfits - Nathan
Owen - Dave from Royle family or the Welsh uncle or Stacey in Gavin and Stacey
Amanda - Waterloo Road - Janice
Matt - Benidorm
Tom N - Shameless - Jamie McGuire
Shelagne - Waterloo Road - Jonah
Emily Dev - rich kid, poor kid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/12/rich-kid-poor-kid-inequality
For your presentations I would like: DUE WEEK COMMENCING 7th March
- find a clip that's representative of your character
- character background/role in programme
- can you tell they're working class by how they look and speak? Quick judgment
- how do you know they're working class? How is it shown in the programme?
- who's point of view are we watching?
- What do others think of her character?
- How are we supposed to think of them?
- Is this character stereotypical of working class youth? or does it subvert our expectations? If so/not, how?
For homework this week please watch My Beautiful Laundrette. Two weeks until your mocks.
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/443819/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eec6tLgJb3U
Homework due w/c 28/2
http://www.quadrophenia.net/thefilm/aboutthefilm.html
Compare the representations of the young characters in Quadrophenia and Cathy Come Home, two films set around the same time. Discuss Distinct in both as well. 1200 words upload onto wiki.
4th February
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - As we analyse all our films as well as DISTINCT we need to look at representation. Who is being represented? by whom? for what purpose and with what range of responses? Albert Finney's portrayal of Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning had an impact at the time of its release because it was seen to put new people on the screen, within a wider discourse about working-class male ideology. Crucially, the character of Arthur understands his alienation, and the audience is placed within his mind as we hear his thoughts - there is a clear preferred reading or dominant discourse which he carries through the film. Combining some comedy to depict the existence of 'kinds of people' previously absent from the screen.
Here is a framework for research on contemporary British film and collective identity. Undertake some local audience research and some industry fact-finding.
Homework due - 15th Feb upload onto wiki
In your area, who goes where to see what? Research various age groups, genders.
Who distributes the films they watched?
What is your nearest independent or 'arty' cinema, what are they showing and who distributes it?
What are the most successful British films of the past year, in both commercial and cultural terms?
How is this distinction made and what conclusions can you draw about the way that Britain is represented in film?
You will be doing a case study on representation of working class youth either in tv or film, these representations should be from the last five years. If you could find a couple of representations of these to put on your presentation.
http://petesmediablog.blogspot.com/
This is going to be at the basis of all your revision. You need to add your own quotes, ideas and the other films we have studied in class. You need to be reflective but also remember the 20 marks for examples and the 20 marks for analysis.
Media and Collective Identity
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’?
Candidates might explore combinations of any media representation across two media, or two different representations across two media.
Defining British cinema and the UK Film Council
Answer the following questions:
- Research what makes a film British and what is the UK Film Council?
- Have a look at the UK Film Council cultural test - http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/culturaltest, how can a film that is not officially a co-production qualify as British?
- Now look here - http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/culturaltestpoints write down what gives the most points and understand the difference between A, B, C, and D.
- Read this: http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/ctproductions how many of these films have you heard of/seen? Write these down, what genres are they. Pick 5 films you've never heard of and write down a little about them genre, director etc and what makes them British.
- Read the Million Dollar Question article (in the useful articles link) and do the quiz from last week (attached).
extra reading