Congratulations! You have completed 25% of your overall A Level in Media Studies.
We now move on to a module that will appear in your Component 2 exam, Audiences and Institutions – the Music Industry.
There is no more lesson time available for any outstanding posts. The blog league will be taken down so it would be sensible to take a copy of it.
If you have outstanding CCR questions, they must be completed asap. They are worth as much as the whole blog research and planning, so you must submit something for them, along with any outstanding posts from earlier.
Use your independent study time and home study to complete them and let your teacher know when you have uploaded them so that they can check off the blog league.
PLEASE ENSURE YOUR DESK IS CLEAR – THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS COMPLEX AND WILL REQUIRE A LOT MORE LEARNING, ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FOR CASE STUDIES. You need to not be distracted by the Coursework so get it done – please!
Cut and paste commentaries from the template: how you have used/developed conventions and represented your genre/star or issues in the magazine on the relevant slides.
Embed images from own own coursework and embed images from professional texts/examples. Snipping tool city!
STUDENT EXEMPLAR
SOME NOTES
1. How does my product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
This question is asking you to be a detective. There are two elements to this case:
What are the clues in my magazine?
The clues are the conventions
What meaning is suggested, implied or connoted through those clues?
The meaning is the representation.
We have done work on the conventions of magazine and you may need to revisit the lessons in the departmental blog blog and the important posts in your own. These will refresh you memory about the key concepts and terminology you need to use in the reflection.
The work we did on identifying conventions (clues) are in these posts:
Copy and rename this EMAZE template (see link below).
https://www.emaze.com/@AOZFCWFCT/my-brand
Delete my instructions but keep in the headings and sub headings.
Insert images in the presentation with examples from your own magazine (use the snipping tool).
Annotate:
The Convention usually applied, adopted, followed and did you use, develop and challenge it in your own production?
Then describe the resulting representation using adjectives (find exciting ones!) for the impact that convention had on the product either in terms of how the artists or themes within the stories are represented.
Make the presentation your own and delete all the instructions/change the colours etc etc.
Sign up with google, open create…click on this link and then duplicate. You should have your own copy to individualise and make your own.
How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
Task: This is Mrs Cobb explaining how to do this question in lockdown. So ignore some of the instructions re the tasks involved but the overview is essential listening as it describes what this question requires.
Task:
Create a screencastify commentary on how your magazine engages audience and how it might survive in a digital media world.
You must address the following questions: (There is a template in Classroom for you to use.)
Introduce your magazine, name, genre…
Describe your brand values / mission statement?
How will your magazine be distinct from or similar to others?
Who are your target audience?
Use YouGov, image and profile + other details FROM THE Young and Rubicam sheet below, eg: Tribewired… etc.
Why would that audience buy your magazine?
Link to Uses and Gratification or AIDA…You should have @ 8 different specific elements that address B and K ideas and AIDA’s elements.
Who would you want to work with to distribute your magazine?
Which of the big magazine groups would you hope to distribute your magazine?
How does your magazine fit with their existing publications?
What sort of advertiser would you hope to attract?
Link to your two selected ads & explain.
What strategies do you have for distribution? How will you link your print content with online content?
Explain how a traditional print version of your magazine would work and how a digital online version would work.
How can a print magazine survive in digital world?
Some answers & thoughts
Sensational celebrity gossip stories – Churnalism (cheap and easy)
Freebies, competitions, exclusive content, additional content in print version
Reduce cover price (free) & rely on ad sales.
Link to enhanced digital content on website.
Employ social media to promote our brand.
Audience participation & interaction (Uses and Gratification)
Link digital content back to print, whet the audience’s appetite, require the audience to buy print version to get full details.
Use a paywall for online content.
Making The CCR Presentation
Using your flipsnack magazine, record your voice over whilst flipping the pages as screencastify records your response.
You will need to use your Laptop with a built in mic to record this.
You should endeavor to ensure that you use the ‘pointer / pens tool’ when referring to elements of the magazine and ensure that you are turning the pages as and when appropriate.
You should also use your Yougov findings to explain what other media texts they consume as well as other information.
Uses & Gratification
You should link specific elements of your magazine (contents, bands, representation, language, design (fonts / graphics) to specific uses and gratifications that you think your audience have. Refer to Blumler and Katz’ ideas and also AIDA:
Attention – A
Interest – I
Desire – D
Action – A
Entertainment – Uses and Gratification
Information – Uses and Gratification
Personal Identity – Uses and Gratification
Social Interaction – Uses and Gratification
Distribution
Complete this work sheet in order to explore magazine ownership & distribution.
Read the three articles below (also in the work sheet) in groups in order to research the business of magazine distribution and the challenges created by the internet & social media.
Research Articles
Please see the presentation in classroom with an article allocated to you and a partner to read, summarise and bullet point onto a slide.
This will then act as a resource for facts and stats you will need for your distribution pitch and ideas.
Institutional (Distribution) Issues
Audiences expect to get their media for ‘free’
The younger audience don’t like to read.
Quality (factual) journalism is expensive and so is traditional print and distribution.
However, it’s hard to make money out of online content.
Most of it goes to FB & Google, leaving everyone else scrabbling for the scraps.
Exclusives remain ‘exclusive’ for about 10 seconds before it’s all over social media.
Whilst the MP3 is showing the examiner that you can use different platforms to communicate (i.e. your voice and recordings), we thought it would be good to ensure that your actual letter is presented in a more standard format i.e that it looks like a handwritten letter.
If you spell check your letter in word and then cut and paste it into the above app you can play around with fonts and layout to make it look like a ‘hand written’ letter. You are marked on presentation skills so this would be an additional way to ensure the examiner sees you know about what looks good. Make sure you have paragraphs and have deleted the template instructions.
Remember:
School Address on the top left hand corner (not your own)
Create an info-graphic using Picktochart using stills from your music magazine, and screen shots of the skill/technology being used.
You must also comment on how the various examples of software, hardware and online technologies were integrated in the production process and / or impacted on the final outcomes of the product or developed on your production skills (can be overlap with the letter you wrote for CCR3).
The most important aspect of the commentary is that you say specifically how the technology impacted on your development of the project in the following five stages:
Research, Planning & Development
Production (Taking photos)
Post Production (Photoshop, InDesign & Illustrator)
Evaluation & Feedback (Drafts and feedback)
Presentation (Exporting (PDFs & Flipsnack)
For each stage of production (above) choose two examples of hardware, software and online technologies. Make sure you include all stages of the production process i.e. research/planning, production, post production and evaluation/feedback.
Example of technology you used included:
Hardware
Cameras (DLSR and Point and Shoot)
Lighting and Flash Equipment
I-phones
Flash Kit in the Studio
Software (Adobe)
Bridge
Photoshop
InDesign
Illustrator
Online technology:
Edublogs (WordPress)
YouTube (Online Tutorials)
Social Media / Facebook / WhatsApp
Padlet / Canva / Piktochart
Google + Docs & Slides
Screencastify(Teachers’ Feedback)
More Help and Guidance
The commentary
You should be specific about how you employed the technology. Describe what you were able to achieve creatively & organisationally with these various technologies, such as…
Researching conventions in professional media texts
Gathering inspiration & sharing ideas
Production planning / inspiration
Production organisation & group communication / collaboration
Production techniques (Framing, camera movement, backdrops, lighting…)
Using filters & image control for representing brand / star
Using brushes and filters for reflecting the genre of the music
Colour Correction
Arranging elements on the page + text wrapping
Layering images / using opacity / blending
Converting / compressing files for different use (Thumbnails (jpegs) / Reading (pdfs))
Uploading and embedding media into blogs
Feedback (Self, Peer, Teacher)
Tracking & recording progress
Avoid throw away comments such as…
‘…the technology made it more professional!’
‘…the technology made it more attractive!’
‘…the technology helped make it more aesthetically pleasing!’
The Images
Do not simply use logos / generic you find on Google images. Instead:
Take screenshots of your use of software
Take photos of key pieces of kits
Take screenshots of specific pages / site
Example
Please note we have slimmed this CCR down from previous years and there is no need for you to cover all three types of technology in all five stages!
So long as you have cover all three types of technology (software, hardware & online) at some point in the infographic you will be fine.
The marks will come from how well you describe the examples & techniques and how well your commentary explains the impact these technologies had on your production and the process.
Loading…
Buzz words for your infographic…
Makes these command words bold every time you use them in the commentary to highlight your genius to the examiner:
In order to make the presentation of your pages aesthetically pleasing with the programme Flipsnack, you need another page.
Whilst, you won’t be assessed or moderated for this page, it will fit well with evidencing how well you understand your target audience – an advertiser will not advertise in a magazine if the target audience would not be the kind of consumers for their product.
Have a look for an appropriate advert (make sure the resolution is good so that it doesn’t come out pixelated) that might appear on your inside cover of your magazine. Look for other products, other than music related products (albums, tours, concerts etc). You can also find a music album, tour or music related advert that fits with your genre for the back page so that your Flipsnack presentation is a completely mini magazine.
Here is a slideshow with a couple of ideas but make sure you go out and find your own ideas from some online searches. Remember, it needs to be A4 and a high resolution.
You should then make sure in the post on the blog that outlines your choice of advert that ‘you appreciate this isn’t going to be marked but for the purposes of presentation, having an extra page in the magazine helped make the Flipsnack platform work better. However, it was an interesting exercise in reaffirming that you knew who exactly your target audience were i.e. young teens and you can then outline briefly their demographics and psychographics (remember yougov research) and explain why the advert would fit in your magazine.
You will receive a 1-1 feedback on your magazine from your teacher. This will be presented and shared with you as a Screencastify.
You should listen through that feedback carefully and summarize the key points they made
You should then identify 3-5 targets for your final draft, which is due next Friday 28th January.
You should embed that video underneath your draft 3 magazine and the summary and targets beneath that.
Embedding Instructions
You can embed it by opening the video in a new window, by using the three dots in the right hand top corner and then use the dots again to find ‘Embed Item…’. This will give you the code you need to embed the video into your blog.
Your teacher will have to ensure that the sharing permissions are set so that it will be viewable by the examiner if necessary.
General Feedback
To avoid your teachers having to repeat themselves at the beginning of every piece of feedback and to ensure nothing is missed, we have created a checklist of ‘Rookie Errors’ that students have made in the past and also a list of conventional (expected) design features.
That list is explained you you below (in an embedded Screencastify)
Final Draft Checklist (read only) (Please make a copy for yourself to work from).
“Do not do this work if you are attending school. There is time available after the magazine is finished. Those who are isolating will do this earlier and get an extension on their deadline, whilst you are doing this work after you’ve completed the magazine.”
Creative Critical Reflection 1 – Question 3
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
You have to think about your “skills,”, just like Napoleon Dynamite does…
You have thought about and evidenced your production journey in A Level Media Studies and all of the reflection is in your blog.
Most of the work for this question has already been done! So…Hooray & Hoorah!
This CCR will require you to reflect on how far you have come this year. In particular it will require you to reflect on the production skills you have acquired and how they have helped you become a more skilled (both technically and creatively) as a media producer and:
Photographer
Photoshop(er),
Designer
Journalist
Moreover, you have also learnt some valuable production skills that are easily transferable to other parts of your life, education and ultimately career:
Time management
Directing and Management
Communication & Collaboration
Writing skills
Research and Planning
Mrs Cobb has done a screencastify presentation for you – listen and enjoy!
TASK 1
You will write a letter to a future A Level Media Studies student in order to prepare them for what lies ahead. You need to advise them to learn from your experience and perhaps also your mistakes.
Use the template in classroom to write your letter that you will later record.
Each skill must specifically refer to the IMPACT it had on the product.
Always try and mention – how the skill impacted on genre, narrative, star image, audience etc. Focus on AIDA and B and K too.
Key terms you should be trying to include: ‘audience, information, entertainment, social interaction, personal identity, star image, genre, conventions, narrative, attract, interest, desire, action.’ As well as: font, copy, coverlines, masthead, pugs, plugs, standfirst, drop capital, cover star etc – all the terms you have already used in your reflection.
An Introduction – Dear Future A Level Media Student etc
Outline how you have acquired a variety of production skills that can be classified in various ways.
Technical Production Skills – include specific key skills you have learnt in Indesign and Photoshop and then focus on one particular anecdote (story) where you can describe the impact the technical production skill had on the product, project.
Creative Production Skills – include key skills you have learnt about design, costume, photography, MES etc then focus on one particular anecdote (story) where you can describe the impact that creative production skill had on the product, project.
Transferable Skills – include key skills you have used and improved that you can use elsewhere in life – communication, time management, organisation, collaboration, confidence, literacy, computer skills etc. then focus on one particular anecdote (story) where you can describe the impact that transferrable skill had on the product, project.
A sign off and good luck.
TASK 2
Turn the letter into classroom so that your teacher can give you feedback.
TASK 3
Recording your letter on any application and upload as an MP3 into your blog CCR1 in a post entitled:
‘CCR1 – Question 3 – How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
You should also include the letter below the recording.
THIS IS AN EXEMPLAR of one recording previously, when they also had to do a presentation for it – we are not asking you to do the presentation – just the letter.
Advice.
Be sure not to make it a list – instead ensure each skill has an example attached to it and how that skill specifically impacted on the product– how it affected star image, or genre, or narrative, or the audience. We need specific scenes, shots, frames, angles, fonts, colours etc and how that particular production skill impacted on them.
Remember, making the result ‘more professional’ or ‘more aesthetically pleasing’ is not enough – what do you mean by that? ALWAYS ADD IN A STORY, A FOR EXAMPLE, AN ANECDOTE.
If you are off school in isolation we need to provide you with meaningful work to keep you on track if you are well enough to work, that is.
The problem is that in school students are working on their magazine pages and we can’t reflect that at home as it is unlikely you have the necessary Adobe applications.
So, if you are working at home we are going to bring forward the evaluation questions which are the last part of this production unit. Those questions, are called The Creative Critical Evaluations, and are worth approximately 20% of the final grade you get for this unit.
There are four of them:
How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
The creative element demands that these are not just presented as a written essay, but must use multimedia to present your findings / analysis in a creative way.
The one which we would like you to work on, if you are in isolation is:
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
There is a new blog post that has been rolled out which describes the task and the approach we would like you to take and the outcome. Classroom has the resources.
Once you come back to school, you will have an extension to work on your magazine pages, whilst the rest of the class work on their evaluations.