MS1 Introduction

MS1: MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS AND RESPONSES 


Question 1 requires an analysis of an audio/visual or print-based 
extract (40). 
Questions 2 and 3 will be based on representation and audience issues (30 
and 30). 

Introduction to ms1 from smcmediastudies

Note: for questions 2 & 3, candidates will be expected to draw on their own studies of 
representation and audience response issues. 

Introduction 

This unit aims to provide candidates with a framework for analysing the media and 
requires them to explore representations and audience/user responses. Candidates 
will be encouraged to explore the media through a study of genre, narrative and 
representation and make connections between the texts and audience/user 
responses to them. In the developing area of interactive media, this involves 
considering users and their interaction with texts. It will be important for candidates 
to be provided with a range of examples which will enable them to understand and 
interpret the media independently. 

The representations of social/cultural groups, events, issues and their underlying 
messages and values will be explored using a range of approaches. 

Content 

Candidates will be required to study how media texts are constructed and how 
audiences and users respond to and interpret them using the following framework: 

(a) Texts 
 genre conventions 
 narrative construction 
 technical codes such as camerawork, lighting, editing and sound for 
audio-visual media and graphic design elements for print-based and 
interactive media 
 language used and mode of address. 
 GCE AS/A MEDIA STUDIES 11

(b) Representations 
 the role of selection, construction and anchorage in creating 
representations 
 how the media uses representations 
 the points of view, messages and values underlying those 
representations. 

Candidates will be expected to have studied a range of representations of: 
 gender 
 ethnicity 
 age 
 issues 
 events 
 regional and national identities. 

(c) Audience Responses 

Candidates will need to consider the ways in which different audiences can 
respond to the same text in different ways. This will involve studying: 

 the ways in which audiences can be categorised (e.g., gender, age, 
ethnicity, social & cultural background, advertisers' classifications) 
 how media producers and texts construct audiences and users 
 how audiences and users are positioned (including preferred, 
negotiated and oppositional responses to that positioning). 

Any media can be explored but the media texts used in the examination will 
be selected from the following: 

 advertisements 
 DVD covers 
 CD covers 
 newspaper front pages 
 magazines (including comics) 
 radio sequences 
 film extracts 
 television sequences 
 music videos 
 websites (if selected for examination, websites will be reproduced in 
print-based format) 
 computer game extracts. 

Assessment 

A written examination paper of two and a half hours, assessing AO1 and AO2. This 
will consist of three compulsory questions: 
 Question 1 requires an analysis of an audio/visual or print-based 
extract (40). 
 Questions 2 and 3 will be based on representation and audience issues and 
may be subdivided where appropriate (30 and 30). 
Note: for questions 2 & 3, candidates will be expected to draw on their own studies of 
representation and audience response issues.