End of Year 1 exam learner response

A Level Media - End of year 1 exam: Learner response

Create a new blogpost on your Media Exam blog called 'End of Year 1 exam learner response' and work through the following tasks:

1) Type up your feedback in full (you do not need to write mark/grade if you do not wish to).

WWW: Narrative + Gender

EBI: See comments throughout. This needs to be a wake-up call, particularly for 20 and 25 mark questions. Lots of work to do in Year 13.

2) Read the mark scheme for this exam carefully, paying particular attention to the 'indicative content' for each question. This is some of the best learning you can do all year as it gives you an idea of what the exam board is expecting. For your LR blogpost, identify ONE point you could have added for the first three questions in Section A:

Q1 additional point/theory: • Intertextuality: cover creates intertextual reference to King Kong stories/movies of 1950s which engages audience using narrative.
• Binary opposition: cover image creates classic binary opposition of good and evil, hero and
villain etc.

Q2 additional point/theory/CSP reference: • Evidence of the male gaze (Mulvey) with passive blonde female wearing revealing top reflects male dominance of the time period. Media products typically represented men in a hypermasculine way.

Q3 additional point/theory/CSP reference: • Jean Kilbourne’s work on the representation of women in advertising can be found in the Score hair cream advert. This presents women as objects and reinforces many of the negative, reductive stereotypes seen with regards to women in advertising from the 1950s
until at least the 1990s (and arguably to this day).

3) The final question in Section A was a 20-mark essay that required an extended response containing a coherent argument. Using the suggested content in the mark scheme, write an essay plan containing five paragraphs/points that answer the music video and postmodernism question.

Paragraph 1: Michael Jackson: Billie Jean
• The postmodern idea of ‘copying copies’ (that nothing is truly original) and therefore finding
originality in old ideas is a strong theme of Billie Jean.
• Billie Jean uses polaroid photos and moving billboards to create a ‘screen within a screen’
postmodern effect.
• Repeated intertextual references to old movie genres, and indeed a blurring of genres (film
noir, Hollywood musical etc.) could be seen as postmodern aspects to the music video.
• The construction of the video is an example of bricolage – the combining of old and new
elements. Classic 1950s film noir detective narrative combined with light-up pavements
much more in keeping with 1980s aesthetic.

Paragraph 2: Common: Letter to the Free
• In many ways, Letter to the Free is not conventionally postmodern – but it does subvert
some aspects of Goodwin’s theory of music video conventions. It is black and white, lacks
close-ups and offers a very slow pace in both editing and camera movement. However, it
also offers a performance element and has visuals that match the lyrics in places which is
more conventional of a music video.
• The reflective, floating black square in Letter to the Free arguably offers an example of
hyperreality. It’s a deliberately ambiguous motif that never makes clear whether it is real or
symbolic. This echoes Baudrillard’s claims with regards to audiences being unable to
distinguish between reality and copies or simulations of reality.

4) Section B began with two questions testing your knowledge of industry terminology. Make sure you know the answers to these (get the answers from the mark scheme if you have to):

Two benefits of vertical integration: 

1.Greater control of the production process.
2.Lower costs and highers profits.

Definition of diversification: Diversification is when a media company branches out into a different area of the media industries. For example, many media companies have had to diversify to internet-driven distribution (e.g. streaming) as a result of new and digital media.

5) Question 8 (TV industry) was arguably the hardest question on the exam. Write a new paragraph that answers the question referring to either Capital or Deutschland 83 and the global TV industry. Use the indicative content in the mark scheme to help you.

Capital reflects the global nature of London (multiculturalism) but perhaps less the global
nature of TV industry. State-of-the-nation drama largely aimed at British BBC audience who
understand cultural references to house prices, Eastern European builders, city bankers etc.
Did Capital’s emphasis on British culture and politics mean it did less well internationally?
Alternatively, some of the issues taken on by the drama could be seen as global – financial
crisis, immigration, family. These are quite universal themes that could play to a global
market.
Capital production company Kudos have sold many of their shows to international markets
(including Capital). Capital was distributed by Fremantle Media, an international distributer
that is part of the RTL group conglomerate (Bertelsmann).
TV networks and streaming services are increasingly creating content that can work in
multiple markets (e.g. Netflix and Amazon Prime developing original content in multiple

languages).