Mock exams: Revision and preparation

Your Media mocks are a great opportunity to practice the full 90-minute exams you'll be doing this summer.

We've also got the significant boost of AQA providing advance information about the exams which tells us which CSPs will be coming up. Use your notes, blog work and revision booklets / practice questions to prepare for the following:

Media 1 mock exam: Thursday 3 March P1&2

Section A: Media Language, Representations and Contexts

Unseen text analysis - look at previous assessment LRs and revise mise-en-scene (CLAMPS) and other key media language from your GLoW Media glossary.

Magazines: Tatler - original blog notes here. You'll also find lesson videos from lockdown.

Advertising & Marketing: Galaxy Audrey Hepburn Chauffeur advert - original blog notes here. You can also find the original lesson slides here. 

Section B: Media Industries and Audiences

OSP/Videogames: Lara Croft Go - original blog notes here.

Media 2 mock exam: Tuesday 8 March P5&6

Section A: Television

Extract from Class - Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart with 2, 8 and 12 mark questions about the clip.

20-mark essay on Class and Doctor Who - TV blog notes can be found on the TV final index here.

Section B: Newspapers

20-mark essays on Daily Mirror and The Times.

• Daily Mirror notes - Language and Audience
• Daily Mirror notes - Representations and Industry
• The Times notes - Language and Audience
• The Times notes - Representations and Industry

Important: the final question in Media Two is the synoptic question where you need to demonstrate your knowledge of the whole course of study. The best way to do this is to discuss different CSPs that relate to the question you are given.

Revision is the key

It's important that you revise properly for these exams and give yourself the best possible chance of success. It's fine to make mistakes - that's what mock exams are for - but since we know which CSPs will be coming up there's no excuse for not knowing key information about the products. 

If you would like revision cards to revise with feel free to pop in to DF07 and I'll happily provide you with them for free - I strongly recommend creating revision cards for all the exam CSPs and also for media terminology and theory (e.g. Mise-en-scene, Reception theory, Uses & Gratifications theory etc.)

The better you know the terminology, theory and CSPs, the better you'll do in the exams! 

Newspapers: The Times - Representation and Industries

The second part of our case study for The Times focuses on Representation and Industries.

This is the final part of our case study work for Newspapers and is full of information that could easily come up in our exams.

Notes from the lessons

Here's a reminder of your two CSP pages for The Times:

 

 

The Times: Representation and Industry notes

The Times: Representation

Front page

Some key aspects of the representation on the front page:

• Slogan ‘Britain’s most trusted newspaper’ represents the British press as traditional and authentic / trustworthy. Expected to uphold British values. 
• By using the crest, the newspaper is associating itself with being British and part of an established heritage and tradition.
• Values tradition (the caption talks about the ‘remembrance poppy’ worn by the Duchess. Focus is on patriotic values, respect for armed services and her title as a member of aristocracy.  
• Views education as important and represents fee paying schools (private schools) in a positive light. More elitist.
• Story about potentially criminal government leak is angled to defend the government and contains multiple denials of any wrongdoing. This supports the government and creates a representation of the Conservative Party as being law-abiding and open to scrutiny. This reinforces the fact that the Times usually supports the Conservative Party in British politics.

Inside page

Some key aspects of the representation on the inside page:

• Focus on future King of England and his wife/family and role in international diplomacy (similar to The Mirror but more positive, less gossip)
• Positive focus on Conservative Royal family and the traditions they espouse: church services, prayers and military tributes, formal parades. 
• Focus on the traditions behind the celebration more than the relationships between them: ‘Royal Anzac Day’.
• Story about Henry VIII: history and facts. More traditional view of Royal Family (linking present day to Tudor ancestors.)
• Sri Lanka tourists: warning British tourists about foreign terror attacks. More of a Right-Wing viewpoint and suggests readers have money for exotic holidays. Also a more right-wing negative view of minorities as ‘other’ and potential threat.
• Easter Sunday bombings: threat of Islamist extremism in Sri Lanka and infiltrating Britain: ‘Extremist preacher encouraged students…’ Fear of minority religions and ethnic groups. 

Politics

The Times generally supports the Conservative Party and is against the more leftwing Labour Party. The newspaper will often act as a voice for the establishment (the wealthy and powerful) and will not support anything that threatens major changes to the status quo (how things currently are). This can be found in the two main news stories on the front page of the CSP edition of the Times.

Reminder: News values

Media theorists Galtung and Ruge defined a set of news values to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain stories and photographs were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not. The following list is adapted from their work:

• Immediacy: has it happened recently?
• Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
• Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
• Frequency: does the event happen fairly regularly?
• Unambiguity: is it clear and definite? 
• Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
• Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
• Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
• Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
• Negativity: Is it bad news? Bad news tends to get more focus as it’s more sensational/ attention grabbing. 
• Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.

The selection of particular news stories, images and text can create very different representations - as we can see in the same Royal Family story across the Daily Mirror and the Times.

The Times: Industries

The Times is owned by News UK (a subsidiary of News Corporation). News Corporation is a conglomerate mostly owned by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian media mogul with many business interests worldwide such as the Fox network in the USA.  

In July 2009 News Corporation had to pay large sums of compensation for the phone hacking scandal, where their journalists were accused of using illegal methods to obtain information.  

The Times circulation in 2019 was 376,000, down 12% in a year and much lower than the high point of over 800,000 in the 1990s. Since 2020, The Sun and The Times have not published their circulation figures, perhaps to prevent knowledge of how many readers they have lost.

In response to the decline in print newspapers, the Times has:

• Moved towards a multi-platform landscape. This means that it publishes and synchronises across its print, desktop and mobile platforms. Some newspapers (e.g. The Times) have a paywall on their online content. The Times has had a hard paywall since 2010, but it often experiments with making content available for free. Last summer, it began free registrations and has been adding around 30,000 a week.
• Created a social media strategy in collaboration with the digital team to drive growth of their Twitter and Facebook profiles. 
• In 2018, Times and Sunday Times hit 500,000 subscribers as digital outnumbered print for first time at an initial cost of £1 per week for a digital subscription.

Key question: Why have print newspapers declined?

ACCESSIBILITY / DIGITAL AGE: The growth of the Internet as a major source of news (since the 1990s). This has particularly impacted on advertising revenue for newspapers as we use the Internet (often free) for services. Television news is also available 24 hours a day so no need to make ‘appointment to view’ or buy a daily newspaper as updates on-line are more up to date.

COST: People are accessing news freely through social media and other online outlets.  Newspapers cannot compete with the speed and cost-free nature of this.  Twitter has no printing costs, printing factories, distribution costs and journalist wages.

CHOICE & VARIETY: Previously we would go to small number of outlets for our news (BBC and other national broadcasters, national and some local newspapers).  Now there are so many places we can access news (numerous TV channels, websites, social media accounts, blogs). 

IMMEDIACY: Critics of the newspaper as a medium also argue that newspapers haven’t moved with the times. The technology revolution has meant that readers accustomed to waiting for a daily newspaper can now receive up-to-the-minute updates from Web portals, bloggers and new services such as Twitter.

Newspaper regulation

How and why are UK newspapers regulated? The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014 after criticism following the phone hacking affair. 

It was replaced by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).

The role of IPSO is to:

• Regulate 1500 print and 1100 online titles.
• Listen to complaints about press behaviour.
• Help with unwanted press attention.
• Advise publication editors .
• Provide information to the public.
• Provide a journalist whistleblowing hotline.

There is currently a heated debate in the media regarding whether the newspaper industry requires stronger regulation. Some people argue that the newspaper industry cannot be trusted to regulate itself using IPSO and that stronger, statutory regulation should be introduced instead. This would also implement the recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry which followed the phone-hacking scandal. There are links in the extension tasks below if you would like to read more about the newspaper regulation debate.

Blog tasks: The Times case study

Create a blogpost called 'The Times - Representation and Industries' and then work through the following questions:

Representation

1) What representation of private schools can be found on the main front page story of the Times?

2) What representation of the Conservative Party can be found in the story at the top of the front page 'Calls for criminal enquiry as top ministers deny security leak'?

3) How are the Royal Family represented in the Times? (See front page 'Fitting tribute' - Duchess of Cambridge picture and the inside page 'Royal Anzac Day on both sides of the world'). 

4) How does the coverage of the Royal Family in the Times contrast with the reporting of the same events in the Daily Mirror?

5) How are British people and Muslims represented in the article and sidebar 'Sri Lanka tourists warned of more terror'?


Industries

1) Who owns the Times? Write the name of the company AND the billionaire who owns the company.

2) What was the The Times's circulation in 2019? How many papers did the Times used to sell back in the 1990s?

3) How has the Times reacted to the decline in print sales and the growth of the internet?

4) What does IPSO stand for and what is IPSO's job?

5) Why do some people want stronger regulation of British newspapers? 


Grade 8/9 extension tasks

How does the coverage of the Royal Family in the Times reinforce British social and cultural values?

Read this Guardian column on IPSO, the press regulator. Why does Polly Toynbee suggest IPSO has been a "total failure"?

Read this short Press Gazette feature on the Times's paywall. Why does the Times head of digital describe the paywall as a success? 

You may also want to watch this video from another Media teacher explaining The Times and the Daily Mirror for A Level students:



Due date: on Google Classroom

Newspapers: The Times - Language and Audience

The first part of our case study for The Times is focusing on Media Language and Audience.

Here are your two CSP pages for The Times:

 

 

The Times: notes

Audience & Language

Language: The Times tends to attract an audience that is older and more traditional (Conservative politics), so the stories are targeted towards these values and beliefs to target their specific audience. 
Mode of address: The Times employs a formal style with advanced language to reflect the needs/education level of the audience.
Construction: The Times uses some layout design techniques to attract its audience (sell lines, kickers, pugs).  There are usually not as many as The Mirror, though.
Technical Codes: Whilst The Times employs colour, it is much more understated than the tabloid Mirror.  More traditional fonts, styles and sizes reinforce this traditional symbolism.
Conventions: The Times observes more traditional codes and conventions than the Daily Mirror, with less direct address and a more formal, authoritative tone as if giving the reader less active participation and more passive access to information.

Target audience

The Times target audience is older with over half the audience aged 55+. In terms of social class, they are overwhelmingly in the ABC1 social classes - and largely the A or B groups within that group. This means Times readers are likely to be professionals, managers or company owners. They are likely to be in the Succeeder psychographic group.

Audience pleasures and representation

Surveillance/Information 

The main reason we read newspapers is to find out what is going on in the world around us.  News, different opinions, information about current affairs. Information about British politics (inquiry) and British Royal family (patriotic). Information about fee-paying schools also suggests education is important to the target audience and they are more likely to be on the side of the Headteachers rather than Labour. The Mirror focuses on the more controversial ‘anti-vax’ movement which is a scare-mongering tone when talking of schools.

Diversion/Entertainment

One of the main reasons we read newspapers is for entertainment. We want to be entertained.

Information about royals who are seen as an important part of British culture and also access to cultural ‘hotspots’ for leisure and house tips. This targets people with disposable income and an interest in culture/status and how they are perceived. 

Personal Identity 

A Daily Mirror reader will probably think very differently from a Times reader. Even if a reader does not always agree with a viewpoint the newspaper puts forward, they may still be agreeing with the values being shared. The Times newspaper seems to endorse the Conservative party and show their strong affiliation with the political party by phrasing the story with ‘top ministers deny security leak’. The placing of value on an education would be a belief shared by readers who attended, or have sent their kids to, independent schools. 

Becoming an active participant 

Increasingly newspapers, especially online editions, encourage audience input through comments and email. The audience are not targeted with informal language or direct address as often, leading to a distance between journalist and reader. This encourages less dissent and comment and therefore more passive audience members who will accept the dominant view point of the paper. 

Politics

The Times is right-wing and supports the Conservative Party. It is generally against the left-wing Labour Party. The Times newspaper will act as a voice for the establishment (the wealthy and powerful) and will not support anything that threatens major changes to the status quo. Here, the main story on the front page praises private schools and defends the Conservative government.

Language

Examine the use of language and the narrative in the right-leaning Times newspaper:

• “Fee paying schools 'save taxpayer £20 billion”
• “Calls for criminal enquiry as top ministers deny security leak”

Look at the tone and angle of the main article. The headline and article is positive about the role private schools play in British society, suggesting that they save the government money. This appeals to readers who may well send their own children to private school.  

The picture story of the Duchess of Cambridge reflects the newspaper being pro-Royal family and supporting longstanding British institutions. 

The secondary stories on the front page are also constructed to appeal to Times readers. The story at the top of the page - "Calls for criminal enquiry as top ministers deny security leak” - is a top political story about a security leak at the heart of government. This is an important British political story and something Times readers would expect to be covered on the front page.

The sidebar about sleep is a slightly lighter story about mental health and wellbeing but still contains quotes from neuroscience and medical fact which reflects the more educated nature of Times readers.

Look at the kicker stories advertised at the top of the page:

• "Bedroom secrets: How to create a restful haven"
  
• "Know your Thor from your Iron Man - Marvel beginners guide"

These features demonstrate that The Times is aimed at a high-flying workers in stressful jobs who have money to spend on their home and bedroom. Similarly, the fact that Times readers would need a Marvel "beginners' guide" suggests that usually Times readers like more highbrow entertainment such as theatre or opera.

Look at the stories on the inside page of the Times:

• "Royal Anzac Day on both sides of the world"
• "How death of grandmother put fear into Henry VIII"
• "Sri Lanka tourists warned of more terror"

The selection of news articles here reflects the type of audience that reads the Times. The Royal family story is presented in a more formal way than in the Daily Mirror although some of the same images are used. The story on the fear of Henry VIII suggests Times readers have a strong interest in British history and in particular the Royal family. Finally, the story on terror attacks in Sri Lanka suggests that Times readers can afford exotic holidays on the other side of the world and therefore will need to know about potential dangers from terrorists in countries like Sri Lanka.

Blog tasks: The Times - Language and Audience

Work through the following questions to make sure you are fully prepared for questions on the Times and the newspaper industry.

Language

1) What is the main story on the front cover of the Times CSP edition (26 April 2019) and why does it appeal to Times readers?

2) List the other news stories and kickers on the front page of the Times CSP edition. Why do you think the Times selected these for the front page?

3) What are the main stories on the inside pages of the Times CSP edition and how are they constructed to appeal to Times readers? 

4) Which of Galtung and Ruge's News Values apply to the Times's front page stories? Write about both the main story on private schools and the government leak enquiry. 

5) What does a close analysis of the news stories in the Times CSP edition suggest about the Times's political beliefs?

Audience

1) What is the main readership demographic for The Times newspaper? Add as much detail as you can.

2) What aspects of the front page of the Times CSP edition suggest that their readers are likely to be more educated and interested in hard news rather than entertainment?

3) Times readers are mostly over 55 years old. Why is this and how is this reflected by the new stories and kickers in the CSP pages we have studied?  

4) What is the main audience pleasure offered by the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory.

5) Why might a reader enjoy this CSP edition of the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory categories and write as detailed an analysis as you can.

Grade 8/9 extension tasks

Read this Guardian column on the pleasures of print newspapers and the dangers of the digital age. Do you think newspapers will continue to exist in the future? Why? 

You may also want to watch this video from another Media teacher explaining The Times and the Daily Mirror for A Level students:



Due date: on Google Classroom

Newspapers: The Times - Introduction

Our second newspaper case study is The Times.

This provides an excellent contrast with the Daily Mirror. The Times is a right-wing broadsheet newspaper that generally supports the Conservative Party and is aimed at a more educated, middle-class audience. Remember, this is an in-depth CSP and needs to be studied with reference to all four key concepts: Language, Representation, Industries and Audience. We'll be covering all of those concepts over the next two weeks.

This is the front page of The Times we will be studying for the exam (see right).

The Times - Introduction: blog tasks

Read the About Us page of the Times website and answer the following questions:

1) What year was The Times founded and when did it start using the Times name?

2) What content did John Walter suggest the paper would offer in the first edition?

3) What does the page say about the political views in The Times? 

4) Who owns The Times today and how is editorial integrity protected?

5) What did The Times introduce in 2010 and why?

6) What was The Times named in 2018 by the Reuters Institute for Journalism at Oxford University?

7) What does the section on Editorial Standards say about The Times and newspaper regulation?

8) What does the section on Ownership say about The Times and who is the current editor? 

Extension tasks

Look at this News UK webpage with key information about The Times for potential advertisers and complete the following tasks:

1) Write down three key statistics from this page.

2) Look at the various sections of the newspaper outlined on this page (e.g. Entertainment, Announcements, Travel). What do these sections suggest about The Times newspaper's audience?

3) Click on three of the sections - your choice. Write down one key detail for each section you choose e.g. Travel - more Times readers took a holiday abroad last year than any other newspaper.

Due date: on Google Classroom