Newspapers: Daily Mirror - Audience and Industries

Our final tasks for the Daily Mirror involve studying Audience and Industry.

Remember, this is an in-depth CSP and needs to be studied with reference to all four key concepts: Language, Representation, Industries and Audience.

Daily Mirror notes

Audience

The Daily Mirror audience is older with almost half the audience aged 65+. In terms of social class, most are in the C1, C2 DE social classes. They are likely to be in the Struggler, Resigned or Mainstream psychographic groups. 

Active or passive?

Traditionally, newspapers were seen as more passive. Audiences had to write to the editors to communicate their opinions and views on news content.

With the increase in technology, the Daily Mirror now offers its audience opportunities to engage with the stories on a much more personal level as well as watching video content. The newspaper is speaking directly to the reader and allows them to comment or share their views on social media.  

Blumler & Katz: Uses and Gratifications theory

Surveillance – the main reason we read newspapers is to find out what is going on in the world around us.  We find out news, different opinions and catch up with the latest gossip and scandal. 

Diversion/Entertainment – One of the main reasons we read newspapers is for entertainment.  Whether it’s enjoying reading the opinions of others, reading the cartoons or completing crosswords.  We want to be entertained. 

Personal Identity – the newspaper you read reflects what type of person are.  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 and thus reinforcing their own values.

Becoming an active participant – increasingly newspapers, especially online editions, encourage audiences to get involved through comments and social media. This contributes to a sense of personal identity for audiences.

Daily Mirror advertising campaign

What do these adverts tell us about the target audience and audience pleasures for the Daily Mirror?

Industries

The Daily Mirror is owned by Reach, which used to be called Trinity Mirror. Reach publishes over 240 regional titles in addition to the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror - including our local newspaper website getwestlondon.

The Daily Mirror's circulation has fallen drastically over the years from over 3 million a day in 1990 down to around 250,000 a day in 2023. Recent falls have been due to the rise of the internet which is why the Mirror's audience is much older now.

To combat falling print revenues, the The Daily Mirror has:

• Created the mirror.co.uk website and social media accounts on all the major sites.
• The move towards a multi-platform landscape means that it publishes and synchronises across its print, desktop and mobile platforms. The Daily Mirror provides this online content for free. Some newspapers (e.g. The Times) have a paywall on their online content which means that they charge subscription fees to read articles. Free providers make money from advertising but this is usually a very small amount of money.
• Create news based content that updates regularly, is shared on social media channels, includes a range of video content and encourages audience involvement.
• Reach's social media strategy backfired when Facebook changed its algorithm to deprioritise news content from sites like the Mirror and its revenue dropped sharply.

Daily Mirror editor

The Daily Mirror recently announced its editor Alison Phillips will be leaving the newspaper after more budget cuts at Reach. Phillips was the Mirror's first female editor since 1903 and was loved by the staff at the paper. While Phillips was editor, the Mirror ran major investigations including into special advisor Dominic Cummings and Barnard Castle (one of the biggest stories from the first Covid lockdown) and later the Partygate scandal that brought down Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

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.

Blog tasks: Daily Mirror - Audience and Industries

Work through the following questions to complete your work on the Daily Mirror.

Audience

1) What is the Daily Mirror's audience? List the key statistics here.

2) Why do the Mirror stories on the CSP pages appeal to the Daily Mirror audience?

3) Why might a reader enjoy the Daily Mirror? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory to add detail to your answer.

4) Why are print newspapers generally read by older audiences?

5) How is the inside-page story on our CSP pages constructed to appeal to Daily Mirror readers? Think about text and selection of images.


Industries

1) What company owns the Daily Mirror and why are they struggling? 

2) Who was the Daily Mirror editor between 2018 and 2024 and what was the Partygate scandal that the Daily Mirror exposed?  

3) What is the Daily Mirror's circulation in 2023? How many papers did the Daily Mirror used to sell back in the 1990s?

4) How has the Daily Mirror reacted to the decline in print sales and the growth of the internet?

5) List five of Galtung & Ruge's News Values and explain how they link to the stories in our CSP edition of the Daily Mirror.


Grade 8/9 extension task

There have been plenty of articles about Reach's decline recently as print newspapers struggle to survive - this Guardian story on Reach boss Jim Mullen is particularly good. What statistics and quotes can you pick out from this article to further you understanding of the industry contexts? 

Read this analysis of Mirror owner Reach and its struggle to survive. Do you think there is a future for local and national newspapers like those owned by Reach? 

Guardian Media critic Roy Greenslade writes about why tabloid newspapers like the Mirror are struggling to attract younger readers in this column. Make a note of some of the key statistics in this article and also what Greenslade thinks tabloids should do to stay relevant in the digital age. This column also has an excellent discussion of the Mirror's political stance which is ideal for grade 9 answers.

You will get some lesson time to work on this case study but will need to complete it at home - due date on Google Classroom.

Newspapers: Daily Mirror - Language and Representations

Our first Newspapers CSP is the Daily Mirror.

Remember, this is an in-depth CSP and needs to be studied with reference to all four key concepts: Language, Representation, Industries and Audience.

Daily Mirror notes

Background

The Daily Mirror was first published in 1903 as a newspaper for women ‘to act as a mirror on feminine life’.

Sales for this demographic were limiting, so the newspaper was re-designed to appeal to a broader audience. Initially to middle-class but later during WW2 changed to target C1-C2-DE skilled and semi-skilled working classes who were affiliated with the Labour party.

Hugely popular in the 1990s, it has now significantly declined and only sells around 250,000 copies a day.

Language

AQA has selected the following pages as our Daily Mirror CSP pages:

Analyse these pages and look at which stories have been selected for the newspaper and how they are constructed for their audience.

Representations

The Daily Mirror supports the Labour Party and is against the Conservative Party. Generally, the newspaper will act as a voice for normal people (like NHS heroes) and go against the rich and powerful (like Conservative politicians or big corporations like Amazon).

Here's a graph of the most left-wing and right-wing newspapers: 

You need to study the selected CSP pages for the Daily Mirror to see how the newspaper represents different people, groups, issues and events. Remember: CAGE - class, age, gender, ethnicity.

Blog tasks: Daily Mirror case study

Work through the following questions to cover the Language and Representations key concepts for the Daily Mirror.

Language

1) Write the definition of the following key language for newspaper front pages (you may want to add an example for each from our Daily Mirror CSP):

Masthead:
Pug:
Splash Head:
Slogan:
Dateline:
Kicker:
Byline:
Standfirst:

2) How much does a copy of the Daily Mirror cost? (Note: the current cost is different to the CSP edition - we recommend learning both).

3) What are the main stories on the CSP edition of the Daily Mirror (see above)? Make sure you learn the headline and what the stories are about.

4) Why is the choice of news stories and content on the Mirror CSP front page typical of a tabloid newspaper?

5) What is the balance on the Daily Mirror front page between images, headlines and text?


Representations

1) What political party does the Daily Mirror support? Is there any evidence to support this in the CSP pages we have studied?

2) How does the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards represent ordinary British people?

3) How is climate change as an issue represented in the Daily Mirror? What evidence can you provide from the CSP pages to support this?

4) How are environmental protesters like Greta Thunberg represented in the Daily Mirror? Look at the inside pages to answer this.

5) Read the main articles on the inside pages. How are different countries, political leaders and Royals represented in the Daily Mirror? Does this reinforce or subvert the stereotypes we usually see in the media?  

Grade 8/9 extension tasks

Read this Guardian column on the Mirror's struggles with covering Brexit. How did the Mirror suggest people vote in the EU referendum and how did many of its working class audience actually vote? What does this tell us about social class in Britain in recent years?


You will get some lesson time to work on this case study but will need to complete it at home if it isn't finished - due date on Google Classroom.

Newspapers: Introduction

Our next in-depth exam topic is Newspapers.

Remember, as an in-depth CSP this needs to be studied with reference to all four key concepts: Language, Representation, Industries and Audience.

Introduction to newspapers - notes

GLow Words

• Left-wing (Socialist): in favour of social equality and reform. The Labour Party is considered left-wing and the Daily Mirror generally supports Labour and left-wing causes.
• Right-wing (Conservative): prefer the traditional way things are and in favour of low taxes. The Conservative Party is considered right-wing and the Times generally supports the Conservatives and right-wing causes.
• Agenda: issues brought to the attention of the people through news.
• Elitist: for the good of a few people, usually the upper classes or most educated.
• Political Bias: when an industry or media product supports a certain political view.
• Hard news: information on topics like business, politics and international affairs.
• Soft news: blurs line between information and entertainment so may be centred more on gossip, celebrities or lifestyle issues.
• Tabloid: smaller, popular and tends to focus on sensational stories and softer news. 
• Broadsheet: larger, more niche and tends to focus on serious, harder news.

Historical, social and cultural context

The ‘Press’ is a collective term for the newspaper industry.  The name comes from printing presses. 

Newspapers are still popular media products for audiences to get their news, be entertained and informed.  There are a range of national (Daily Mail), regional (Birmingham Mail) and specialist newspapers (The Racing  Post). 

Whilst still popular, since the 1950s, there has been a gradual decline in newspaper sales due to TV news programmes and, more recently, the growth of digital news through websites and social media.

The importance of a free press

A free press implies that journalists (those that write for newspapers) and newspaper editors can edit content free of intervention from Government influence.  

More than a third of the world’s population live in countries where there is no press freedom. Journalists are often imprisoned if they disagree with the Government, social media channels are not allowed, non-democratic countries often control access to information and employ state-run news organizations.

Recently, democracy has been challenged by the decline in trusted news sources and the rise of 'fake news' or misinformation. Here's a good video highlighting the dangers of a 'post-truth' society:

Tabloids and broadsheets

There are generally two classifications of newspapers – tabloids and broadsheets.

Tabloids tend to be easier to read, feature shorter articles and include more photographs. They report on major news, but also include a lot of showbiz gossip, entertainment and sport. They tend to be the better sellers. Examples include The Sun and the Daily Mirror.

Broadsheet newspapers traditionally used to be larger (printed on ‘broad sheets’) although most are the same size as tabloids now. They tend to be more serious, have smaller fonts, more advanced use of language and less photography (although they have included more over the last 20 years to be more popular). They tend to have lower circulation figures than tabloids. Examples include the Times and the Daily Telegraph.

Newspapers and politics

Most newspapers have some sort of political bias. Unlike TV news, this is allowed in UK media – newspapers can tell us who we should vote for or criticise one political party. This bias is based on their history and the demands of their target audience.

The relevance of the bias is that it impacts on the way news is interpreted and can have significant influence on the audience and how they vote / think. Learn and remember the following:

Left-wing = Labour = Daily Mirror

Right-wing = Conservative = The Times

Introduction to Newspapers: blog task

Create a new blogpost called 'Introduction to Newspapers' and answer the following questions:

1) What type of news can you typically find in a tabloid newspaper?

2) What type of news can you typically find in a broadsheet newspaper?

3) If someone is left-wing, which political party are they likely to support? Which newspaper would they be likely to read?

4) If someone is right-wing, which political party are they likely to support? Which newspaper would they be likely to read?

5) Why has there been a decline in newspaper sales in the last 20 years?

6) Why is a free press important in a democracy like the UK?

Extension task: Read this BBC website report on the impact of coronavirus on the newspaper industry. 

Which newspapers were worst hit by Covid-19? 

Which newspapers are trying to move their readers from print to digital? Why is the switch to digital attractive for newspaper companies?

Do you think most newspapers will survive the next 10 years? Why?

You should have lesson time to work on this but will need to finish for homework - due date on Google Classroom. 

OSP: Marcus Rashford CSP

Our OSP CSP is the online presence of Manchester Utd and England footballer Marcus Rashford.

This is an in-depth CSP so we need to study all four areas of the theoretical framework: Language, Representation, Audience and Industry. This first case study will focus on Language and Representation.

Introduction

Marcus Rashford is a Manchester Utd and England footballer who has used social media and the internet to create a strong brand. He has been praised for his high-profile campaigns on food poverty (putting pressure on the government to provide free school meals in holidays during Covid-19) as well as homelessness and books for children. 

We need to study his website, social media and how he has created his Marcus Rashford brand. 

Language analysis

GLOW glossary words

Convergence: When two or more media forms can be accessed in one place or one device e.g Marcus Rashford’s website also links to his books, social media feeds and video content. 

Online engagement/dialogue: Communication online e.g between a celebrity and a fan. 

Endorsement: When a celebrity or influential figure recommends something to the public. 

Website conventions

Website key conventions include:

• Logo/brand identity
• Navigation – menus
• Central image
• Multimedia features – e.g. video 
• Social media links / integration

Social media conventions

Social media key conventions include:

• Logo/brand identity
• Bio (personal details/information)
• Profile image
• Background/banner image
• Images and video
• Online engagement/audience interaction

Genre and narrative

Marcus Rashford has created a strong personal brand that merges different genres – footballer, campaigner / activist, influencer and celebrity.

His online presence – particularly video content – emphasises his working class background, how hard his mum worked as a single parent and his own positive attitude towards hard work. This creates a narrative of success against the odds. He then uses this to drive his campaigning work on food poverty and reading as well as his commercial endorsements.

Representations

Marcus Rashford’s online presence offers a real mix of representations – some reinforcing stereotypes of masculinity, footballers and race/ethnicity but at other points subverting them. 

He also looks to challenge stereotypes regarding poverty, age, people receiving benefits and social class.

Use Daniel Chandler’s representation theory of CAGE to analyse Marcus Rashford’s online presence:

• C – Class (social class – working class people)
• A – Age (youth)
• G – Gender (masculinity)
• E – Ethnicity (black British)

Audience

Target audience: demographics and psychographics

What is Marcus Rashford’s target audience: 

• Demographics: CAGE?
• Psychographics?

Audience engagement

Instagram engagement rate is a measure of how much audiences engage with posts (e.g. likes, comments). An engagement rate of 1-3% is considered good and anything 6%+ is extremely high.

Marcus Rashford’s power as an influencer is shown by his engagement rate of 6%.

Source: https://starngage.com/app/gb/influencers/marcusrashford

Marcus Rashford's appeal to audiences

What is the appeal of Marcus Rashford to his audience? Think about his campaigns, use of social media and his website. Also, consider his appeal to different audiences.

Use Blumler and Katz Uses and Gratifications theory:

• Diversion
• Personal Identity
• Personal Relationships
• Surveillance/information

Industry

Marcus Rashford net worth

Marcus Rashford’s net worth has been estimated at around £16m (source: Sunday Times rich list). This includes:

• £200,000 per week from Manchester United (£10.4m a year)
• £2m endorsement deal with Nike
• Additional deals with Burberry, BT Sport (now TNT Sport), Coca-Cola and others

He is also the youngest person to top the Sunday Times Giving List for raising £20m for good causes.

Marcus Rashford commercial partners

Watch the following promotional videos from brands featuring Marcus Rashford.

• What do the companies get from an association with Rashford?
• Thinking about media language, how do these adverts create an emotional connection between the brand and audience using Marcus Rashford? 
• How do the clips help Marcus Rashford control or build his own brand?

Industries: ownership, control and regulation

Marcus Rashford’s online presence is partly driven by his excellent use of social media.

But who owns Twitter? Who owns Instagram? How much money do they make? How are they regulated?

These are key questions for GCSE Media students.

Twitter

• Twitter was started by Jack Dorsey in 2006. It now has over 200 million active users worldwide. 
• Twitter’s 2020 revenue was $3.72 billion. 
• Twitter makes most of its money through advertising – promoted tweets or ‘trend takeovers’.
• Marcus Rashford has over 5m Twitter followers.

Instagram

• Instagram is an image and video sharing site launched in 2010. 
• In 2012 it was bought by Facebook for $1 billion. Facebook and Instagram’s parent company is now called Meta – a global conglomerate.
• Instagram has over a billion active users worldwide and more than 25 million users in the UK alone.
• Instagram revenue in 2020 was $24 BILLION.
• Marcus Rashford has over 12m Instagram followers.

Instagram: a danger to teenagers?

• Over 40% of Instagram users are aged under 23.
• Research suggests that Instagram is damaging to mental health – particularly for teenage girls.
• Facebook’s own research suggested this – but they allegedly kept this secret.
• The research suggested one in three girls felt bad about their bodies and Instagram made this worse. It is also linked to increased anxiety and depression.

Media regulation: how do you regulate the internet and social media?

The government put forward the Online Safety bill in 2022 to change the law and add regulation of the internet to Ofcom’s role as media regulator. This includes:

• Sending threatening posts being punishable by jail sentences.
• Platforms like Twitter and Instagram having to actively prevent users seeing harmful material – or risk being fined by Ofcom.
• Platforms paying Ofcom to regulate their content.

Critics of the law have suggested social media is impossible to regulate – there is too much content – or users’ freedom of speech will be compromised.

Internet regulation: key questions

The internet is very difficult to regulate because it is global but governments are national. Also, corporations like Amazon or Facebook are now more powerful than some governments.

Media theorist Clay Shirky describes the change with digital media as going from: “Filter then publish to publish then filter”. 

Anyone can publish almost anything instantly and the audience then has to filter the content they engage with.

Here's Clay Shirky talking about how the internet is changing communication - watch the first three minutes:

Finally, here is Marcus Rashford talking to Sky Sports News about what should be done about online abuse: 

Blog tasks: Marcus Rashford CSP

Work through the following tasks to cover our Marcus Rashford CSP:

Language

1) Make two lists - one of website conventions used on Marcus Rashford's official website and one of social media conventions found on Rashford's Twitter or Instagram pages. 

2) How does his website promote the Marcus Rashford brand?

3) What connotations can be be found in the homepage for Marcus Rashford's website (you can mention either the old or new homepage)?

4) How does Marcus Rashford use his social media profiles to promote his brand and campaigns? Give at least three examples of different posts / images / design from his social media. 

5) How does Marcus Rashford's online presence use the narrative of his childhood upbringing to create a positive brand identity?

Representations

1) How does Rashford use different aspects of mise-en-scene (e.g. clothes/costume) to create very different representations of himself on his own website?

2) What representations of football or footballers can you find in Marcus Rashford's online presence? Does it reinforce or subvert traditional stereotypes of footballers?

3) What examples can you find of website pages, social media posts or aspects of the brand that create a positive representation of Marcus Rashford? You may wish to comment on his discussion of family or his campaigns - his page on the FareShare campaign website may help with this question.

4) What representations of masculinity can you find in Marcus Rashford's online presence? Does this reinforce or challenge traditional gender stereotypes?

5) What representations of race/ethnicity can you find in his website or social media? Does this reinforce or challenge media stereotypes? 

Audience

1) Who are the potential target audiences for Marcus Rashford's online content? Try and cover both demographics and psychographics.

2) Marcus Rashford’s online presence is partly driven by his excellent use of social media. How does he use social media to engage with his fans and make them feel part of his brand?

3) What is Marcus Rashford's Instagram engagement rate and what does this tell us? 

4) Go to Marcus Rashford's Twitter or Instagram account. Find and screenshot/link three tweets/posts that show the different aspects of his brand e.g. Relatable person (normal, down to earth), Campaigner (interested in politics), Celebrity footballer (e.g. awards ceremony or fashion).

5) What audience pleasures are provided by Marcus Rashford's online presence? Try and apply Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory here.

6) Applying Stuart Hall's Reception theory, what would a preferred and oppositional reading of Marcus Rashford's online presence be?

• Preferred reading (people who support Marcus Rashford): 
• Oppositional reading (people who criticise Marcus Rashford): 

Industry

1) What is Marcus Rashford's net worth and how does his online presence help him to make money? 

2) What charities and companies/brands is Marcus Rashford associated with? Why might they want to be linked to the Rashford brand?

3) Research Twitter and Instagram. Who owns the companies, how do they make money and how much profit did they make last year?

4) What are the worries about Instagram’s negative effects?

5) How do social media platforms manage online abuse on their platforms and why has Marcus Rashford drawn attention to this? How might this change in the future?

6) What happened by law in 2022 that changed the way the internet is regulated? Write three changes that this new law may bring in and explain why it is difficult to regulate the internet.

Due date: on Google Classroom

Grade 8/9 extension tasks

Look at this Marcus Rashford tweet. How does this help Rashford create a positive representation of himself and also control the media narrative?

Read this Guardian feature on Marcus Rashford being a Hero of 2020. What representation of Rashford does this offer?

Read this Guardian Books interview with Marcus Rashford. How does Rashford's work on reading and literacy help his reputation? Can you find any other interesting representations here?

Read this news story on Rashford being named one of the top ten most powerful black Britons. What does this suggest about race and ethnicity in Britain and the British media?

How does Marcus Rashford's online presence reflect modern society and culture?

Read this Sky Sports interview with Marcus Rashford saying online abuse should be easier to stop. What does he think the companies should be doing to regulate it?

If you want to test yourself at A Level or even degree level, try reading this chapter from A Level Media theorist Clay Shirky called Publish, Then Filter. How does Shirky suggest the internet has changed the way we engage with the media?

OSP: Introduction to influencers

Our new topic is Online, Social and Participatory Media - or OSP for short.

There's just one CSP to study here - Marcus Rashford and his online presence. This is an in-depth CSP and needs to be studied with reference to all four elements of the Theoretical Framework (Language, Representation, Industries, Audience) and all relevant contexts. 

But before we study Marcus Rashford in detail, we need to look at the rise of social media influencers and the impact this has had on media, society and culture.

The rise of influencers

The rise of influencers is a major change in media and culture due to technology, the internet and social media. Influencers give brands a new and powerful way to reach audiences but critics think that social media stars are taking advantage of their relationship with their followers.

User-generated content

Influencers exist because of changes in technology and the internet. This created social media sites like YouTube and Facebook and led to the rise in user-generated content.

User-generated content (UGC) is any content—text, videos, images, reviews, etc.—created by people, rather than brands.

UGC means audiences can be producers as well as consumers – we create and share media as well as viewing it.

How do influencers make money?

YouTuber Zoella (Zoe Sugg) started a blog at home and within a few years gained millions of followers and turned her online presence into a major financial opportunity.

It is estimated at one point Zoella made £15,000 a month from YouTube pre-roll advertising, up to £20,000 each for promotional videos or Instagram posts plus money from books and a beauty product range with Superdrug.

Influencers and their impact on media and culture

Are influencers having a positive or negative impact on society, media and culture? You need to be able to form your own opinion on this question. To help you, watch the following video from the BBC on how influencers make money and see if it changes your views:

Here's the extended 28-minute Panorama if you'd like to see more:

Extension - Bad Influencer: Belle Gibson & The Great Insta Con

The danger with user-generated content is whether we can trust what we see on social media. Belle Gibson was one of the first lifestyle influencers but ended up in a controversy over faking cancer diagnoses to promote her posts. This is a preview of a BBC3 documentary on Belle Gibson and the Great Insta Con:

Introduction to OSP: Influencers blog tasks

Read this article in The Week magazine on the rise of social media influencers and answer the following questions:  

1) What years did YouTube, Twitter and Instagram launch?

2) What is the definition of an influencer?

3) Give an example of an influencer and how many followers they have. Try and add some additional information, brand associations or other statistics if you can.

4) How big is the influencer industry according to the article?

5) What are the problems associated with being an influencer?

6) Why is it suggested that audiences actually like being sold products by influencers?

7) What representation of beauty is often found on Instagram or other influencer sites?

8) What is YOUR opinion on influencers? Are they a positive or negative influence on our society and culture? Why?

Grade 8/9 extension tasks

Read this Forbes article on how covid and TikTok have changed the influencer market in the last couple of years. What does this tell us about society and media culture - are we becoming more creative and independent or is this just another way to sell more products to more people?

Complete this for homework if you don't finish it in the lesson - due date on Google Classroom.

Coursework: Statement of Intent

The first 10 marks of our coursework are for a written Statement of Intent.

This is simply a Word or Google Document in which we write what we are planning to make for our coursework. Your completed summer project will give you most of the information you need for this - particularly the planning section - but you may have changed or developed your idea since the summer. Your preliminary exercise learner response may also help you consider what you plan to create for your real video production coursework.

Our coursework brief for 2024 can be found here - we are working on Brief 5 - Television.

The Statement of Intent word count is 300 words - you can go slightly above this if you want to but you need to keep it close to 300.

This Statement of Intent guidance will help you if you're not sure what to write - you'll need your Greenford Google login to access it. The most important thing is that you cover media language, representations and the target audience in your Statement of Intent.

Another tip is that you can use subheadings and bullet points in your Statement of Intent - it doesn't need to all be in paragraphs. In fact, bullet points are very useful for keeping the word count down. 

Finally, here is an example statement of intent from a previous year - note this was a different brief but the layout and use of media terminology and theory may help you. 

Here's the Statement of Intent mark scheme: 

Statement of Intent: task

1) Write your Statement of Intent on a Word or Google Doc - word count 300 words. Use this Statement of Intent guidance document to help you.

Submit your Statement of Intent to your teacher by emailing them the Word or Google Document. 

Due date: on Google Classroom

Coursework: Pre-production

Pre-production tasks are vital - this is where you plan all the key details that make your video coursework successful.

Over the next two weeks we will be finalising our pre-production and starting our filming. Here's a great video on low-budget filmmaking from our friend D4Darius on YouTube:

Pre-production: blog tasks

Create a blogpost called 'Pre-production' and work through the following tasks.

1) Script

You need to write a complete script for your two-minute extract and format it like a real TV script (see picture on the right).

There is lots of help out there for top-quality screenwriting. A good place to start is the BBC Writers' Room which has top tips, a whole script library of real examples (like the Doctor Who script pictured) and more ideas for turning your concept into a real TV script.

Make sure you include both stage directions and dialogue - and as you can see from the example, often the stage directions are much more detailed than the dialogue. Try and make your script look like a professional example in terms of layout - either in your blogpost or on a linked Google Doc. 

2) Shot list

Once you have a full script you are happy with, you can turn it into a shot list containing EVERY shot you plan to film for your TV drama AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing. You'll know from your preliminary exercise that missing a shot, continuity errors or not having enough material makes editing much more difficult. A good shot list will help you avoid this. In particular, make sure you plan lots of extra shots that you may not need but can help you with editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. I advise using a simple table on Google Docs to set out your shot list - you can find an example here for a student film shot list. It makes sense to write your shot list by scene or location (like in the example linked) rather than a huge list of every shot in the extract in chronological order. 

3) Mise-en-scene

What iconography or mise-en-scene are you including to ensure your audience understands your drama as fantasy? Plan your cast, costume, make-up, props, lighting and setting. This can be simply completed using your blog or on a Google Doc - the key aspect is to have planned all the critical details. Remember the mise-en-scene mnemonic: CLAMPS. 

Costume:

Lighting / time of day:

Actors - casting, placement, movement: 

Make-up and hair: 

Props:

Setting: 

Important note: You CANNOT film anything involving anything that could be mistaken for a weapon in any public place. Media students from a school in North London were arrested by armed police after filming a scene with a replica gun in a public place. Remember this when planning your coursework! 

4) Shooting schedule 

Plan a shooting schedule for your filming over the next two weeks. Include when, where, who is required and what shots you will complete at each time/location. Again, this can be on Google Docs or Sheets or you could simply use your blog. The most important thing is that you've planned it!

Deadline: on Google Classroom