Planning needs to be thorough and show clear and excellent evidence of research into existing media products. Where possible, link relevant material on the internet to your work.
Your work MUST NOT be long blocks of text. It should be bullet-pointed and you must vary your methods of presentation, including slideshare, prezi, kizoa, slideboom, podcasts and speaking to the camera by both you and your target audience. The exam board is keen to see that you’ve shown your product to members of the target audience and what their response is (and how you use that response). Your responses MUST be illustrated! It is possible – advisable, in fact, to break up some of the following points in terms of methods of presentation; it’s also worth noting that your response to each bullet point does not have to be the same length as the others – some require a longer response; some don’t.
You MUST address the following questions
- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
- How does your media product represent social groups? Youth sub-cultures? Class? Gender? Is your magazine or the article aspirational/inspirational? Does it represent them as rebels? In a positive light? Would the readers be encouraged to think: we could do that too? Why? Think about gender here too. Anything showing women in a positive light, especially if they have to struggle with the sexism of the music industry is worth commenting on; same with anyone who’s struggled with a disadvantaged background or with drugs, abusive boyfriend, parents etc.
- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? You've done a lot of work on this already so talk about your research. Will you be increasing their profit by broadening their audience or by reinforcing existing product or would you appeal to a smaller, niche audience that there’s no or little existing product aimed at? What would it compete with?
- What would be the audience for your media product? I would suggest you not only look at age, class and gender but cheat and create an audience profile (age, gender, interests, disposable income (and what they spend it on – and you need to think here to make it relevant to your product) for your product – i.e. my ideal audience is… Remember, you should have a PRIMARY target audience and refer to a secondary audience.
- How did you attract/address your audience? You need references to theory here – Naomi Wolf, Marjorie Ferguson, Uses and Gratifications - you are exploiting the theory of Uses and Gratifications because your target audience will identify (though it may only be wishful thinking) with the lifestyle it promotes. Some of you have used people of a similar age to your audience to add to this appeal. Your audience will look to your product for a sense of personal identity and possibly aspire to be like some of the people featured or their lives and problems may reflect the lives and problems of people you know. Your theories need dates. e.g According to Marjorie Ferguson (1980) etc etc... Google them! You could start by using the search tool on this blog or the GCSE one. Think about the mode of address - the language you use, your choice of features etc.
- What have you learnt about new technologies from the process of creating this product? You need to talk about the blog and the various methods of presentation here, not just your actual product. Bear in mind that in the age of Web2.0 you are now a prosumer - a producer and a consumer of a digiral media product. Where, once upon a time, the only people to see your product might be your teachers, the examiners and your friends, it's now on the net for millions to see... Prosumer. Use that word!
- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? If you did Media at GCSE, I would forget it and pretend you’ve learnt throughout this year and show obvious progress, but don't just stick to technological aspects. Think of the difference between the niche audience for your school magazine and how you've targeted a much bigger one for your production. Think about the importance of research and audience response and identifying audience needs.
You MUST include audience feedback on your finished product and show understanding of why this sort of thing is important in the real publishing world.
You ought to reflect on how you might have done things differently; however, from past experience, don’t be too critical of yourself. If you say, “I could’ve cut out a particular photograph better,” my reaction would be: “Do it now and don’t be so complacent.” If you say, “I didn’t have enough time to do such and such,” then it’s clear evidence you’ve wasted time and you’ll be docked marks. In other words, if there’s anything you haven’t done, get it done now – and quickly. In the past, we've had too many people settling for poor photos that aren’t well cut out. IF you have a decent set of photos and you’re prepared to work solidly, you could, in all honesty, probably get all your Photoshop work done in three or four double sessions.
Those of you whose choice of photographs let down your project… there is STILL time to do something about it.
You MUST use subject specific terminology – i.e. using the correct terms when writing about the processes you went through on Photoshop; talking about the camera angles/distances correctly/ discussing conventions and what colours etc have connotations of, especially in terms of your target audience.
Ensure that you haven’t used ANY images that you’ve downloaded from the internet; this includes backgrounds or background patterns. Barcodes are fine (but don't make them too big!).
If ANY of your photos resemble those used by someone else – i.e. if the model is wearing the same clothes – go and take some more photos because you’ll lose marks. This is one of the first things we highlighted when we profiled last year’s work and you’ve been reminded constantly since then – even if you’ve used a small photo of that person wearing the same gear on your contents page or as a hook on your cover. We have lost marks for this in the past because we've been too generous and this resulted in people who had done the work correctly being docked marks too. We are NOT going to jeopardize someone's marks because someone else can't be bothered to approach the task correctly. Unfortunately, this point does apply to a couple of people this year. You have been told.
Finally, your last post - i.e. the first one the examiner will see when he clicks on your blog - MUST be your production work, though you should have posted it during your evaluation, especially where you're talking about using/challenging forms and conventions, perhaps next to images of pages from genuine magazines for comparison.
Those of you whose choice of photographs let down your project… there is STILL time to do something about it.
You MUST use subject specific terminology – i.e. using the correct terms when writing about the processes you went through on Photoshop; talking about the camera angles/distances correctly/ discussing conventions and what colours etc have connotations of, especially in terms of your target audience.
Ensure that you haven’t used ANY images that you’ve downloaded from the internet; this includes backgrounds or background patterns. Barcodes are fine (but don't make them too big!).
If ANY of your photos resemble those used by someone else – i.e. if the model is wearing the same clothes – go and take some more photos because you’ll lose marks. This is one of the first things we highlighted when we profiled last year’s work and you’ve been reminded constantly since then – even if you’ve used a small photo of that person wearing the same gear on your contents page or as a hook on your cover. We have lost marks for this in the past because we've been too generous and this resulted in people who had done the work correctly being docked marks too. We are NOT going to jeopardize someone's marks because someone else can't be bothered to approach the task correctly. Unfortunately, this point does apply to a couple of people this year. You have been told.
Finally, your last post - i.e. the first one the examiner will see when he clicks on your blog - MUST be your production work, though you should have posted it during your evaluation, especially where you're talking about using/challenging forms and conventions, perhaps next to images of pages from genuine magazines for comparison.
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