OCR A2 Media Studies Exam 2016

Hiya, sorry to hear that- really confirms that colleges don't care about media... we had a frequently absent teacher last year and the school didn't care:/

Just a quick summary:
1A you discuss your foundation portfolio and your advanced portfolio: for me, I made a music magazine last year and a music video this year.
Really it's just talking about your development from AS to A2- you don't necessarily have to use theorists in this question but it can be useful to back up your answers.

You could be asked about....
-Digital Technology
-Creativity
-Research and Planning
-Post-production
-Conventions of real media texts

There are some exemplar examples online if you google 'OCR media studies exemplar'.

Question 1B is the harder one:
You choose either your foundation or advance portfolio project and write about it in conjunction with either...
-Genre
-Narrative
-Representation
-Audience
-Media Language

In this question you can only score top marks by referring to theorists- some of them you will know already from AS or from your 'contemporary media regulations' unit however, i did postmodernism so I don't know exactly what you do for that.

Here are some that I write about...

David Gauntlett- Post-production, research and planning, creativity, audience.
-Web 2.0 and digital technology allow producers to be in direct contact with audiences.
-Media used to be ‘handed down by media gods’

Richard Dyer- Representation, genre, audience, media language, conventions of real media texts.
-Star Theory: icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial gain. Stars are constructed to represent ‘real people’ experiencing real emotions. “A star is an image” “…a person that is constructed out of a range of materials”.
-Typography of representation: Who? How? Why? How do the audience react?

Andrew Goodwin- Representation, media language, audience, research and planning, narrative, creativity, genre.
-Frequent reference to the notion of looking; particularly the voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
-Relationship between lyrics, music and visuals (illustrative, amplifying, contradictory)

Roland Barthes- Creativity, narrative, genre, media language, conventions of real media texts, representation, post-production
-Narrative codes…
-Enigmatic code: enigmas are any element to the texts that are not fully explained or understood and hence become a mystery to the reader, forcing them to be in an active position and ask questions. Major enigmas (someone has been murdered, who did it?) or minor enigmas (why did he walk in there?) Major enigmas drive the narrative.
-Semic code: Connotations of images
-Action code: how much action is chosen to be given to the audience. Suspense.
-Symbolic: binary oppositions- Levi Strauss.
-Referential code: The code that refers to anything in the text which refers to an external body of knowledge whether it be social, historical or scientific. How we understand when and where a film was made.

Levi Strauss- Narrative, representation, media language, conventions from media texts, genre, audience, creativity.
-Narratives arranged around conflict of Binary Oppositions.
-Discusses bricolage Vladimir Propp- Narrative, conventions of real media texts, genre, audience.
-Narratives are based around a structure of stock character types. i.e. hero, villain, helper.

Tzveten Todorov- Narrative, media language, conventions of real media texts, audience.
-Theory of equilibrium

John Berger- Creativity,
-Male/ female binary oppositions. Active/ passive. Dom/ sub. Strong/ weak.
-“Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at”.
-“we are preconditioned to make narrative in preference to shapeless, abstract, eventless images”

Stuart Hall- Narrative, representation, media language, audience.
-Media texts are ‘polysemic’ - have multiple interpretations
-Theories that when viewing a media text the audience can be: dominant reading (accepts the text), negotiated reading (both accepts and not), oppositional reading (oppose the text)
-Concerns with power of the media: can force dominant ideologies onto the audience and inject them with social values.

Laura Mulvey- resentation, conventions of real media texts, media language, audience, research and planning, genre.
-Women in film to be killed, raped or saved-“Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’ 1975. Her work is based on findings of Sigmund Freud. Women= passive. Men= active. -‘Male gaze’- put in POV of heterosexual male.
-The camera is male-‘Women should have a ‘to-be-looked-at’-ness

Stanley Cohen- Representation, audience,
-Certain groups in society are ‘demonised’ through negative representations which may have the effect of causing a moral panic where the rest of society fears that group.

Judith Butler- representation
-‘There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender’ gender is not biological.
-Queer theory challenges traditional assumptions that there is a binary divide between gay and heterosexual, suggesting that sexual identity is more fluid.
-‘Gender is culturally formed’ -Gender is linked to sexuality

If you'd like any more advice on any element please let me know- i'd be happy to help! (plus it's good revision for me!)

Best of luck x

Reply 2

alexmay291297

Hiya,

Thank you for that summary it was very useful :smile:

I was just wondering how you would go about writing an answer for Q1 (b) to do with genre? I find the theories very vague and a lot the same so it's hard to come up with a response, I'm thinking of using my Year 12 coursework which was a thriller, thanks :smile:

Reply 3

Original post by alexmay291297

Hiya,

Thank you for that summary it was very useful :smile:

I was just wondering how you would go about writing an answer for Q1 (b) to do with genre? I find the theories very vague and a lot the same so it's hard to come up with a response, I'm thinking of using my Year 12 coursework which was a thriller, thanks :smile:

Ah, a thriller is a great one to do in response to genre:P

Here are a few notes...
-Genre creates expectations and a sense of familiarity
-‘pure’ genre is a genre that only have conventions of one established genre. i.e. horror, romance
-Hybrid genre- takes conventions from 2 or more genres- romantic comedy
-Sub-genre- an off-shoot of the main genre. i.e. horror is the main genre- sub-genre is zombie.
-Richard Dyer- film theory (good name) Films are marketing tools
-Conventions of the genre: did you support or subvert?
-Steve Neal: 'genre is a repetition with with an underlying pattern of variations'

This is an essay I wrote on genre for my music video a while ago- it may help...

I will be analysing my advanced portfolio product: a music video set to the song, ‘Her Name is Alice’ by Shinedown. It is not as straightforward as one may desire to put music videos into a template of genre for analytical purposes as it is to analyse a film. An argument for this comes from John Fiske; he argues that the ‘rock video or MTV’ is broadcast television’s ‘only original art form’. This means that there is no distinction between the two, and therefore music video becomes confused with its distribution. My music video is a sub-genre of Rock: it takes conventions from alternative rock.

The most typical convention of an alternative rock music video is a strong performance element: usually the band playing the song. I stay true to the genre and involve cutaways of the singer performing the song between narrative visuals. Mise-en-scene in alternative rock videos is often quite abnormal: setting the video in a very specific setting such as a boat or a dessert. I chose to set my video in a mental asylum. In my audience response questions, I concluded that my video is conventional of rock as when questioned what music genre the video was, my audience believed it to be Rock or one of it’s sub-genres. I asked my audience in the pre-production stages what they identify with the rock genre and I used these as symbolic codes in my video. My audience believed that: guitars, lip-syncing, anger, fighting, violence and performance were identifiable with the genre and I chose to incorporate these into my video.

Artist promotion is key in an alternative rock music video and I achieve this through conventional close up shots of lip-syncing and mid shots showing the band playing. Ann E Kaplan argues that selling the record is the base-line that will control the ‘look’ of the video. Carol Vernallis states that ‘music videos derive from the song they set’, meaning the song is produced before the video is conceived and the director normally creates images with the song as a guide. I chose ‘Her Name Is Alice’ as a track before choosing a narrative/ creating images.

Andrew Goodwin describes the relationship between music and visuals in his book ‘Dancing in the distraction factory’. Goodwin argues that a music video can either support, amplify or contradict the music and lyrics. I chose to amplify the lyrics about a young woman who ‘drank wine and took pills’, taking it further and placing her in a mental asylum.

My music video is a narrative music video: it tells a story and complements the lyrics of the song. I determine that it is narrative with a short intro at the start of the video: introducing characters and themes. Using an intro is an example of how I challenged conventions- it is significant as it hints to the audience that there is dark undertones to the video and forces them to use Roland Barthe’s enigmatic code. My general consensus from my audience response was that the intro was un-settling and made them question what was to come. I use low angle shots of the lead singer, allowing him to dominante the screen and the audience- a typical convention of the rebellious and powerful genre. The pace of my editing speeds up with the visuals, when, for example, ‘Alice’ begins attacking ‘The Queen’.

Rock music videos don’t tend to use special effects, however, I chose to break this convention and layer Alice’s face; portraying insanity. My music video subverts genre conventions by having dark themes of insanity. My mise-en-scene works to support this theme, both denoting and connoting it. For example, Alice lies on a hospital bed in a straight jacket- denoting mental health and sickness, and the use of Alice looking in a mirror connotes her loss of identity. Genre is used to re-assure the audience and can help them easily find a video they know they will enjoy. Similarly, distributors can target audience members with a genre and can concentrate their marketing efforts in a way that will attract that audience.

This A grade example may be of use- it was a horror trailer so may be more relatable to your coursework http://www.slideshare.net/hasnmedia/question-1-b-genre-example-answer-a-grade

Also, this slideshare is quite helpful http://www.slideshare.net/RebeccaAbrahamson/a2-media-studies-genre

Reply 4

alexmay291297

Thank you that will really help :h:

Reply 5

OP

Original post by IzzyWatkins

Hiya, sorry to hear that- really confirms that colleges don't care about media... we had a frequently absent teacher last year and the school didn't care:/

Just a quick summary:
1A you discuss your foundation portfolio and your advanced portfolio: for me, I made a music magazine last year and a music video this year.
Really it's just talking about your development from AS to A2- you don't necessarily have to use theorists in this question but it can be useful to back up your answers.

You could be asked about....
-Digital Technology
-Creativity
-Research and Planning
-Post-production
-Conventions of real media texts

There are some exemplar examples online if you google 'OCR media studies exemplar'.

Question 1B is the harder one:
You choose either your foundation or advance portfolio project and write about it in conjunction with either...
-Genre
-Narrative
-Representation
-Audience
-Media Language

In this question you can only score top marks by referring to theorists- some of them you will know already from AS or from your 'contemporary media regulations' unit however, i did postmodernism so I don't know exactly what you do for that.

Here are some that I write about...

David Gauntlett- Post-production, research and planning, creativity, audience.
-Web 2.0 and digital technology allow producers to be in direct contact with audiences.
-Media used to be ‘handed down by media gods’

Richard Dyer- Representation, genre, audience, media language, conventions of real media texts.
-Star Theory: icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial gain. Stars are constructed to represent ‘real people’ experiencing real emotions. “A star is an image” “…a person that is constructed out of a range of materials”.
-Typography of representation: Who? How? Why? How do the audience react?

Andrew Goodwin- Representation, media language, audience, research and planning, narrative, creativity, genre.
-Frequent reference to the notion of looking; particularly the voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
-Relationship between lyrics, music and visuals (illustrative, amplifying, contradictory)

Roland Barthes- Creativity, narrative, genre, media language, conventions of real media texts, representation, post-production
-Narrative codes…
-Enigmatic code: enigmas are any element to the texts that are not fully explained or understood and hence become a mystery to the reader, forcing them to be in an active position and ask questions. Major enigmas (someone has been murdered, who did it?) or minor enigmas (why did he walk in there?) Major enigmas drive the narrative.
-Semic code: Connotations of images
-Action code: how much action is chosen to be given to the audience. Suspense.
-Symbolic: binary oppositions- Levi Strauss.
-Referential code: The code that refers to anything in the text which refers to an external body of knowledge whether it be social, historical or scientific. How we understand when and where a film was made.

Levi Strauss- Narrative, representation, media language, conventions from media texts, genre, audience, creativity.
-Narratives arranged around conflict of Binary Oppositions.
-Discusses bricolage Vladimir Propp- Narrative, conventions of real media texts, genre, audience.
-Narratives are based around a structure of stock character types. i.e. hero, villain, helper.

Tzveten Todorov- Narrative, media language, conventions of real media texts, audience.
-Theory of equilibrium

John Berger- Creativity,
-Male/ female binary oppositions. Active/ passive. Dom/ sub. Strong/ weak.
-“Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at”.
-“we are preconditioned to make narrative in preference to shapeless, abstract, eventless images”

Stuart Hall- Narrative, representation, media language, audience.
-Media texts are ‘polysemic’ - have multiple interpretations
-Theories that when viewing a media text the audience can be: dominant reading (accepts the text), negotiated reading (both accepts and not), oppositional reading (oppose the text)
-Concerns with power of the media: can force dominant ideologies onto the audience and inject them with social values.

Laura Mulvey- resentation, conventions of real media texts, media language, audience, research and planning, genre.
-Women in film to be killed, raped or saved-“Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’ 1975. Her work is based on findings of Sigmund Freud. Women= passive. Men= active. -‘Male gaze’- put in POV of heterosexual male.
-The camera is male-‘Women should have a ‘to-be-looked-at’-ness

Stanley Cohen- Representation, audience,
-Certain groups in society are ‘demonised’ through negative representations which may have the effect of causing a moral panic where the rest of society fears that group.

Judith Butler- representation
-‘There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender’ gender is not biological.
-Queer theory challenges traditional assumptions that there is a binary divide between gay and heterosexual, suggesting that sexual identity is more fluid.
-‘Gender is culturally formed’ -Gender is linked to sexuality

If you'd like any more advice on any element please let me know- i'd be happy to help! (plus it's good revision for me!)

Best of luck x

Thank you so much! Some of these theorists really help, and I liked how you actually explained them compared to one of my teachers!

And yeah, media has these connotations of being easy and over looked as an A-level/subject which really annoys me, bc it is tough to grasp the concept.

Also, did you do contemporary media regulation for your section 2? :smile:

Reply 6

ombtom

17

Original post by IzzyWatkins

...

Great notes!

I'm actually finding question 1(a) harder than 1(b); can you suggest any points that I might not have considered yet? :smile:

Reply 7

OP

Original post by ombtom

Great notes!

I'm actually finding question 1(a) harder than 1(b); can you suggest any points that I might not have considered yet? :smile:

Im glad im not the only one, I too find skills development harder than theory concepts!

Reply 8

Ikky786

2

I am a bit stuck at the moment on question 1b how would go about answering this question?

Reply 9

Original post by ombtom

Great notes!

I'm actually finding question 1(a) harder than 1(b); can you suggest any points that I might not have considered yet? :smile:

With 1A you don't have to reference any theorists (although it wouldn't hurt to!)

Really, after every point you make you need to reiterate how it was a development from AS to A2.

i.e. for creativity: I generally stuck to codes and conventions of _____ in my AS production, however, I developed skills in creativity through my use of subverting conventions in my A2 production.

Reply 10

OP

Does anyone have any suggestions for what section 1A might be?(:

Reply 11

Original post by ThatGirlJemma

Does anyone have any suggestions for what section 1A might be?(:

I'm thinking creativity or digital technology

Reply 12

OP

Original post by IzzyWatkins

I'm thinking creativity or digital technology

That would be good!
Tbh I'm so hoping for just one of the areas to come up, preferably just research and planning skill development or digital tech

Reply 13

Original post by ThatGirlJemma

That would be good!
Tbh I'm so hoping for just one of the areas to come up, preferably just research and planning skill development or digital tech

Yeah, I'd love it to be creativity :biggrin:

they do sometimes create a mixture of multiple areas such as "How did your use of digital technology develop your skills in creativity?"

Reply 14

OP

http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/251550-examiners-report-june.pdf

Original post by IzzyWatkins

Yeah, I'd love it to be creativity :biggrin:

they do sometimes create a mixture of multiple areas such as "How did your use of digital technology develop your skills in creativity?"

Creativity wouldn't be so bad actually! You could be able to talk about so much :biggrin:

Yeah, the mixture of multiple ones confuse me sometimes, that's why I'm hoping for just one singular one!

What A2 coursework did you have to produce this year?

Reply 15

annieprincess

2

How is everyone revising for this?

I'm fine with answering questions with my notes, but otherwise it seems so hard. I'm especially finding 1b difficult to revise for, with all of the theorists especially. How is everyone revising for that?

Reply 16

kelly-98

1

Does anyone know what came up on last years paper? Cant find it anywhere

Reply 17

alexmay291297

This doesn't show the exact questions because last year's paper hasn't been published, but here's the examiner's report, which suggests that Q 1 (a) was on research and planning and that Q 1 (b) was on narrative :smile:

Reply 18