AQA A-level Media Studies Paper 1 - 19th May 2025 [Exam Chat]

that wasnt too bad, but what on earth is resonance… just waffled about how newsbeat effectively target their target audience???

that wasnt too bad, but what on earth is resonance… just waffled about how newsbeat effectively target their target audience???

20 marker on blinded by the light was rough

the questions this year were so specific and odd

that wasnt too bad, but what on earth is resonance… just waffled about how newsbeat effectively target their target audience???

i summarised everything that i wrote in the exam for each question to chatgpt and told it to give me a rough estimate of how many marks i got. i think it glazed me a little but it said that i scored 83/84 and i thought i'd share the prompts i gave it into this forum so you could read and see if you had a similar line of thinking.
1. was something about how anchorage is used to create meanings in figure 1 (the linked image is figure 1) (9 marks)
i talked about the myth of authenticity created by the product through the paradigm of the tree symbol, beautiful naturistic landscape, natural colour pallette, and people and how that syntagmatic link connotes a sense of synthetic personalisation and how that's anchored by the lexical code of "your" and "time not wasted" and how the audience would feel heard about by this. also used words like denotation and connotation and cultural code and applied them relevantly.
chatgpt score = 9/9
for question 2, you compare how representations of place reflect cultural and historial contexts, talking about figure 1 (the image i sent) and ghost town. (12 marks) for ghost town,
i talked about Hall's idea of transcoding, defined it accurately then went on to make the point that through the paradigm of the empty town, monochrome colour pallette and brutalist buildings they work in syntagm to convey a simulacra and London as an isolated, hopeless. i said this was done in order to capture the anti-thatcher zeitgeist as audiences required better representation through media as they were poorly represented by society. i linked this to gilroy and how migrants required this to achieve greater racial harmony in society.
for figure 1, i talked about baudrillard's simulation and i talked about pretty much the same stuff as i did in question 1 (myth of authenticity, synthetic personalisation etc.) which you are allowed to do but for contexts i talked about how this use of media language was performed with intent to account for the individuals that were longing the pre-industrial rural life before their countryside buildings got destroyed due to industrialisation.
chatgpt score = 12/12
for question 3, it asked me about the importance of intertextuality in creating meanings in old town road. (9 marks)
and i basically went on to say that old town road is a highly subversive product not just through intertextuality, but also through the intersectional identity of lil nas x. so i argued that despite old town road being the hybrid genre of country trap, it was more about the intersectionality of lil nas x (as seen through the denotation of the transfiguration of his attire into sparkly clothing throughout the music video) that provided an aspirational narrative for ethnic minority audiences due to his alternate identity. and i said how the visual non-diegetic elements of old town road were more captivating than the song's intertextuality (hybrid genre of country trap) in creating meanings in the music video.
chatgpt score = 8/9
for question 4, they asked me to measure the validity of butler's idea of gender as a subversive performance, linking it to Score's 1967 ad and Sephora's black is beauty campaign. (20 marks)
i talked about how score is absolutely not an example of subversive gender performance as they adhere to the contemporary hegemony of the time as seen through the paradigm of the women's scantily clad attire, direct address and the man's gun that resembles phallic imagery which work in syntagm to connote a sense of traditionalism. so then i talked about how van zoonen can better apply here due to her ideas of active/passive representations of men and women in the media (through the denotation of 1 man being held up by multiple women) and patriarchy (seen through the man being placed proxemically higher than the woman) to critique butler's ideas of gender performance in explaining gender depictions in the media.
for Sephora, i talked about how subversive gender performance absolutely applies here as seen through the denotation of a man applying makeup which is still viewed as subversive even in today's societal contexts as the view of men being masculine is still present in the 21st century. and how this use of a sign connotes a sense of progressiveness. then i talked about how bell hooks could better apply here as Sephora is absolutely a form of intersectional media as seen through the exclusive use of black individuals to connote that gender depictions in the media can be used to divert from the kyriarchy which is seen through the lack of the 'dominant' characteristics depicted in the product
chatgpt score = 20/20
for question 5, prior to previous years where you get tick box questions and then define a term and give example from the media, i was given three terms to define which were 2 marks each for 6 marks in total: - digital natives - convergence - prosumers
for digital natives i put - individuals that were born into the age of digitalisation and so have a greater level of digital literacy and understanding of media production
for convergence i put the coming together of digital technologies which in turn enables two-way communication so audiences can now shape the media products they consume
for prosumers i put the coming together of consumer and producer to form a prosumer as a result of digital convergence and mass amateurisation which allows audiences to produce their own content that reaches their wants and prosumers eliminate the necessity of corporate producers.
chatgpt score = 6/6
for question 6, it asked me how producers may utilise resonance with the audience to create a more succesful product and i had to apply newsbeat to it. (9 marks)
here i talked about how because newsbeat is a public service broadcaster, they must adhere to different audiences which have different ideologies and values. newsbeat do this through broadcasting on bbc1 which is aimed at british people, bbc 1xtra which is aimed at black people and bbc Asian network which is aimed at asian people and so for each broadcast they slightly skew their content to account for that audience demographic. i also talked about the idea that given that newsbeat's audience are digital natives, it is to be assumed that they have quick consumption habits and so as a result newsbeat incorporate short 15 minute broadcasts that provides a greater level of resonance with the audience.
chatgpt score = 9/9
for question 7, it told me to talk about what validity the following statement had: "media industries are driven by the need for maximised profit and minimised risk" and i had to apply the indie film Blinded By The Light here (20 marks)
i talked about from the get-go that this statement is only applicable to commercial media (linking to curran and seaton) however not all media products are profit-driven and so are not as worried about balancing risk vs profit. however, i said that in the long-term those not so profit-driven products will die out and it's the corporate ones that stay. i listed probably about 10 explicit examples of how BBTL reduced risk and increased profit (gurinder chadha = pre-sold audience, bruce Springsteen = pre-sold audience, sundance festival = more exposure equals reduced risk and increaed profit and how them being bought out by the warner brothers allowed distribution into the US for increased profit. i talked about how despite BBTL only making $3 million in profit, this could be attributed to the fact that it was distributed at the same time as the film Yesterday which was a film with a very similar idea which stunted the numbers of BBTL and i linked that to curran and seaton's idea of media pluralism and how if the contexts of distribution were better for BBTL then it would've been more successful but nevertheless, most of the time commercial media is more successful so media industries are more driven by the need for maximised profit and minimised risk
chatgpt score = 20/20

fr its so scary, wonder what they'll give us for paper 2

that wasnt too bad, but what on earth is resonance… just waffled about how newsbeat effectively target their target audience???