Contents

Introduction 3

Timetable for completion 4

Long essay guidelines 5

Key concepts checklist 9

Long essay mark-scheme 14

Long essay proposal form 15

Project guidelines 17

Project mark-scheme 23

Project proposal form 24

Introduction

There are two pieces of course-work you will be working on in the next few months- the long essay and the practical project. This booklet describes the work that you will be doing for both of them. Since you will be working on two such vital pieces of work at the same time, you need to manage your time very carefully- it would be easy, for example, to spend more time on the project which might seem sexier and forget about the essay. DON’T MAKE THIS MISTAKE -THEY ARE BOTH WORTH THE SAME MARK - 20%

How the work will be managed in class:

After the lessons in the first week, when the teachers explain what you have to do, you will have regular course-work lessons when you will have one to one meetings with your tutors about the work you are doing. For each of these you will need to bring with you this booklet with the latest progress review sheet filled in.

You must turn up at the start of every lesson to register, but if you are not being seen by the tutor, it is possible that you will be sent away to work elsewhere for the rest of the lesson. This is a matter of trust and progress will be monitored very closely.

Not every lesson between now and Christmas will be given over to course-work- you will also have subject lessons as normal. This means you need to be organised and make a note of what you are doing on what day.

Your essay needs to be 3000 words long.

The idea of the long essay is that you make use of the key concepts to write an analysis of a contemporary Media product or products.

By contemporary we mean that it needs to be something that is happening now- you cannot write about a favourite film, T.V. programme or group unless there is something going on at the moment to do with them. For example The Beatles are out, but an essay about how they are being re-packaged for the nineties would be OK

The essay is also called a "Durational Study" because it is expected that you should study something in the Media over a period of time to see how it develops. A one off is not enough- what you are expected to do is look at something in the media within the context of its changes over time. With any luck this will be clearer if I give some examples:

1. The presentation of one story in the broad-sheet and tabloid press.

2. Differences between the presentation of one story in newspapers and television.

3. Advertising within two time slots over one month and its relationship to the style of the programme shown at that time.

4. The promotion of one film and the ways in which the style of promotion attempts to define an audience.

If you look at these topics you will see that each of them strikes a balance between being narrow enough actually to be possible and wide enough to cover the key concepts.

If you take number four, for example- writing just a film review would be a terrible idea, but placing a film within the context of the 1990’s in England and looking at the way it was marketed from the very early publicity, through the reviews to the cinema launch would be fine.

Don’t rely on these examples, you can probably think of something much more exciting yourself.

BUT

Don’t make your topic too wide:

"Soap operas in January" or "advertising on television" will be books rather than essays.

OR too narrow:

"The use of the audience in the Price is Right" or "From Dusk till Dawn as an example of the horror genre" will not allow you to explore all of the key concepts or to satisfy the durational requirement.

1. Find a topic area

Have a think about what is going on in the media at the moment- there may be a new film which you have heard about coming out in the next couple of months, a big event coming up in the news, or a new album and tour by your favourite band. Whatever you choose, you must be sure that you will be able to collect sufficient materials to write a 3000 word essay about. It should also be something about which you will be able to research background theory. Finally it should be something which will allow you to cover the key concepts and to write durationally.

2. Plan out the durational aspect

Once you have chosen your broad area, you need to work out how you can study it over time. This is one of the most important things about your essay so you must be sure to get it right. Your essay should be about something that you expect to develop over the course of the duration- you will find it difficult to write durationally about a women’s magazine for example which is exactly the same every week! Once again the key will be balance. You need to make a wide enough study to be interesting without making your work un-manageable. You will need to discuss this with your teacher.

3. Work out a title

A good essay needs a good title- don’t just give it the name of the media texts you are studying - "The promotion of the film Amistad" but give it a title which will focus your writing around a major theme- "The promotion of the film Amistad- how a film about the history of American slavery was sold in modern multi-cultural Britain." A good title such as this points out what is interesting about your topic, but is still wide enough to allow you to cover all of the key concepts. Once again you will need to discuss this with your teacher.

4. Collect materials

As well as collecting the media texts themselves you should collect as much background research as possible- this could include looking for details about the institutional source of the texts in the library or on the Internet, or looking in text-books for relevant theory. Search through the media text files on the college Network for relevant theory, it is being updated all of the time and has an up to date index. You can find these materials by opening Word on a network computer and then using File open and highlighting the P Drive followed by the directory Common and the subdirectories English and finally Media.

5. Decide how you will cover all of the key concepts by filling in the checklist pages

This is just as important as the durational side of the essay- your essay should deal with all of the key concepts, if you want to get a good mark- this will seem difficult at first which is why it is vital that you fill in the key concepts check-list which you will find on the following pages.

6. Make a plan and fill in the proposal form

In your plan you should make sure that you are tackling all of the key concepts- once again you need to use the list on the next few pages. The key thing is to try to write a plan which fits in the key concepts naturally, rather than having very obvious paragraphs about each of the key concepts in order.

Why do I have to work on my own?

One of the key aims of the syllabus is that you should learn to think for yourself about the media. The extended essay is your most important chance to do this.

What should I be looking for in a subject?

The aim of the Extended Essay is to look at the development of a media text - to see the ways in which it is introduced and placed with an audience, and exploited for that audience.

What you should make sure is that you pick something you can manage. For example, if you wanted to look at soap operas, then you should study one soap opera over a short period of time - say four or five episodes. A minimum of one week’s output of a soap opera would be the least that could be studied, on the other hand, you would be wasting your time doing anything more than a fortnight’s output.

Similarly, if you were looking at the coverage of a particular news story then three or four day’s examination should be enough. You might want to look at the coverage of a particular story on a number of separate occasions, during a period of one month. Analysis of one story across a number of papers on one day wouldn't be durational enough.

Explain this "Durational" again!

The key aspect of the extended essay is that the media texts are studied over a PERIOD OF TIME. This could be a few days (in the case of a new story) or a few months (the track of the opening of a film).

This is because what you are really studying is how the Media change over time - the ways that media texts develop and change and relate to the time they are in.

Can't I bring any knowledge I have of the history of my subject?

Yes but it should only be a small background part of your essay. Say, for example, you wanted to write an essay about all of the publicity around the new film by Tarantino and Rodriguez. In this case, it would be relevant to talk a little bit about Pulp Fiction or El Mariachi but the key words are "a little bit."

So I am on my own then?

As I mentioned earlier, you will have regular meetings with your tutor who will look at your plans, discuss your title, point you towards further reading and read your rough draft. Make the most of all this help by keeping to deadlines and coming prepared to meetings.

Do I just give the essay in?

In some cases you may find it is worthwhile to hand in with your essay some of the materials you looked at. This can stop you from wasting time describing rather than analysing your materials.

Media Language:

When we watch a horror film and see a hand held camera slowly following a person around a room we somehow know that we are seeing events through the eyes of the killer. This is just one example of the codes and conventions which we take for granted in the Media but which are vital for our understanding of what we see- Media Language.

9. What genre does the text fit into? How can you tell- what conventions does it follow of the genre?

representation

The subject matter of the Media is often ordinary, everyday people and yet they can often be represented in ways that they would find unrecognisable or even offensive:

5. What isn’t represented?

genre

We can all tell within a few second of turning on the television whether we are watching a thriller, a game show or whatever. We recognise the conventions of the particular genre:

3. What do you know about the actors, stars, writers, directors etc.? Bearing in mind their associations, meanings and histories why do you think they have been chosen for this genre piece?

Narrative

When you watch a film or a bit of T.V you are basically being told a story. The study of narrative is the study of this story-telling and it is just as relevant in the T.V. News as it is in the latest blockbuster movie:

4. Is there narrative closure?

Narrative is very easy to spot if you are covering a film or television programme, but it is equally important in other media such as newspapers and advertising. You need to cover this whatever your subject.

Institution

Media texts do not just appear out of nowhere, they are produced by often very powerful and wealthy people:

2. Can you trace the links between the "owners" of the texts and other texts they own- for example other strands in the promotion of these texts?

Institutions are often the hardest thing to cover in the essay, it will be necessary for you to do some extra research into the institutional source of your text. A good way to do this is on the Internet- within the web browser, click on "net search" and then type in the name of your text.

Ideology

These people who create media texts will often use them either intentionally or not to present their view of the world- their ideology:

4. Does the viewpoint of the text change over time? If yes, how? If not, why not?

Once again, although you may find this a difficult area to comment on, you will also find it is where a lot of the marks come from.

Audience

You, the audience, are possibly the most important and yet ignored element in the equation. We all have our own very different ways of using the media:

4. What does the material assume about the attitudes and beliefs of the audience? How do you know? In what ways does the text work to position this audience? What are probable and possible audience readings?

Wider contexts

No Media text exists on its own, we need to think how it fits in with the wider world and with the history of the Media:

3. What are the political contexts relevant to an understanding of the text?

This is another area which can be easily overlooked- think about the different things that are going on in society at the moment that result in the text taking the form that it has.

The essay- some major points

In introductions you need to say what you intend to do in the essay, not write a press release style section about how wonderful the text you are studying is.

The structure that you use needs to be clearly based on the durational side of the essay and not just follow the key concepts list in order.

You should try to use theory terms where they are appropriate- they will impress the examiner, but only if they are used appropriately- use the course booklets to check on these things.

Research the institutional source of your text(s). What this means in practice is that you will need to find out who owns the company that produces it and what else they own in the media. you can find this kind of thing out in the library or on the Internet. It is essential that you do so.

For essays about films:

You can mention previous films made by the these actors but only in terms of what they do to create a star persona and to enhance the film's narrative image.

You shouldn't write about the film itself unless it is actually specifically in your title -- you should stick to writing about its publicity. An exception to this is if you want to comment briefly on the differences between the narrative image of the film and the film itself.

The essay needs to be based around detailed analysis of different media texts e.g. the individual posters, trailers, interviews etc. which make up a campaign -- from this you will be able to make points about the key concepts.

You need to show that you understand the different levels of control the producers of a film may have over the narrative image i.e the difference between publicity materials which are created by the film's producers, things such as interviews and "making of" programs where the producers have only partial control and word-of-mouth and reviews where they have very little -- all of these form part of the narrative image of the film, but the different institutions involved mean they work in very different ways. All of this is also very relevant if you want to bring in theories of audience and effects.

For essays about newspaper coverage of an event

Look for narrative in the news just as you would in a film- real life does not have narratives, but the media shape events into a narrative in the ways that they present the stories to us.

Look for the process of mediation- selection, organisation and focusing that is going on.

Analyse the representations and if possible how they change over the course of your duration

Write about the newspapers as examples of their genre- tabloid or broadsheet. Analyse their generic features-in the same way as westerns have men in spurs, tabloids have big headlines for example. Also in the same way as you did when you studied genre, look for if the rules of the genre are being broken- many recent media theorists have said that broadsheets are taking on some of the generic features of tabloids.

Before studying the marketing it is important to analyse the different types of marketing that can be used and the levels of control that the producers of the film have over each form. For example in the case of the tabloid press which I am focusing upon the film company have little control over what the papers write about the film or choose to advertise. However in the case of the interviews presenting a star persona featured during the latter stages of the durational period, the producers, to some extent can choose what each character should talk about, whether it is certain parts of the film or about their personal lives, as is the case with Clooney . In the case of the film reviewers they cannot be controlled by the film producers to say only positive things about the film, in much the same way that the producers cannot dictate to us how we as individuals perceive the film and the marketing of it despite how their design of posters and trailers for the film try to focus our attentions on the best aspects.

Your Project is a media product arising out of one of the Studies in depth that you have studied. This is the most important thing about it- you must not just make something that would "work" as a Media Product- it must instead be a piece of work that can show off your knowledge of a study in depth. There will be more detail about this later. For the project you need to make a product that could be made in the real world of the media. In practice this could mean a magazine, a newspaper, an advertising campaign, T.V. or radio programme. You’ve already done a mini- project on the course- this works in the same way except that this time you choose what you want to do and there is more of it!

But I can’t draw/type/compute/use a video camera etc.

You need to choose the technology that you will use very carefully. You have a very limited time to work in and computers and other technical equipment are capable of being extremely unreliable. You should by now have a reasonable grasp of the college desk top publishing and image manipulation programmes. Having said that, it is worth choosing your medium carefully and avoiding any technology that really frightens you. If you have particular strengths with any particular way of working then make use of them. One thing that should guide you is the fact that whatever you choose, you will need to make things yourself- you can’t use clip-art like I have in this booklet and if you want to use photographs, you will have to take them yourself!

Your use of technology will be negotiated so that you have a fair amount to do. If you choose to put a lot of work into taking photographs for example we may expect less of you in terms of image manipulation on the computer. You will work all of this out when you are planning with your teacher.

You can not avoid technology completely, however. It is really important that any visual images in your project are made by you. You are not allowed to use clip-art or cut out pictures.

Your brief will need to take into account the technology you intend to use and we will discuss with you the implications of this in your planning. Furthermore, if you wish to take the enormous risk of using video equipment you will need to be way ahead- in practice this means that if you want to be allowed to use video, you will have to complete your project proposal form and have it agreed by the end of next week.

The most important thing about the project is that it must relate to one of the studies in depth. If it doesn’t, however good it may seem as a media artefact, it will receive a low mark. what this means in practice is that you should plan your project as a way of showing off your knowledge of the study in depth that you choose.

On the course you have followed studies in depth from the following list:

1. representation

It is likely that most of you will find this study in depth the most fruitful for your project. You have studied how one group in society is represented in the Media and you could follow up this piece of work by creating an alternative media presentation of this group. Similarly, you could use any other group which you have or haven’t studied on the course to produce the basis for an alternative representation.

If your project deals with representation then you will need in your research to cover the existing representations of the group you are working with and use representation theory to explain why they are represented in the way they are and how and why you are going to change things.

2. genre

It may prove more difficult to find a genre project, but it still can produce some very interesting pieces of work. The key themes of the genre course have been the ways that producers of media texts either stick to the rules of genre or break them and you could make this debate the basis of a piece of work that fitted into a recognised genre while giving it an original treatment- maybe by including cross genre elements or hints of inter-textuality.

3. film

Obviously you are not going to end up making a two hour blockbuster, but there is nothing stopping you using your knowledge of narrative image theory to make a trailer or other publicity for one, maybe by making use of enigmas. Similarly you could make a section from a film on video- possibly the piece where the problematic was established or a turning point from events to action.

Which study in depth fits best?

A possible problem that you will face is that the same piece of work might seem as if it naturally fitted with different studies in depth. For example it would be quite possible for you to make a trailer for a gangster film which changed the representation of women and potentially covered all three studies in depth. There is nothing wrong with making a product like this, but you must make up your mind from the start which one study in depth you intend to concentrate on in your analysis and planning.

In each case as I mentioned before, the key is to place your work in the context of the study in depth- you do this in the brief.

The Brief: At least 500 words

Once you have come up with your basic idea for the project you need to plan it in detail- your brief allows you to do this.

The exact contents of the brief will vary depending on what you are making. You will negotiate them with your tutor. However, it should include the following:

A Good Brief

The Appendices- adding depth to your brief

This is obviously an enormous amount to squeeze into 500 words so you need to be very focused in what you write and avoid waffle at all costs. To help you prepare to write your brief you need to start by writing appendices- these will form the research on which you base the brief itself- they do not count as part of your final word-count.

Note- however good your appendices are, you still need to make sure that all of these areas are covered in the brief itself since this is where your examiner will look first for evidence of what you have been up to. You can then refer them to relevant appendices for more detail when it is appropriate.

Appendix 1- Study in depth

As stated before, it is essential that your project should be closely related to your chosen study in depth so you must write a short piece outlining the relevant theory which you will be using. If you find that your proposed project doesn’t allow you to do this, you need to re-consider now- the chances are that it will end up without enough theoretical basis to get a good mark.

Appendix 2- Existing texts

You need to write a detailed analysis of a number of media texts. You should choose existing texts which are aimed at your target audience so that you can comment on the way that they position them. It may be worth finding texts which contain representations which you wish to oppose in your own project.

Whatever the texts you choose to write about, you should produce a detailed analysis of the media language they use, the genre they fall into, how they address their audience, the representations they contain and the ideology they promote- just as you would with an unseen.

You are also on the search for ideas for your project. So you need to comment on any techniques they use which you can make use of in what you produce.

Appendix 3- Audience research

You need to find out the interests of your target audience in order to get an idea of how to talk to them in your project. To do this you will need to carry out a questionnaire. Your teacher will give you advice about how to do this. You can also find advice on how to carry out research on the network in the audiences booklet.

You need to write up your research starting by explaining your methodology and then writing an analysis of the results.

Possible appendix 4- Subject research

Depending on what you are producing, it may be a very good idea for you to send some letters off to people in the media who produce similar kinds of products. People in the media are often very busy and some may not respond to your letters but you will still gain marks if you include copies of letters in an appendix.

If you do get a reply it may prove extremely useful. Write up any good advice that you receive in the appendix.

You will need to get any letters sent off very early and you must not wait for replies- You cannot afford to be held up with the rest of your project waiting for responses which may never come. Anything that you get back should be treated as a bonus rather than an essential.

The Relationship between Brief and Appendices.

It is likely that if you have done your job properly, your appendices will be much longer than the brief itself. In the brief you need to focus on the most important of your findings from the various bits of research you have done using the list which started this section. You need to refer your reader constantly to the appendices for more detail.

What is all of this in aid of- development and progression

Throughout the appendices you should be constantly thinking about the progression you are making. All of the research and theorising that you are doing is so that you can end up improving your ideas for your own product and so you need to frequently point out ideas that you are going to follow up on in your own work- phrases like "this advert gives me some excellent ideas for use of colour that I will adapt for my own work" are excellent... as long, of course, as you actually do so in the end.

THE BRIEF NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN IN ROUGH OVER THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS AND HANDED IN BY SEPTEMBER 8

The Product

This is the section we can say least about- advice will differ depending on what you make. However, from previous experience, the biggest mistake that students make is to let style rule over content. Don’t get completely obsessed with perfecting the look of your project and forget to think about what is in it and particularly how it relates to the study in depth.

Size?

The size of what you produce will be negotiated by you and your tutor. It needs to be weighty enough to impress the examiner. However, three pages of a magazine, for example, wonderfully produced will get a much higher mark than a comparatively shoddy five.

Remember also that everything must be made by you- no clip art or "borrowed" photographs.

The Evaluation: At least 1000 words

When you have finished making the artefact you need to evaluate how successful you have been.

The key thing here is to consider how well you have achieved the aims you set out for yourself in the brief. This will mean referring frequently to the study in depth.

Again how exactly you do this will depend on what you have made but the following are essential:

3. An analysis of how successful it is as a media artefact for the stated audience- for this you will need to do a questionnaire.

Appendix- Questionnaire

Once again you need to find out what you audience thinks- use the same kind of methodology as you did with the brief.