MEDIA STUDIES

Media Studies ha s been taught at Lawrence Sheriff School since 1988 and the Department has enjoyed a spectacular rate of success. Only Math and Business Studies attract larger numbers of candidates in the sixth form and A Level results have been consistently excellent. In recent years more than 60% of students have regularly attained one of the top two grades at A Level and 0% was achieved in both A Level and GCSE in 2004. Value Added scores are always in excess of 0.

In this school, Media Studies is a subject strongly driven by current affairs, particularly at A Level. Few aspects of the subject remain constant: it continuously evolves, just as the media themselves are endlessly developing and changing. In terms of both subject matter and teaching styles, it is a subject open to many different approaches and teachers within the Department are free, subject to the constraints of the WJEC specifications for GCSE and A Level, to decide for themselves what to teach and how to teach it.

Therefore, to take the example of the GCSE programme of work that forms a part of this document, it has been devised by the current teacher of the GCSE course because he chooses to approach his teaching in this systematic way. Were there a second GCE Media Studies group, taught by a different teacher, he or she would be free to meet the examining board’s requirements in a completely different way, should he or she desire.

In general, Media Studies is not a subject in which there is much in the way of linear progression. Only in the broadest terms is it possible to lay down what will be studied in class, as almost everyday that passes brings something new.

What are the Media?

A medium is a form of communication that enables someone with something to say to address an audience that is out of immediate earshot. Media Studies examines the role played by the mass media – those media that are used to address audiences running into thousands, or millions – in our lives. For examinations purposes at Lawrence Sheriff School, the mass media are deemed to be:

Television
Radio
Newspapers
Magazines
Film
Video/DVD
Advertising
Popular Music
The Internet

Not all of these media are studied in equal depth: we pay closer attention to television, radio, newspapers and film as these seem to play a more significant role in shaping public opinion about political, social and economic issues than the others. However, they are all important, and in examinations students may be asked to analyse and evaluate unseen texts from any of them.

Why Study the Media?

On average, every person in the country spends more than 24 hours a week – a fifth of the time we spend awake – watching television. Most of us devote several further hours to listening to the radio, or visiting the cinema, or reading newspapers and magazines, to say nothing of the increasing amount of time that many people spend on the Internet. Shouldn’t we know a lot more about these forms of communication which occupy so many of our waking hours?

Much of the time we tend o watch, listen, read and surf in a largely uncritical fashion, regarding our use of the mass media primarily as relaxation. Yet they are much more important to us than mere entertainment. We use them as our primary source for a vast amount of the knowledge and understanding we have of the world in general and the society in which we live: they are vitally important to us as our means of knowing what is going on outside our own personal experience, and understanding the way in which we should conduct our lives. But are they reliable? Are the versions of events which they present fir, accurate and impartial?

Most people don’t stop to think about these things. We tend to believe wht we see or hear on the evening news, or read in The Times, even if we are clever enough not to believe all that is published in The Sun; we tend to assume that the version of the world presented by Eastenders or Coronation Street is ‘real’ and we care about the characters as if they truly existed; we are easily persuaded that the stars of popular music, TV and film are actually like the images that have been created for them; and we may think that by ‘speaking’ to someone in Iraq, Zimbabwe or China on the Internet we can get a truly accurate picture of what is going on in his or her country. We should not be so trusting.

Those who control and own the mass media, as well as broadcasters, journalists, politicians, spin-doctors, marketing men and advertisers, know all this and can, and do, exploit our trusting, credulous natures everyday of our lives.

Media Studies at Lawrence Sheriff I strongly driven by current affairs and is about

• Learning to see through the hype and image-making so that we are aware of the way in which pictures, words and sounds can be manipulated, or represented, to persuade, deceive or otherwise manipulate us into believing whatever people in positions of power want us to think;

• Learning how owners of the mass media can enforce their own personal ideologies through the papers or TV stations they own without personally publishing or broadcasting a single word;

• Learning how we are led, by the way in which news, documentary and current affairs programmes are presented, to adopt a one-sided view of issues involving conflict or challenges to authority;

• Understanding how TV schedules are constructed around the need to satisfy the desires of advertisers;

• Understanding the perpetual conflict between commercially minded broadcasters who wish simply to give the public whatever it wants, and the regulators who attempt to ensure that broadcasters offer a fully rounded, high-quality public service which not only satisfies the majority but also caters for minorities, and which not only entertains, but also educates, informs and enriches people’s lives;

• Discovering how differently people use the mass media;

• Learning to write sound journalese and to design and lay out attractive newspapers;

• Learning to use a video-camera to make effective narrative, persuasive and factual films;

• Acquiring knowledge and understanding of the history and development of the mass media, and key aspects of relevant law, economics, languages, sociology and technology.

The Aims

We have six principal aims specific to the subject:

• To develop in our students a critical awareness of the role the mass media (especially television, radio, film, newspaper and advertising) play in our lives, and lives, and their impact on the world in which we live;

• To make informed personal judgements about the mass media and those who own, regulate and produce them;

• To develop in our students a range of basic media production skills, both technical and creative;

• To teach our students to read media texts with insight and critical understanding;

• To encourage our students to learn to think for themselves, especially over political, social and moral issues;

• To encourage our students to seek out and appreciate journalism, broadcasting and films of the highest quality.

We also pursue a range of broader aims, related to self-expression, self-supported study and citizenship, at all times encouraging our students:

• To express themselves clearly and accurately, whatever the context;

• To be conscious of audience and consequently to use appropriate language and registers, particularly in production work;

• To make the most effective use of ICT whenever it is appropriate to do so;

• To work independently, making effective use of what they discover from personal research;

• To be open-minded, and to be both tolerant and respectful of the views and values of others;

• To make, and value, judgements that are based on evidence, not prejudice;

• To value objectivity, independence and impartiality as cornerstones of democracy.

What are the Main arrears of Study?

We concern ourselves with nine principal aspects of the mss media:

• Textual creativity – how media texts are constructed

• Production – how media products are made, and the influences upon this of economics and changes in technology

• Genre – how texts are classified according to their content and the distinguishing characteristics of each type

• Ownership – who controls the media, and more importantly, determines the nature of their content

• Audiences – how audiences are constructed and targeted by people in the media industries, and the ways in which audiences use, and respond to, the media

• Representation – the ways in which political, ethical and social issues are portrayed, and the ways in which the media deal with groups of people defined by such factors as age, gender, race and occupation

• Regulation – how the various media are controlled, both by Acts o Parliament and through codes of practice up by official regulatory bodies, as well less formal influences such as public opinion

• Languages – the register, style and lexis employed in individual media products; the jargon of media production; and the specialised terminology of critical analysis

• History – those aspects of the way in which the media have developed over the years where such study helps students to reach an informed understanding of the present.

How is our Teaching Structured?

GCSE

At Key Stage 4, there is a single set of up to 20 students who have opted for the GCSE Media Studies course, which is taught through out by one teacher.

Sixth Form

At AS Level, the numbers choosing the subject typically range between 40 and 60students. These are divided into two or three sets, each set containing, ideally, no more than 24 members. The teaching of each set is divided equally between two teachers. Between a third and a half of the students who opt for Media Studies in the sixth form are girls from Rugby High School.

The vast majority of those who complete the AS Level continue with the subject in the Upper Sixth. Once again, the teaching of each set is shared equally between two teachers. In all, students are taught by three teachers over the course of two years, each teacher focusing on different aspects of the subject, determined mainly by his personal strengths and enthusiasms.