The following advice was given to media students before and over the half term holiday, generally in response to practice papers. We're very much of the opinion that if one student asks a question, then ten more students
want to ask the same question, but don't. So hopefully your questions should be answered here!
If you have any more questions about the MS4 exam, please let us know ASAP.
All responses have been anonymised in this blog post.
If the question asks about representation in general, can I look at the the representations of different groups?
You absolutely can discuss different representations as long as the question does not ask for something specific. Just pay attention to the wording: if 'constructed' comes up, the question is asking you to present an argument about how representations are built by the producers, and this is always done for ideological purposes. Representations can be constructed through V&T codes, narrative, genre, and so on.
Additionally, in every representation response, you must question and analyse the impact that the construction of representation has on the target audience. Linking between audience, text, and industry, with sophisticated analysis of the ideology of the producer is the best way to go about getting the highest grades in the exam.
How should I discuss how male audiences envy and look up to James Bond?
When you discuss how audiences will envy Bond, you should always supporting theory. Uses and gratifications would work to explain this (it's always helpful!), and you can combine the gratification of personal identification and social interaction with the concept of audience negotiation. You can also discuss, if you are feeling brave, how the character of Bond provides a metanarrative for the young male target audience by providing a set of clear rules to live by. You can take this further still by criticisng the perhaps misogynistic construction of Bond, and questioning the ideology that it disseminates/manipulates it's target audience with.
Why is Severine's death important to the representation of women, and why is it presented as entertainment?
Severine's death is intended to intended to provide shock and suspense through subverting expectations regarding Propp's princess archetype. In a representation essay, you must question this. What is your opinion on the life of a female character (whose tragic life is instantly forgotten as soon as it is erased!) being a simple plot twist? And why is she presented as a fetish object (consider the intrusive positioning of the midshot looking down her top) even as she dies? Why is Judy Dench's character given a more respectful death? And what impact does this have on the ideology of the male audience and the dominant ideology of patriarchal hegemony in British society?
I've picked Ed Sheeran as my third artist. So what do I actually talk about in the exam?
With your third artist, it's important to use exactly the same structure as we used in class for Kanye West and Lady Gaga.
Off the top of my head, the things we covered in class for these artists are
Distribution
Digital technologies
Global appeal
Marketing
Production
Audience response
and so on.
First of all, I strongly recommend going to the blog and reminding yourself of what we came up with for various questions using Lady Gaga and Kanye West as examples.
Secondly, you need to find examples. This can be done 100% through Google searches. Remember when I got the class to dig up information on West and Gaga with a very strict 10 minute time limit for the blog posts? That's what you should be doing.
I'm going to pick a question as an example and spend ten minutes dragging out facts, figures and links to back it up. (you'll actually have to check out the links yourself though!)
QUESTION
To what extent are your chosen texts global?
Argument "my texts are not only exceedingly popular in their countries of origin, but through clever marketing techniques have found popularity across the world,
- US tour dates - http://www.edsheeran.com/tour
- Interview on New York radio station - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdF1iu7nkWU
- US album sales - http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7752423/ed-sheeran-divide-half-million-sales-billboard-200
- Ed Sheeran albums available in Japan - https://www.amazon.co.jp/Divide-Deluxe-Ed-Sheeran/dp/B01MY72DNS
- Filipino fan page - https://www.facebook.com/EdSheeranPhilippines/
- Spanish language home page - http://www.edsheeran.es/
- Worldwide fan reactions - http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/ed-sheeran-reactions-2000451
- European tour diary by a fan? Girlfriend? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwYIQJSylMU
- Sheeran's relationship with Taylor Swift is a great marketing tactic for being globally popular - http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38767171/ed-sheeran-reveals-he-and-bff-taylor-swift-can-take-things-too-far
Actually that only took 7 minutes and I'm stopping because there's far too much to write about in just one or two paragraphs!
The next stage is simply making reference to what you have learned. Facts, figures, quotes, shot types, camera angles and descriptions of each media type. This is you 'evidence' for why Ed Sheeran (the text) is globally successful.
Finally, in the argument bit of the paragraph, you can go in to detail on opinions and theory to back this up. Audience theory, reference to digital technologies, globalisation, representation theory, genre theory... anything you can use to back up the argument. For example, you can discuss that the attention and album sales that Sheeran receives in America (and beyond) is a result of the genre hybridity of his music, which allows him to target many more audiences.
What should I talk about in the introduction to a representation question?
Use the introduction to promote the idea that representations are presented for ideological reasons, and presenting ideologies is always done for the express purpose of manipulating the target audience, no matter what the message ultimately is. A strong, even slightly controversial opening statement will tell the examiner right away that you know exactly what your argument is, and you are most definitely going to stick with it!
When discussing the 'construction' of representation, or indeed any discussion of representation, you must identify the fact that representations are constructed for ideological purposes. And when producers present ideology, it is always with the express intent of MANIPULATING the target audience. Mentioning this in the introduction and consistently coming back to this in every single paragraph will ensure you have a powerful and consistent argument.
How should I refer to 'Bond girls' in the exam?
Bond girls are a generic paradigm/genre convention of the Bond film, so make sure you refer to them as such.
How do I talk about how ideologies are encoded in the representation of women in Brave?
Rreally push for identifying the ideology of the producer. Why is it so important for Brave to subvert the representation of women, in this case, young girls? You can argue it's from the perspective of genre, and providing something new to a young, empowered female audience sick of sexist, weak representations of princesses taking passive roles. However, it's another example of manipulation, a feelgood representation presented in a male dominated industry that sells positive female role models for profit. Even though Merrida is strong and powerful, she is still a slightly scruffy princess, and, when the marketing strategy insists on it, Merrida is presented as overtly sexualised when sold as a doll, which conforms to hierarchical patriarchal hegemony, and manipulates young female audiences in to believing stereotypical representations of young women are more desirable that non-stereotypical representations.
How do I say something straightforward like 'it's interesting for the audience' in a more sophisticated way?
Be wary of using statements like 'it holds the audiences interest'. This is a missed opportunity for either referencing uses and gratifications (eg '...provides the audience the gratification of escapism') or reception theory ('forces audiences to accept the dominant response, and to interpret the intense colour scheme as a powerful symbolic code, representing the excitement of the music'), or any other suggestion you could make. To suggest a text 'intrigues' 'excites' or 'interests' and audience runs the risk of being interpreted as being a little common sense by the examiner, and your responses are clearly anything but common sense.
How should I discuss the construction of Lady Gaga's representation?
Even if you make many excellent points (for example the subjugation of the audience by Gaga, and her self-sexualisation) you must link this back to the construction of representation. You must be clear that Gaga is a construction of a representation of a woman. She has been constructed for ideological purposes. She represents in many ways a hegemonic construction of a dominant, idealised representation of female sexuality. This in turn forces audiences to negotiate with this representation. If the target audience of young women accepts the dominant reading that women are supposed to look and act like, then it reinforces this dominant ideology. This in turn affects how women are treated in society.
Should I use slang words like 'chav'?
Please please don't use the word chav, even in inverted commas. It should only be used in an academic essay as a direct quote, and there is simply no opportunity do do so this year with the texts that have been set. Something like 'stereotypical representations of young working class men' or simply 'young working class audiences' would not only suffice, but would be for more sophisticated.
Will there be a question as specific as 'discuss the representation of ethnicity' in the exam?
If ethnicity does come up, you will likely be given a choice, for example 'discuss the representation of EITHER ethnicity or national identity' in your chosen texts. The MS4 exam tries to be as open as possible, which makes a lot of sense given that us teachers can pretty much teach you ANYTHING. Have a look at the past papers on the blog (there's a link in the top right, no need to deal with the WJEC site!) for lots and lots of examples of how things will be phrased.
Should I reference ideology throughout the essay? And how can I do this with Brave?
This is something I would embed throughout your essay. Brave presents an ideologically interesting representation of a young, powerful girl, which challenges genre conventions. However it does so (arguably) to provide audiences with a way of differentiating it from other Disney films, and therefore making more money, despite arguably being a very similar product. An almost identical argument could be given for Skyfall.
What should go in my conclusion?
Your conclusion should just reiterate your main points (eg 'Skyfall presents a wholey typical genre experience for the gratification of long standing Bond fans, while still providing new audiences with a series of pleasurable events. The Selfish Giant is also completely typical of its genre, but...; etc).
One suggestion I would make is to criticise the ideology of the producer. By placing these privilaged characters as the protagonists in their own reality show, it confirms dominant hegemonic ideas that rich people are more important than the working class, and therefore could be argued to attract audiences in a manipulative fashion. You could even bring in Marxist readings, that MiC reinforces the hopelessness of the world for its working class target audience, and maintains the status quo through creating an apathetic audience. Therefore the rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor.
Can I answer any two questions from section B, regardless of their wording?
Yes! As for your final question, you can answer any one question from A and any two questions from B, as long as you use a separate industry for each. Therefore if you want to answer two questions in B with the word 'audience' in it, as long as you, for example write about film in one and TV in the other, go for it.
However, is even in a question that asks about audience attraction, you can and should talk about industry key terms such as marketing and celebrity, as well as genre, representation and/or narrative. You don't need to talk about everything in every question, in fact that would just confuse both you and the examiner, but as long as you keep coming back to the wording of the question in your argument, you can discuss any concept or theory you have ever covered in Media.
What kind of thing should I be writing in the introduction to an audience question?
I would point out in your introductory argument why it is essential that audiences are different pleasures by producers. What this comes down to is that texts must appeal simultaneously to many different audiences. This question gives you may opportunities to discuss polysemic readings, negotiated readings, preferred readings and oppositional readings. Please do not assume there is a single reading that audiences can take form the texts we have studies.
What should I be careful about when writing about audience?
Take care to not refer to the audience as 'you', 'we' or similar. They are always the audience, audiences, the target audience or similar.
Is there anything else I need to mention when referring to the Utopian solution theory?
When discussing the Utopian solution, you must point out that the pleasure that this offers audiences is manipulative. By offering audiences a distracting view of a perfect world, working class audiences are potentially less likely to question the issues in their lives.
If I believe the representation of women is different in all three films, is this an acceptable point of view?
Absolutely, especially as the representation of women is very different in all three films. Your argument in this case could be "there are many different ways in which the representation of women has been constructed in my focus texts. However, in each instance representations have been constructed to present a specific ideology for the target audience."
Same for the music industry and the TV industry too.
If the hypodermic needle model sucks so much, then where can I actually use it?
A bit of advice for the hypodermic needle model is this: refer to it in the introduction, critique it, and then base your argument around the idea that audiences are complex, and can take many uses and pleasures from your chosen texts.
I want to talk about gender binaries. What are they and how can I write about them?
Gender binary refers to a construction of representation where male roles and female roles are set in stone. Brave is an excellent example of subverting gender binaries, as Merrida rejects the dominant hegemonic ideology that girls are supposed to be passive princesses who should do what their dad tells them to do, instead choosing to take up 'masculine' hobbies like archery, going on adventures and wearing scruffy clothes. Skyfall on the other hand arguably presents a very clear gender binary, with the hypermasculine savior Bond, and the ditzy, girly secretary Moneypenny who's basically just there to look pretty (can link this to the male gaze theory).
Who directed The Hunt?
Nature documentaries require a vast number of producers, and the resulting product is a patchwork of different people's work edited together to look like a seamless product. Therefore I would steer clear of mentioning a director, but you can mention it is funded and produced by the BBC, and then give a brief rundown on the BBC.
What are jump cuts?
'Jump cuts' are an usual editing technique, basically cutting from and to the same subject. It looks weird and is usually a mistake (though Skyfall uses a few as a symbolic/action code to connote confusion and danger, particularly in the courtroom scene).
How do I write about those weird bars that appear on screen during the interview scenes in True Detective?
The technique you refer to is technically called 'scan lines', and occur because these scenes have been shot on videotape rather that high definition digital photography. If you want to really impress the examiner, this is an example of 'bricolage', a postmodern technique that combines lots of different media forms. This emphasises the fact that True Detective has a complicated, non-linear narrative.
Isn't putting up hashtag prompts on Made in Chelsea a form of free advertising?
I would avoid the term 'free advertising, as I am 99.9% sure Channel 4 employ a dedicated social media promotion team. This is an excellent example of digital technologies providing extremely targeted, cost effective marketing techniques that rely on the gratification of social interaction.
