As you make your way in to the final part of the year, you will notice a step up in terms of what we ask you as teachers. This is technically because you have started next year. And the essay you are working on now is the first part of your MS3 coursework. Don't worry, the transition between AS and A2 is pretty smooth in Media Studies (it's definitely a lot less rough than the jump between GCSE and AS!). It is now assumed that you have a grounding in Media theory, and though we will be revising this as we go along, it means we can waste less time with the basics and jump straight into more challenging aspects.
One thing you need to get familiar with is reading an academic article. If you are planning on going to university, and especially if you are studying an arts subject (such as Film, Media or Sociology), you will be doing a lot of reading. It can be daunting at first, but follow these words of advice and I guarantee you'll be not only reading academic articles, but enjoying reading them too.
1 - Take it slow: it's meant to be difficult
One thing that can put off someone unused to academic articles is that they can be hard to read. This is deliberate. An academic essay is often trying to convey a complicated philosophical concept. It is not necessarily something to be read for immediate enjoyment. It is a challenge. Make sure you read slowly, taking your time to think over every sentence.
2 - Read it fast the first time through, and then read it again.
This completely contradicts the last point, and you're going to have to make a decision on which strategy works best for you. The idea here is that you blast through the essay at top speed, reading ahead trying to get a gist for what it's about. After you've done that, you start again from the beginning, this time at a leisurely speed, and give it another go.
My advice is to read the first paragraph, and then the last paragraph. This tends to be where to author sets out the abstract (a declaration of what is going to be included in the article) and the conclusion (a summary of everything that the author has gone through, to make sure as many as possible agree with the conclusory statement). Remember an academic article isn't a work of fiction. It isn't something that can be 'spoilt'. It's a tool to understand a concept, and you need to use it as effectively as possible to reach this understanding.
3 - Look up EVERY word you are unsure of.
While reading an essay, I just had to look up the words exegesis and provenance. Exegesis has a pretty simple definition. It basically refers to the meaning of something. It's very similar to the term hermeneutics, which I also had to look up a few years ago. You will know hermeneutics from Barthe's hermeneutic or enigma code. Provenance had a slightly trickier definition. It is related to ownership, and how ideas can be owned by different people over a passage of time. It seems complicated here, but in the context of the essay, everything suddenly made sense.
The point here is that although these words look scary, they have a fairly simple definition. The English language is vast and nuanced, and for every word you look at, you have just added another powerful tool to your vocabulary. It takes time to look up every word you are unsure of, but it's worth it in so many ways.
4 - Don't just read it once
You will probably not understand an academic article first time. The second time you read through it, you'll start to make some headway. Third time, you may feel like you're getting somewhere. But even then, you probably missed something. The key to reading academic articles is perseverance.
5- Don't worry if you don't get it
So you read it three times, looked up every word, and paid special attention to the introduction and conclusion. But you still don't get it. Don't worry, it's not such a big deal. Firstly, you probably understood more than you thought. Secondly, academic articles are not meant to be read in isolation: they often require reading something else in preparation. Think about a videogame that asks you to accomplish one goal before moving on to another. You want to open a door, but you don't have the key. If you did skip ahead, you'd just be killed by the high level enemies in an area you shouldn't be in yet. So in this case, it's best to stick with what you know, and wait until you feel a bit more confident.
6- Feel free to disagree with the author
My favorite Media theorist is Theador Adorno. I hate him. I completely disagree with (almost) everything he says. His arguments against popular music are particularly vicious, and he goes to great lengths to explain why pop music is completely devoid of any value, and, in fact, is forcing the working class in to a perpetual state of self-imposed stupidity. Why is he my favorite? Because I have to think very hard about counter arguments. I start to think of ways to challenge what he says. I want to tell Adorno about the many different uses there are for pop music, how audiences are aware of how it is manufactured, and how they can negotiate it's usage, ignoring the message of the author and encoding new ideologies. Unfortunately Adorno died almost 50 years ago, but he still forces me to think on my feet. And as I result, I am forced to justify my own point of view in a far more persuasive way.
So feel free to disagree with the author. As long as you can come up with a valid counterpoint, you can even quote him or her, before explaining exactly how they are wrong.
7- Failing is fun
Make no mistake: you are going to hit some brick walls. You're going to pick up an article that's 'too hard' and really will require many more years of academic study to fully understand. But isn't that the fun of it? To challenge yourself to understand a concept that goes over the head of most people? To hit a brick wall, but to learn a new word, to increase your ability to comprehend a complicated concept?
Once you realise not only that failing is fun, but also essential to getting better, you'll doubtless get a lot more out of academic articles.
One thing you need to get familiar with is reading an academic article. If you are planning on going to university, and especially if you are studying an arts subject (such as Film, Media or Sociology), you will be doing a lot of reading. It can be daunting at first, but follow these words of advice and I guarantee you'll be not only reading academic articles, but enjoying reading them too.
1 - Take it slow: it's meant to be difficult
One thing that can put off someone unused to academic articles is that they can be hard to read. This is deliberate. An academic essay is often trying to convey a complicated philosophical concept. It is not necessarily something to be read for immediate enjoyment. It is a challenge. Make sure you read slowly, taking your time to think over every sentence.
2 - Read it fast the first time through, and then read it again.
This completely contradicts the last point, and you're going to have to make a decision on which strategy works best for you. The idea here is that you blast through the essay at top speed, reading ahead trying to get a gist for what it's about. After you've done that, you start again from the beginning, this time at a leisurely speed, and give it another go.
My advice is to read the first paragraph, and then the last paragraph. This tends to be where to author sets out the abstract (a declaration of what is going to be included in the article) and the conclusion (a summary of everything that the author has gone through, to make sure as many as possible agree with the conclusory statement). Remember an academic article isn't a work of fiction. It isn't something that can be 'spoilt'. It's a tool to understand a concept, and you need to use it as effectively as possible to reach this understanding.
3 - Look up EVERY word you are unsure of.
While reading an essay, I just had to look up the words exegesis and provenance. Exegesis has a pretty simple definition. It basically refers to the meaning of something. It's very similar to the term hermeneutics, which I also had to look up a few years ago. You will know hermeneutics from Barthe's hermeneutic or enigma code. Provenance had a slightly trickier definition. It is related to ownership, and how ideas can be owned by different people over a passage of time. It seems complicated here, but in the context of the essay, everything suddenly made sense.
The point here is that although these words look scary, they have a fairly simple definition. The English language is vast and nuanced, and for every word you look at, you have just added another powerful tool to your vocabulary. It takes time to look up every word you are unsure of, but it's worth it in so many ways.
4 - Don't just read it once
You will probably not understand an academic article first time. The second time you read through it, you'll start to make some headway. Third time, you may feel like you're getting somewhere. But even then, you probably missed something. The key to reading academic articles is perseverance.
5- Don't worry if you don't get it
So you read it three times, looked up every word, and paid special attention to the introduction and conclusion. But you still don't get it. Don't worry, it's not such a big deal. Firstly, you probably understood more than you thought. Secondly, academic articles are not meant to be read in isolation: they often require reading something else in preparation. Think about a videogame that asks you to accomplish one goal before moving on to another. You want to open a door, but you don't have the key. If you did skip ahead, you'd just be killed by the high level enemies in an area you shouldn't be in yet. So in this case, it's best to stick with what you know, and wait until you feel a bit more confident.
6- Feel free to disagree with the author
My favorite Media theorist is Theador Adorno. I hate him. I completely disagree with (almost) everything he says. His arguments against popular music are particularly vicious, and he goes to great lengths to explain why pop music is completely devoid of any value, and, in fact, is forcing the working class in to a perpetual state of self-imposed stupidity. Why is he my favorite? Because I have to think very hard about counter arguments. I start to think of ways to challenge what he says. I want to tell Adorno about the many different uses there are for pop music, how audiences are aware of how it is manufactured, and how they can negotiate it's usage, ignoring the message of the author and encoding new ideologies. Unfortunately Adorno died almost 50 years ago, but he still forces me to think on my feet. And as I result, I am forced to justify my own point of view in a far more persuasive way.
So feel free to disagree with the author. As long as you can come up with a valid counterpoint, you can even quote him or her, before explaining exactly how they are wrong.
7- Failing is fun
Make no mistake: you are going to hit some brick walls. You're going to pick up an article that's 'too hard' and really will require many more years of academic study to fully understand. But isn't that the fun of it? To challenge yourself to understand a concept that goes over the head of most people? To hit a brick wall, but to learn a new word, to increase your ability to comprehend a complicated concept?
Once you realise not only that failing is fun, but also essential to getting better, you'll doubtless get a lot more out of academic articles.