Friday, 5 April 2019

Second year Easter holiday revision links

The Easter holidays are here, and you have seventeen glorious days... to revise A-level media studies. And your other subjects. Don't forget about those.

The best place to start, is of course the blog. But where's the stuff that's going to help you absolutely smash the exam? Maybe you remember seeing an awesome post a while back but you just can't seem to find it? This post should help!

Of course you won't find EVERYTHING here. For example, there's nothing on Formation... because our lessons were much more based on textual analysis at that point. Your notes are still the most important revision resource at your disposal. If you are missing out on industry context for a medias product, you can also Google it. Check out the wikipedia page. It's easy to catch up!

Also, re-read both magazines, watch both TV episodes, check out the websites, watch both the music videos, re-read the newspapers, check out the adverts, listen to the radio show again, and check out the marketing material for the films and the videogame we have studied. You will be marked on your KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING of the media products you have studied, so make sure you know them like the back of your hand.

Finally, you can find every PowerPoint here, but remember that they often ask questions but lack answers. If you are going to use the PowerPoints, make sure you use other resources like the blog and your own blog to answer these questions.

The basics - start here!


The master list of all the revision sessions and workshops ran SO FAR can be found here, and already there's absolutely tonnes of excellent examples. Check it out!

There's all sorts of examples of what to put in all sorts of questions in this post

The revision guide collects every essential piece of information, and most importantly includes EVERY SINGLE LAST POSSIBLE QUESTION that could come up in a handy tick-list format!

And here's every theory and theorist you have to know. Just remember to not go too mad with theories... 

Exam technique


If you read one post on how to structure exams, read this one! It even tells you how many minutes to spend on each question!

Component one b will require being able to recall and define a range of media language. So make sure you know what you're talking about, and define EVERY word on this page.

Component one


Music videos


A full on analysis of Riptide is here!

How are women represented in Riptide? Find out here!

Newspapers


A few industry notes here

An example of racist ideology in The Sun

Here's a bunch of exemplar answers for the newspaper industry!

Bias and ideology in The Times, The Mirror AND MORE

Get stuck in to The Mail Online 'sidebar of Shame' for some excellent examples of manipulative and sexust representations of women 

Newspaper key terminology! Check it out!

Want a refresher on the difference between left and right wing politics? Click here!

Lots of industry context for the newspapers studied

Here's an example of how the same story was represented in the mirror and The Times

Anchorage and newspapers

Advertising


Here's some full on semiotic analysis advice that's focussed around advertising, but can be used elsewhere

Some excellent examples of how to apply theories surrounding hegemony and ideology to advertising. This is excellent revision for Component one section a!!

Here's an exemplar response for an unseen textual analysis

Water Aid analysis!

Film


A few industry notes here

A full on exploration of the Straight Outta Compton trailer

You can find a ridiculous amount of I, Daniel Blake resources that YOU CREATED on the shared Google Drive!

Radio


You can find an analysis of Late Night Woman's Hour here

Videogames


Here's an analysis of the marketing campaign for Assassin's Creed Liberation

Here's an analysis of the marketing to Death Stranding

Component two


Television


An initial analysis of Humans

A little industry context for channel 4

Here's a whole bunch of marketing for Humans

Some analysis of the marketing campaign for Humans

Here's a post about how to talk about regulation and Humans

Here's a wee bit of textual analysis of Humans

Here's some more full-on key scene analysis for Humans

Kom ihåg akta människor? Du kan läsa allt om det här!

Exemplar Humans answers

Initial analysis of Les Revenants 

Les Revenants key scene analysis

Lots of exemplar answers for Les Revenants here!

Magazines


Here's a full on analysis of the front of Woman

There are some excellent student examples of how to answer magazine questions here

There's a cool task for the Alfred Hitchcock interview in Woman here

And an EVEN COOLER task for the kitchen double page spread

Adbusters analysis

Online media


You can find exemplar answers for the online media section here

Here's a really pretentious essay I wrote about how algorithms are TAKING OVER THE WORLD

This documentary on internet memes will help you understand Jenkins and Shirky's audience theories... with a bit of Barthes for good measure! 

Here's an analysis of the Zoella apartment video 

This post links to a Vice article that's just a little bit critical of Zoella...

And here's another BBC doc on online influencers and the issues they embody

Some textual analysis of the Attitude website can be found here

And you can find an exploration of the representation of masculinity for the front cover of Attitude magazine here

Want to read more about online media? Check out the links in this post!