1) Read 'a step by step guide to answering an exam question' from pages eleven to thirteen of the revision guide. If you don't know here to find the revision guide, then now's a really good time to find it!
2) Click here to find an example of an exemplar response. Look at the introduction. How can DAC apply to this introduction?
"Explore how audiences are positioned by the representations in this advert"
Introduction
DAC- definition, argument, context
D
Audience positioning refers to where producer places the audience in the media product to reinforce the ideology of the producer.
A
The audience is positioned in a deliberately guilty mode of address, from the high angle shot looking from above the child in order to guilt the audience into engaging with the media product.
C
While the WaterAid advert takes a more gentle approach, many charity adverts take a deliberately more upsetting and shocking approach.
Content
- The child has suffered an injury/ disability - helpless
- The black and white edit on the photo - makes the image unclear forcing the audience to look closer and in depth to the product
- The small text also encourages the audience to look closely and in depth
- The mise en scene of the blooded cloth is shocking to see
- Vulnerable young child
- The setting of the advert shows a rundown hospital- reinforces helplessness
- The target audience - white, working class
- Direct mode of address with the child looking directly at the camera - clear mode of address to the audience
- Stereotypical representation of black people of being victims compared to the white hands of the the 'thumbs up' doing little to no help to the child