1. A2 Media Studies
Critical Perspectives in Media
Exam
Section A: Theoretical
Evaluation of Coursework
Revision Guide

2. A2 Media Studies Exam – Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Coursework
In Section A you answer both 1(a) and 1(b).
Question 1(a) will ask you to discuss the development of your skills from AS to A2 in
relation to one or two of the following aspects:
• Digital Technology
• Creativity
• Research and Planning
• Post-production
• Using conventions from real media texts
In the exam you should spend about 30 minutes answering question 1(a). In order to
do well on this question you must remember to:
• Discuss both your AS and A2 coursework
• Demonstrate progress from AS to A2
• Refer to specific examples from your coursework productions
• Use terminology
Digital Technology
Think about the different digital technologies you used at AS and A2, this is likely to
include cameras (still/video), editing software, image manipulation software.
• How has digital technology helped you capture your ideas for media
production?
• How did digital technology allow you to be creative?
• What benefits do digital technologies offer? Are they any disadvantages?
• How did digital technology influence your work in post-production, e.g. in the
creation of video effects, or editing images?
Think about the different digital technologies you used at AS and A2 and evaluate the
use you made of them. You need to discuss what digital technology allowed you to
do, e.g. editing techniques you used, your use of digital cameras, editing images,
adding sound to a video.
Identify two or three examples for AS and for A2. Remember you need to show
progression from AS to A2.
Creativity
• How were you creative during your AS and A2 coursework?
• What elements of your coursework are original?
• What media texts influenced you?
• How did technology help you create the product you imagined?
Try to think of specific examples of creativity. You may want to discuss coming up
with ideas for your product, or creative/inventive use of technical elements such as
camerawork, editing, sound, and mise-en-scene. You could also consider how you
used creativity to solve problems. Evaluate the effectiveness of your creative
choices.
How has your creativity progressed from AS to A2? Was your Foundation production

3. more reliant on conventions than your Advanced portfolio? Did the different briefs at
AS and A2 encourage you to be more creative?
Research and Planning
• How did your research into genre help you with your production?
• How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?
• How did your research into institutions responsible for the production and
regulation of the media influence your production work?
• What pre-production planning techniques did you employ (scripting,
storyboarding, shot-listing, etc.)?
• How effective was your planning – how did it help you in the production
phase?
• What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to
improve your planning for the second?
• How did you use audience feedback to influence your production work while it
was in progress?
Consider the research and planning activities you did at AS and A2. What was the
purpose of these activities? How successful were they? How did your research and
planning skills develop from AS to A2?
Post-production
Post-production means everything you do after filming for video work, and
everything you do after gathering material (photos, text) for print work.
• How much of your text was created only in post-production?
• What technologies did you use to modify your raw material? How did this
change the meaning of your work?
• How did you use sound in post-production?
• How did you encode meaning in post-production?
Remember to think about the type of technologies you used, what they allowed you
to do, and how your skills developed from AS to A2?
Using conventions from real media texts
• How and why have you used media conventions?
• How successful was your use of conventions?
• How and why have you broken/challenged conventions?
• How successful was this?
• How has your use of media conventions developed?
Remember you need to consider how your use of media conventions developed from
AS to A2.
Question 1(b) will ask you to select one of your coursework products, either AS or
A2 and analyse it relation to one of the following specified theoretical concepts:
• Narrative
• Audience
• Genre

4. • Representation
• Media Language
You will need to spend about 30 minutes answering question 1(b) in the exam. In
order to do well you should:
• Demonstrate your understanding of media theory
• Relate theory to a range of specific examples from your coursework product
• Use theoretical and production terminology well
Narrative Theory
Todorov Todorov argued that narratives follow a What structure does
common structure of equilibrium, your narrative have?
disequilibrium, and resolution. The What values are
significance of Todorov’s theory lies in the embodied by the
state of equilibrium and the resolution. What is equilibrium, and the
the status quo at the beginning? How is the way the narrative is
narrative resolved? What has changed? What resolved?
ideological messages does this suggest?
Propp Propp identified a group of characters Did you use any of
common to the narratives of folk tales who Propp’s character
perform essential functions in the development types? How did you
of the story. They are: hero/subject (character signify the character
searching for something), villain (opposed the types you used? Why
hero), donor (provides an object to help the did you choose to use/
hero), dispatcher (sends the hero on the not use these
quest), the false hero, the helper, the princess character types?
(the hero’s reward), and the father (who
rewards the hero).
Levi- Levi-Strauss argued that stories move from What binary
Strauss one stage to the next by setting up conflicts oppositions are used?
between two opposing elements that have to Are any elements of
be resolved. Pairs of binary oppositions the pair dominant?
structure narratives. Often one element within What message does
a pair will be dominant over the other. that suggest? How do
the binary opposition
relate to the main
theme of your
product?
Barthes Barthes argues that the meaning of a text is What elements of the
produced through five ‘codes of intelligibility’. narrative codes would
The enigma code is the questions that the be used to make
narrative answers. When we want to know sense of your
what happens next we are responding to the narrative? What
enigma code. The action code is the events questions would the
that move the narrative forwards. The semic audience want
code refers to the elements which signify answered (enigma)?
meaning. The symbolic code relates to the What signifiers are
pairs of binary opposites that express the key used (semic)? Link
meaning of the text. The cultural code refers your discussion of the
to things which are common knowledge. symbolic to binary
oppositions?
Audience Theory

5. Uses and This model suggests that audiences have Which of these needs
Gratificati expectations which they expect to be satisfied are likely to be
ons, by media texts. satisfied by your
Blumler product? Are there
and Katz The audience needs are: any other pleasures
surveillance – telling us about the world around your product offers?
us, personal identity – influences how we see
ourselves and our place in society,
personal relationships – develop relationships
with media characters; aids social interaction,
diversion – provides escapism from daily life
Encoding The preferred reading of the text is encoded What is your preferred
Decoding using technologies and conventions of the reading? How did you
Stuart Hall medium (technical and professional codes). encode it through
Audience members will respond to the text in your use of technical
different ways. The possible responses are: aspects (camerawork,
dominant – the reader shares the text’s code editing, sound, mise-
and accepts its preferred reading en-scene)? What
negotiated – understands the text’s code, different readings
generally accepts the preferred reading but might the audience
modifies it according to their social position produce?
and experiences
oppositional – understands the code but
rejects the preferred reading. The audience
member will be reading the text from an
oppositional position (e.g. a feminist reading).
Social Reception theory – ‘the politics of the living How might the social
Context, room’. The meaning of the text will be background of your
David constructed differently depending on the audience members
Morley audience member’s position in society. effect their
Differences based on things like social class, interpretation of your
gender, and ethnicity, may determine an product?
individual’s cultural tastes.
People from different social groups will have a
knowledge of the codes of different types of
media text
Genre Theory
Altman Media institutions use genres as it allows for What is the genre of
product differentiation. This means different your product? Who is
genres of products are produced to appeal to the target audience?
different target audiences. What different genres
in your chosen media
might appeal to
different audiences?
Cawelti Genres are like myths. Genres tell a society What values are
about itself. The popularity of a genre suggested by your
suggests it reflects the values of society. product?
Ryall Genre supervises the relationship between the How did you use
producers and the audience. Genre guides the genre when
production of the text by the producers, and producing your
the interpretation by the audience. product? How did

6. genre make it easier
to for you to
communicate
meaning to the
audience?
Neale Genres are made up of not just groups of films, What expectations
but also audience expectations, and discourse might your audience
including marketing, and media discussion. bring to your product?
Genres help audiences understand texts. How would genre help
them make sense of
your product?

7. Representation Theory
Saussure Meaning is constructed by the creation and What signifiers did
interpretation of signs. A sign is made up of you use to convey
the signifier (the object, word, etc.) and the meaning to your
signifier (the meaning it creates). audience? What
Representations are constructed through other meanings may
signs which signify a meaning. Signs can be the signifiers signify?
polysemic, meaning they have more than one
meaning (polysemy).
Mulvey Female characters tend to be displayed for What are the
the visual pleasure of male characters and differences in how
male spectators. For Mulvey, men look, males and females
women are looked at. Women are the object are represented in
of the gaze (looked at), whilst male your product? Which
characters/spectators are the subject of the characters provide
gaze (or the bearers of the look – the people visual pleasure? How
looking). Women connote ‘to-be-looked-at- does this relate to
ness’, and are the focus of a clearly male Mulvey’s argument?
gaze. Mulvey identifies an important process Which characters are
whereby women are coded as the object of represented as
the gaze (and represented sexually). Her looked at (objects of
work has been criticised for only focusing on the gaze) and which
the male, heterosexual spectator, and characters are shown
ignoring the possibility of the male providing to be looking
visual pleasure. Dyer has also questioned (subjects of the
her distinction between object of the gaze)?
gaze=passive, subject of the gaze=active. A
postfeminist perspective may view the
position of object of the gaze as a position of
power, and the subject of the gaze as a
submissive position.
Dyer Dyer suggests that stereotypes perform a Do you use
number of functions in media stereotypes? What
representations. He argues that stereotypes messages do the
reinforce the idea that there are big stereotypes convey?
differences between different types of
people.
Baudrillard Baudrillard is a postmodern theorist. He Do your
argues that representations no longer refer representations refer
to real things. The representation has to a reality, or do they
become more real to us than the reality, and refer to other
has actually replaced it. Simulacrum – when representations?
a copy replaces the original. For Baudrillard
images are now hyperreal – they have no
relationship to the real. Celebrities are a
good example of hyperreality – their media
image constructs a reality which does not
refer to an actual reality. Baudrillard would
question the concept of representation as a
process which represents the real.
Media Language – this is the way the medium you used communicates meaning to its
audience.

8. Narrative How does the structure of your narrative reflect the genre of
your product? Is your narrative determined by the medium you
use, e.g. how does your narrative structure reflect the
conventions of the music video?
Genre How did you use generic codes to communicate to the
audience? What are the specific generic codes of the medium
you used? With music videos you need to consider the generic
codes of music videos generally, generic codes of the genre of
music, and possibly generic codes of the mode of the narrative
(e.g. romance).
Technical Aspects How did you make use of camerawork, editing, sound, and
mise-en-scene to communicate meaning to the audience?
Representation How did your use of media language allow you to construct
representations?
Remember – Question 1(a) you must discuss both AS and A2 products. Question
1(b) choose either AS or A2. For both sections you need to have specific examples
from your coursework products to support the points you make.
There is quite a lot of overlap between the different topics you may be asked on, so
many examples could be adapted to the specific focus of the question.
All resources for Section A of the A2 exam are in the Media Shared Area in a folder
called A2 Media Resources Summer 2010.
If you have any questions, or have completed practice exam questions you would
like me to mark email me.
Take one hour to complete the questions below.
Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production

9. In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation
Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media
production work you have undertaken.
1(a) Describe how your creativity developed through the production of your
coursework. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills
developed over time.
In question 1(b) you need to choose one of your media productions to
write about.
1(b) Analyse media language in one of your coursework productions.
Take one hour to complete the questions below.
Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production
In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation
Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media
production work you have undertaken.
1 (a) In your own experience how did your post-production skills develop through
your coursework productions?
In question 1(b) you need to choose one of your media productions to
write about.
1 (b) How would you expect an audience to respond to your coursework production?
Take one hour to complete the questions below.

10. Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production
In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation
Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media
production work you have undertaken.
1(a) Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production
and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a
range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over
time.
In question 1(b) you need to choose one of your media productions to
write about.
1(b) Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Take one hour to complete the questions below.
Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production
In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation
Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media
production work you have undertaken.
1 (a) “Digital technology turns media consumers into media producers”. In your own
experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to
complete your coursework productions?
In question 1(b) you need to choose one of your media productions to
write about.
1 (b) “Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make
sense of narratives”. Explain how you used conventional and/or experimental
narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.

11. Take one hour to complete the questions below.
Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production
In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation
Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media
production work you have undertaken.
1(a) Describe how your use of media conventions developed during the production
of your coursework. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these
skills developed over time.
In question 1(b) you need to choose one of your media productions to
write about.
1(b) Analyse the role of genre in one of your coursework productions.
Take one hour to complete the questions below.
Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production
In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation
Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media
production work you have undertaken.
1 (a) Describe the development of your skills in digital technology and post-
production in your coursework. Refer to a range of examples to explain how your
skills developed over time.
In question 1(b) you need to choose one of your media productions to
write about.
1 (b) In what ways did you create a narrative in your coursework production?