Look inside the AQA A-Level Media Studies guide (7572)

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Look inside the AQA A-Level Media Studies guide

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AQA · A-Level · 7572
Media Studies
Active Recall Guide
1,066 questions
Media StudiesContents
Contents
7 topics, 83 subtopics
  1. Media Language181
  2. Media Representation216
  3. Media Industries189
  4. Media Audiences203
  5. Contexts of the Media78
  6. Media Forms and Products125
  7. The Cross-Media Production and Assessment74
ii
Media RepresentationQuestions
Media Representation
Constructing representations
  1. What is the process of selection in media representation?
  2. What does combination mean in the construction of media representations?
  3. What role does exclusion play in constructing media representations?
  4. Define self-representation in media contexts.
  5. What does social identity mean in the context of media representation?
  6. What is meant by the term 're-presentation' in media studies?
  7. Why is representation described as a process rather than a reflection?
  8. How does the framing of a photograph make it a representation rather than a record?
  9. What is meant by mediation?
12
Media RepresentationAnswers
Answers
Constructing representations
  1. Selection is the process by which media producers choose which elements to include in a media text from all available options.
  2. Combination refers to how producers arrange and organise selected elements together to create meaning within a media text.
  3. Exclusion involves deliberately leaving out certain elements, perspectives, or information, which shapes meaning by determining what audiences do not see or hear.
  4. Self-representation refers to how individuals present and construct their own identity through media.
  5. Social identity in media representation refers to how membership of social groups is portrayed and constructed.
  6. Re-presentation is the process by which media construct versions of reality rather than simply reflecting it.
  7. Because producing a representation involves a series of decisions about what to include, how to arrange it and what to leave out, so what reaches the audience has been actively made rather than simply captured.
  8. The photographer chooses where to point the camera, what to keep in shot and what falls outside it, so the image presents a selected portion of a scene as though it were the whole.
  9. The process by which media products stand between an audience and events, so that what audiences receive has passed through selection, construction and presentation rather than reaching them directly.
13
Media IndustriesQuestions
Media Industries
Ownership and control
  1. What is conglomerate ownership in the media industries?
  2. How does vertical integration give a company control over its own products' route to market?
  3. What is diversification in media industries?
  4. Why are patterns of ownership and control significant in terms of representation?
  5. How do patterns of ownership and control influence media content?
  6. What is horizontal integration in the media industries?
  7. How does horizontal integration differ from vertical integration?
  8. What is synergy in the context of a media conglomerate?
  9. What is cross-media ownership?
34
Media IndustriesAnswers
Answers
Ownership and control
  1. Conglomerate ownership occurs when a single parent company owns multiple media companies across different sectors.
  2. By owning the successive stages from production through distribution to exhibition, the company can guarantee its own output access to audiences and retain the revenue taken at each stage.
  3. Diversification is when a media company expands into different media sectors or industries to spread risk and increase revenue streams.
  4. They affect the range of voices and perspectives represented in media.
  5. They influence the types of content produced and how it is distributed.
  6. The ownership of several companies operating at the same stage of the process, such as a group owning a number of separate newspaper titles or radio stations.
  7. Horizontal integration expands a company's holdings across competitors at one stage of the chain, whereas vertical integration expands it across the successive stages from production to distribution to exhibition.
  8. The mutual promotion that occurs when parts of the same company support one another, so a film release can be reinforced by the group's television, publishing, music and merchandising arms.
  9. The ownership by one company of outlets in more than one media sector, such as holding newspaper titles alongside broadcast and online interests.
35
Media Forms and ProductsQuestions
Media Forms and Products
Advertising and marketing
  1. What is the primary purpose of an advertisement as a media product?
  2. Why does advertising rely heavily on connotation rather than explicit statement?
  3. What is a brand and how does it differ from a product?
  4. What is a unique selling point in advertising?
  5. How does an advertisement establish its target audience within the text itself?
  6. What is an aspirational representation in advertising and why is it used?
  7. How does the concept of anchorage apply to a print advertisement?
  8. What is a public service advertisement?
  9. How does the regulation of advertising in the UK constrain what advertisers may claim?
56
Media Forms and ProductsAnswers
Answers
Advertising and marketing
  1. To persuade a defined audience towards a product, service, brand or idea, usually within very limited time or space.
  2. Because it must communicate quickly and because associations attached to a brand are more persuasive and less easily challenged than direct claims about it.
  3. A product is the item itself, whereas a brand is the set of meanings, values and associations attached to it, which is what advertising principally constructs.
  4. The particular attribute an advertisement identifies to distinguish its product from competitors and to give the audience a reason to choose it.
  5. Through casting, setting, music, language and visual style chosen so that the intended group recognises the product as meant for people like them.
  6. A depiction of a life the audience is invited to want, used so that acquiring the product appears to be a step towards that life.
  7. The strapline or copy fixes which of the image's possible meanings applies, tying an ambiguous or emotive picture to the product being sold.
  8. An advertisement produced to change behaviour or raise awareness in the public interest rather than to sell a product, typically funded by government or a charity.
  9. The advertising codes enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority require advertisements to be legal, decent, honest and truthful, prohibiting misleading claims and material likely to cause serious harm or offence.
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  3. Step 3 · Closed book again

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