AQA

Introduction

 

How the media represent the world is the basis for much of
our understanding. The core media literacy skills are what we all need, as readers of the quotidian flow of television, film, radio, Internet and print messages. So, helping the student become more than functionally media literate is one of the aims of Media Studies, making it the most important subject in the contemporary school curriculum. Becoming media literate means becoming an autonomous and critical reader of television, film and print media.

Amongst other things, the AS and A2 Media Studies student will look at television and film documentaries, the course seeking to balance an historical perspective with a consideration of contemporary documentary practice. The student will explore theoretical and conceptual issues through a detailed examination of case studies. Students will look at the role of documentary in public service broadcasting; the changing institutional contexts of production and regulation, and the role played by new technologies in the changing forms of documentary. Students will learn about the development of new technologies and new forms of documentary in the 1980s; the ways in which documentaries have been scheduled on television; the possibility of personal or authorial documentary making, looking at the work of directors like Nicholas Broomfield or Molly Dineen;

producers like Stephen Lambert.

Students will also look at the emergence of so-called reality
television, with its interactive components, and the docusoap; and they will explore the interface between documentary and drama, in the drama documentary, docudrama or faction.

There will be workshops in production, direction, sound design, camera, editing and research. Students will produce short documentaries of their own, and a longer documentary at the end of the module. They will also be given basic instruction in camera work and digital editing, to reflect the close multi-skilling demands of the industry.

 

Course Details

 

AS Unit 1: Reading the Media: an introduction to the Key  

                  Concepts of media studies

      Unit 2: Textual Topics in Contemporary Media: using

                  the Key Concepts to look in detail at two media 

                  topics. Practical Production: a practical project,

                  using one or more media technologies, e.g.

                  video, sound-recording equipment, desktop

                  publishing, etc.

A2 Unit 3: Texts and Contexts in the Media: you will

                  study two further topics in detail.

      Unit 4: Independent study (written course work/ long

                  essay): you will be investigating or researching an

                  independent area study, dealing with a text, topic

                  or issue, and its relevant contexts. You will learn

                  to apply the Key concepts to the comparative

                  study of a range of media texts, and their

                  relevant contexts.

 

    

Subject specific GCSE requirements

No subject specific requirements are necessary to take the AS Level course. However, you may have some difficulty at A2 Level if you have not achieved Grade B or above in English at GCSE level.