Key Areas

1. Key Areas • Audience • Narrative • Genre • Representation • Media Language The question will specify one of these theories and ask you to apply it to one of your products – you can choose which one.

2. Chief Examiner’s Essay Plan P 1 Intro: which of your projects are you going to write about? briefly describe itP 2: what are some of the key features of the concept you are being asked to apply? maybe outline two of the theories/ideas of particular writers brieflyP 3; start to apply the concept, making close reference to your production to show how the concept is evident in itP 4: try to show ways in which ideas work in relation to your production and also ways in which those ideas might not apply/could be challengedP 5; conclusionAgain remember you only have 30 minutes and that you really need to analyze the finished production, rather than tell the marker how you made it

3. What skills and knowledge will you need to answer this question effectively?

4. What knowledge and skills will you need? • Learn and understand a range of key theories • Analyse the key ways in which this theory applies to your project • Ways in which your product follows this theory • Ways in which your product challenges this theory or diverts from it • Identify key aspects and examples from your product which are relevant to this theory

5. Audience: analyse one of your productions in terms of at least two key theories. We will cover/develop ideas on… • Reception Theory • Preferred and oppositional readings • Primary and secondary audiences • Uses and gratifications • Mulveyand male gaze

6. Critical Perspectives Exam 2hrs (Q1a, 1b and 2) Section 1b – Evaluate your production through theory 25 marks – (10 argument, 10 examples, 5 terminology) “A text does not have a single meaning but rather a range of possibilities which are defined by both the text and by its audiences. The meaning is not in the text, but in the reading.” (Hart 1991, 60) TASK: Summarize this quote in 10 words

7. Critical Perspectives Exam 2hrs (Q1a, 1b and 2) Section 1b – Evaluate your production through theory 25 marks – (10 argument, 10 examples, 5 terminology) Reception Theory “There can be no universal meaning in texts – everyone understands every text in their own personal way.” Each member of the audience has a different history and personality and will read any text in their own individual way. The producer may have an intended preferred meaning but there is no guarantee this will be shared by the audience. In pairs turn this theory into a (short) rhyme

8. Critical Perspectives Exam 2hrs (Q1a, 1b and 2) Section 1b – Evaluate your production through theory 25 marks – (10 argument, 10 examples, 5 terminology) Contexts of Reception 1. Where and how we experience the media 2. Levels of Attention • Primary – close attention • Secondary – the medium is in the background • Tertiary – the medium is present but no conscious attention is paid to it. All affect the nature of the experience NOTES: Where and how would your product be experienced? What level of attention do you think your audience will give to your product? What effect do you think that will have on how they view your product?

9. Critical Perspectives Exam 2hrs (Q1a, 1b and 2) Section 1b – Evaluate your production through theory 25 marks – (10 argument, 10 examples, 5 terminology) Cultural Capital • Audiences use their knowledge and experience in making meaning from a text • Social variables explain different pleasures, preferences etc • Social factors produce similar patterns of reading according to sex, age, class, ethnicity NOTES: What cultural capital does your audience bring to your product?(think about your audience research) How might their knowledge, experience etc impact on the way they interpreted your product?

10. Preferred and Oppositional Readings Critical Perspectives Exam 2hrs (Q1a, 1b and 2) Section 1b – Evaluate your production through theory 25 marks – (10 argument, 10 examples, 5 terminology) What do you think these terms might mean? • Preferred reading: the meaning the text producer (in this case you) intended • Oppositional reading: a meaning different or contrary to that intended by the producer. Remember ‘reading’ the text means interpreting the media language – the way you do this depends on lots of social factors.

11. Prepare yourself. Take fifteen minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. • Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it. • Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. • Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his personal comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction. Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him. • Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not one of them. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours. • Make the evening his. • A good wife always knows her place. What is the preferred reading of this text (published 1952)? How would you read it?

12. Dominant Ideology / Hegemony • The ideas of the most powerful group in society – often held as “common-sense” views. • What is the dominant ideology within the sub-culture you are targeting? What ideas about the world do they hold? • True love is a very good thing • Lovers should be together • Freedom and self-expression are good things • Female independence is a good thing

13. Critical Perspectives Exam 2hrs (Q1a, 1b and 2) Section 1b – Evaluate your production through theory 25 marks – (10 argument, 10 examples, 5 terminology) Write a short paragraph explaining: 1.What is the preferred reading of your text? 2. What assumptions does it make about the values its audience holds? 3. What oppositional readings could be possible? 4. Who / which social groups or audiences might interpret the text in this way?

14. Fill in your A3 version with ideas for analysing your product using your two chosen audience theorists20 mins Any of these top boxes could be a point in a section of an essay about the ways audience theory relates to your production. You’d need to add example though. This goes in the bottom box.