You then went on to try to apply these ideas to your own (imaginary) campaigns, which we'll review during the next lesson.
Homework for this week is a reading activity. You need to read the article from Media Magazine called 'Analyse this – how to survive AQA's MED1 exam and still come out smiling ...'. It's in the Examiners' Perspectives section. If you can't remember how to access this, go to the post on this blog from Wednesday, 29th August, and this will explain it to you (this involves scrolling down to the bottom of this page, and clocking on 'Older Posts').
When you get to the article, print it out and bring it to the lesson (you can use the library printer for this, or come to myself or PHa). I then want you to read it carefully- it's a bit complicated in places, but not too bad if you concentrate and are persistent. You need to make some notes, in the form of picking out what you think are the 10 most helpful tips from the article. Bring this list with you to class on Friday.
As an extension, it would be well worth you having a look at some of the other articles on this site- there are some interesting ones- as they make excellent wider reading for the course.
Have a good week,
Mr Boulter
We then looked at the J17 front cover, and considered what aspects of the text we could comment on. Here is the sample paragraph that we looked at in class:
"Images are a striking and significant feature of the text. For example, the central image on the front cover is of a teenage girl against a plain blue background. She is wearing a plain, simple red top and the shot is cropped to show the top half of her body. Her head is tilted to one side and she is smiling. The effect of this image might be to construct a role-model for the young teenage audience of J17. The girl is slightly older than the target audience, which might attract an audience of aspirational teenage girls who want to associate themselves with an older lifestyle. It is also significant that, whilst the shot is stylised, the girl’s pose is not sexual in the way that images from magazines aimed at older audiences might be (eg FHM, Vogue etc). Instead, her pose, clothes and expression- all emphasised by the summery, natural lighting- connote innocence, fun and freedom. This is more likely to appeal to the young target audience, and also be more acceptable to parents, many of whom will have a major influence on whether or not the teenager is allowed to buy / read the magazine. "
and here is the same paragraph broken up to show the Point, Evidence, Explanation, Development sections that we discussed:
"Images are a striking and significant feature of the text. For example, the central image on the front cover is of a teenage girl against a plain blue background. She is wearing a plain, simple red top and the shot is cropped to show the top half of her body. Her head is tilted to one side and she is smiling. The effect of this image might be to construct a role-model for the young teenage audience of J17. The girl is slightly older than the target audience, which might attract an audience of aspirational teenage girls who want to associate themselves with an older lifestyle. It is also significant that, whilst the shot is stylised, the girl’s pose is not sexual in the way that images from magazines aimed at older audiences might be (eg FHM, Vogue etc). Instead, her pose, clothes and expression- all emphasised by the summery, natural lighting- connote innocence, fun and freedom. This is more likely to appeal to the young target audience, and also be more acceptable to parents, many of whom will have a major influence on whether or not the teenager is allowed to buy / read the magazine. "
For extension purposes, this link will take you to all the past papers from the last few years : http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gceasa/med_assess.php , although some of the texts for Med 1 aren't reproduced for copywrite reasons.
Homework is to write up your response, following the targets from your last essay, and considering the content of Friday's lesson carefully.
Have a good week,
Mr Boulter
