Key term
AQA A-Level Media Studies 7572
Media Language
Topic overviewCodes and conventionsConstructing meaning through media languageGenre, hybridity and intertextualityViewpoints, ideology and audience interpretationSemiotics: signs and their typesSemiotics: paradigm, syntagm and anchorageBarthes: denotation, connotation and mythNarratology: narrative codes and diegesisTodorov: equilibrium, disruption and new equilibriumGenre theory as summarised by NealeStructuralism: binary oppositions and mythemesStructuralism: ideological reading and deconstructionPostmodernism: pastiche, bricolage and implosionBaudrillard: simulacra, simulation and hyperreality
Media Representation
Topic overviewConstructing representationsWhy producers make the representational choices they doSocial and cultural context in representationStereotypes: positive and negative useUnder-representation and misrepresentationRepresentation, realism and the values it carriesIndustry contexts and representational choiceDiscourse, ideology and audience positioningTheories of representation: stereotypes and countertypesTheories of representation: misrepresentation and selective representationTheories of representation: ideology, hegemony and constructed realityHall on representation: encoding and decodingTheories of identity as summarised by GauntlettFeminist theories: the male gaze and patriarchyFeminist theories: van Zoonen and hooksTheories of gender performativityTheories around ethnicity and postcolonial theory
Media Industries
Topic overviewProduction, distribution and circulationOwnership and controlEconomics and funding of media industriesMarketing and maintaining audiencesRegulation of media in the UKDigital convergence and the individual producerRegulation in global production and circulationCurran and Seaton: regulation, deregulation and the free marketCurran and Seaton: concentration, conglomerates and public service broadcastingCurran and Seaton: neo-liberalism, surveillance and privacyCurran and Seaton: the central argumentLivingstone and Lunt: the public sphere and governanceLivingstone and Lunt: media literacyLivingstone and Lunt: power, value and globalisationCultural industries as summarised by Hesmondhalgh
Media Audiences
Topic overviewGrouping and categorising audiencesTargeting, attracting, reaching and addressing audiencesMedia technologies and patterns of consumptionMass and specialised audiencesNiche and fan audiencesAudience interpretation and its circumstancesMedia effects: uses and gratificationsMedia effects: hypodermic needle and moral panicMedia effects: media literacyBandura: social learning and imitationCultivation theory: socialisation and the bardic functionGerbner: cultivation differential, mainstreaming and resonanceReception theory: agenda setting, framing and myth makingHall on reception: the three reading positionsFandom'End of audience' theories
Contexts of the Media
Media Forms and Products
Media Forms and Products
- 9 subtopics
- 27 things to know
- Media One and Media Two
What Media Forms and Products covers
The nine media forms divide between the two papers. Advertising and marketing, music video, radio, newspapers and film sit on Media One; television, magazines, online, social and participatory media and video games sit on Media Two. Film is studied for its industry only.
Where it is assessed
Media One and Media Two
The forms divide between the two papers, four or five on each.
Check the AQA specification ↗The 9 subtopics
Each one has its own page.
- Advertising and marketingBrands and unique selling points, aspirational representation, anchorage, the ASA codes, native advertising and digital targeting.Open →
- Music videoPerformance, narrative and concept videos, editing to the beat, star image, intertextuality, and distribution after music television.Open →
- RadioSound-only meaning, mode of address, radio as a secondary medium, station identity, public service and community radio, and podcasting.Open →
- NewspapersTabloid and broadsheet, masthead and splash, news values, political allegiance, IPSO self-regulation, and the collapse of print revenue.Open →
- Film as an industryProduction, distribution and exhibition, why distribution holds the power, franchises, release windows, the BBFC and UK tax relief.Open →
- TelevisionFormats and the format trade, series against serial, public service obligations, the watershed, on-demand viewing and how success is measured.Open →
- MagazinesCovers and cover lines, specialised audiences, the influence of advertisers, house style, and the shift to digital.Open →
- Online, social and participatory mediaWeb 2.0, user-generated content, how platforms earn from data, algorithms, influencers and the Online Safety Act.Open →
- Video gamesInteractivity and agency, game mechanics, representation in games, PEGI ratings, microtransactions and free-to-play models.Open →
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
Your recallNot started
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What is the difference between a product and a brand?
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What is native advertising?
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What is the industrial purpose of a music video?
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What are the three main types of music video?
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Why is editing to the beat definitive of music video?
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What defines radio as a media form?
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Why is radio described as a secondary medium?
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What is community radio?
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What are news values?
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How does a newspaper front page work?
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How does press regulation differ from broadcast regulation?
Process
What are the three stages of the film industry?
Evaluation
Why is distribution the most powerful stage of the film industry?
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Why are franchises commercially attractive to studios?
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What is a television format?
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What is the difference between a series and a serial?
Numbers
What is the watershed?
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How does a magazine cover work?
Evaluation
Why do magazines serve specialised rather than mass audiences?
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What distinguishes online and participatory media?
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How do social platforms generate revenue without charging users?
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What is an influencer?
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What distinguishes video games from other media forms?
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What are game mechanics?
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How do free-to-play games generate revenue?
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How are video games age-rated in the UK?
Take Media Forms and Products further
The same content, four other ways.
Commonly confused
Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.
Series vs Serial
Series: largely self-contained episodes sharing characters and setting. Serial: a continuing story across episodes that must be followed in order.
Distribution vs Exhibition
Distribution: acquiring release rights and managing marketing and supply to venues. Exhibition: showing the finished work to paying audiences in venues.
Performance video vs Concept video
Performance video: footage of the artist playing the track, cut to the rhythm. Concept video: a visual idea or aesthetic used in place of story or playing.
Questions from this topic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
What is the primary purpose of an advertisement as a media product?
Model answer
To persuade a defined audience towards a product, service, brand or idea, usually within very limited time or space.
- 2
Why does advertising rely heavily on connotation rather than explicit statement?
Model answer
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
What is a brand and how does it differ from a product?
Model answer
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
What is a unique selling point in advertising?
Model answer
The particular attribute an advertisement identifies to distinguish its product from competitors and to give the audience a reason to choose it.
- 5
How does an advertisement establish its target audience within the text itself?
Model answer
Through casting, setting, music, language and visual style chosen so that the intended group recognises the product as meant for people like them.
- 6
What is an aspirational representation in advertising and why is it used?
Model answer
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.
What is inside Levo
Six ways to work the same material.
Media Forms and Products revision questions
- What does Media Forms and Products cover in AQA A-Level Media Studies?
- 9 subtopics: advertising and marketing, music video, radio, newspapers, film as an industry, television, magazines, online, social and participatory media and video games. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
- How is Media Forms and Products organised?
- By the AQA 7572 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.
Every question in Media Forms and Products, on a schedule.
Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.
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