Process
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 Representation
- 17 subtopics
- 42 things to know
- Media One and Media Two
What Media Representation covers
Media representation is examined on both Media One and Media Two. It covers how events, issues, individuals and social groups are constructed through selection and combination, and the theories used to analyse that: Hall, Gauntlett, the feminist positions, Butler on performativity, and postcolonial theory.
Where it is assessed
Media One and Media Two
Both written papers examine the whole theoretical framework.
Check the AQA specification ↗The 17 subtopics
Each one has its own page.
- Constructing representationsSelection, combination and exclusion, re-presentation and mediation, and self-representation on social platforms.Open →
- Why producers make the representational choices they doInstitutional factors, target audience, genre, ideology, budget, team composition and editorial guidelines.Open →
- Social and cultural context in representationWhy representations date, how media can shift attitudes rather than only record them, and why representations travel poorly across cultures.Open →
- Stereotypes: positive and negative useWhere the term comes from, the positive uses of instant recognition and subversion, and how repetition entrenches prejudice.Open →
- Under-representation and misrepresentationSymbolic annihilation, tokenism, the burden of representation, and why absence behind the camera shows on screen.Open →
- Representation, realism and the values it carriesVerisimilitude as a set of conventions, documentary's markers of truthfulness, and why a claim to realism carries ideological weight.Open →
- Industry contexts and representational choiceOwnership, funding, regulation and competition, and why franchises and international markets narrow representational range.Open →
- Discourse, ideology and audience positioningHow camera position, narrative point of view and naming position an audience without stating anything directly.Open →
- Theories of representation: stereotypes and countertypesPositive and negative stereotypes, countertypes and their limits, and why positive is not the same as good.Open →
- Theories of representation: misrepresentation and selective representationHow true details selected narrowly still mislead, and why omission is harder to detect than distortion.Open →
- Theories of representation: ideology, hegemony and constructed realityDominant ideology, Gramsci on hegemony and consent, constructed reality and counter-hegemony.Open →
- Hall on representation: encoding and decodingHall's constructionist approach against reflective and intentional views, preferred meaning, and stereotyping as the fixing of difference.Open →
- Theories of identity as summarised by GauntlettFluidity, constructed, negotiated and collective identity, and media as resources audiences pick and mix from.Open →
- Feminist theories: the male gaze and patriarchyMulvey on the male gaze, voyeurism, patriarchy, sexualisation and raunch culture, post-feminism and the female gaze.Open →
- Feminist theories: van Zoonen and hooksVan Zoonen on gender as discourse and gender and power, and hooks on intersectionality and mainstream feminism.Open →
- Theories of gender performativitySex against gender, Butler on the stylised repetition of acts, gender as a historical situation, and subversion.Open →
- Theories around ethnicity and postcolonial theoryCultural imperialism, multiculturalism, imagined communities, marginalisation, Said on Orientalism, otherness, and Gilroy on diaspora and double consciousness.Open →
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
Your recallNot started
Key term
What does re-presentation mean in media studies?
Key term
What is mediation?
Key term
What is self-representation?
Process
How do institutional factors influence the representational choices made by media producers?
Process
Why do target audience considerations affect how representations are constructed?
Process
How does the intended platform affect representational choices?
Process
How does social context shape media representations?
Process
How does globalisation complicate the cultural context of representation?
Process
How have representations of women in advertising changed since the 1950s?
Key term
What is a stereotype?
Evaluation
How can stereotypes be used positively?
Evaluation
How do stereotypes work negatively?
Key term
What is under-representation?
Key term
What is symbolic annihilation?
Evaluation
What is the burden of representation?
Key term
What is verisimilitude?
Evaluation
Why does a claim to realism increase ideological power?
Process
In what way do funding models affect media representations?
Process
How does regulation impact representational choices?
Process
How does competition between media organisations affect representations?
Key term
What is audience positioning?
Key term
What is discourse in media studies?
Key term
What is a countertype?
Key term
What is selective representation?
Key term
What is hegemony?
Who and when
Which theorist developed the concept of hegemony?
Key term
What is dominant ideology?
Who and when
What is Stuart Hall's constructionist approach to representation?
Key term
What does Hall say stereotyping does to difference?
Who and when
What does Gauntlett argue about identity and media?
Key term
How does Gauntlett describe what audiences do with representations?
Who and when
Who developed the concept of the male gaze?
Key term
What is the male gaze?
Key term
What is post-feminism?
Who and when
What does van Zoonen argue about gender?
Who and when
What does bell hooks add to feminist media analysis?
Who and when
What does Judith Butler mean by gender performativity?
Key term
What is subversion in Butler's framework?
Who and when
Who developed the concept of Orientalism?
Who and when
What are Gilroy's key concepts?
Key term
What is cultural imperialism?
Take Media Representation further
The same content, four other ways.
Commonly confused
Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.
Stereotype vs Countertype
Stereotype: a representation conforming to conventional expectations about a group. Countertype: a representation deliberately contradicting those expectations.
Under-representation vs Misrepresentation
Under-representation: a group appearing less often than its presence in society suggests. Misrepresentation: a group portrayed inaccurately or in distorted and limited ways.
Male gaze vs Female gaze
Male gaze: positioning the viewer to see women from a heterosexual masculine perspective. Female gaze: centring women's own perspectives, desires and experiences instead.
Questions from this topic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
What is the process of selection in media representation?
Model answer
Selection is the process by which media producers choose which elements to include in a media text from all available options.
- 2
What does combination mean in the construction of media representations?
Model answer
Combination refers to how producers arrange and organise selected elements together to create meaning within a media text.
- 3
What role does exclusion play in constructing media representations?
Model answer
Exclusion involves deliberately leaving out certain elements, perspectives, or information, which shapes meaning by determining what audiences do not see or hear.
- 4
Define self-representation in media contexts.
Model answer
Self-representation refers to how individuals present and construct their own identity through media.
- 5
What does social identity mean in the context of media representation?
Model answer
Social identity in media representation refers to how membership of social groups is portrayed and constructed.
- 6
What is meant by the term 're-presentation' in media studies?
Model answer
Re-presentation is the process by which media construct versions of reality rather than simply reflecting it.
What is inside Levo
Six ways to work the same material.
Media Representation revision questions
- What does Media Representation cover in AQA A-Level Media Studies?
- 17 subtopics: constructing representations, why producers make the representational choices they do, social and cultural context in representation, stereotypes: positive and negative use, under-representation and misrepresentation, representation, realism and the values it carries, industry contexts and representational choice, discourse, ideology and audience positioning, theories of representation: stereotypes and countertypes, theories of representation: misrepresentation and selective representation, theories of representation: ideology, hegemony and constructed reality, hall on representation: encoding and decoding, theories of identity as summarised by gauntlett, feminist theories: the male gaze and patriarchy, feminist theories: van zoonen and hooks, theories of gender performativity and theories around ethnicity and postcolonial theory. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
- How is Media Representation organised?
- By the AQA 7572 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.
Every question in Media Representation, 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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