Individual Study Areas

Please put a post up about your individual study areas.

Please say what area you are studying, which two mediums you are going to use and what texts you are already starting to analyse.

Here's a quick reminder of the type of exam question you could be asked:

Media and Collective Identity

6 Discuss the contemporary representation of a nation, region or social group in the media, using

specific textual examples from at least two media to support your answer. [50]

7 How far does the representation of a particular social group change over time ? Refer to at least

two media in your answer. [50]


Here is the examiner's feedback from the Summer 2015 series of exams:
Media and collective identity was by far the most popular topic with youth, gender and British Muslims dominating answers. The best answers were able to discuss and apply concepts such as mediation, stereotyping, gatekeeping, construction, masculinity and femininity. A number of candidates referred to hegemony but a few found it difficult to articulate the theory and so their argument became convoluted and difficult to follow. For youth, Quadrophenia was the most popular historical example and Fish Tank the contemporary example. Weaker candidates tended to describe scenes and state that this is a negative representation, stronger candidates were able to discuss the nuances of the films, offering a far more complex discussion of media construction of collective identity. Whilst some candidates over-relied on two contrasting or historically distanced texts, others were trying to work with too many and subsequently the scrabble to include all of the texts studied meant that academic theory was overlooked and arguments were not fully explored, so there is a balance to strike for this topic.


General advice for section B is consistent with previous sessions – answers should be balanced, academically informed, current and forward thinking and, wherever possible, a sense of candidates’ reflecting on their own media culture should emerge in their writing.