Contemporary Media Issues

Review of work so far…

Exam Paper

The whole exam paper covers two areas of your media course:

In Section A, you describe and evaluate your skills development in your own production work and then evaluate your A2 and AS productions in relation to a particular media concept (1 hour)

In Section B, you demonstrate your understanding of Postmodern Media through a range of texts, institutions, audiences and debates (1 hour)

The Questions – General Content

The questions in the exam will be generic, allowing for the broadest possible range of responses within the topic.

You must be prepared to answer an exam question that relates to one or more of the four prompts listed below:

1. What are the different versions of postmodernism (historical, stylistic, theoretical)?

2. What are the arguments for and against understanding some forms of media (film, Reality TV, videogames, magazines) as postmodern?

3. How do postmodern texts challenge traditional text-reader relations and the concept of representation?

4. In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a postmodern world?

The Questions – Specific Example

Here’s an example of a specimen exam questions you could choose from:

Discuss two or more media texts that you would define as ‘postmodern’ and explain why you would give them this label. Cover at least two media in your answer.

[50 marks]

The Questions – Specific Example

Discuss two or more media texts that you would define as ‘postmodern’ and explain why you would give them this label. Cover at least two media in your answer. [50 marks]

An A grade response will be characterised by detailed reference to a variety of texts and accurate application of different definitions of postmodernity.

The Questions – A variety of texts?

The Matrix (1999)

Chanelle Hayes (2007)

Big Brother (2001-10)

Marcel Duchamp (1912)

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Andy Warhol (1964)

Rene Magritte (1933)

Kid British – Our House is Dadless (2009)

Madness – Our House (1982)

Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Life on Mars (2006-07)

Cheryl Cole - Fight For This Love (2009)

Cadbury’s Gorilla (2008)The Chanel No. 5 advert (2009)

Kylie Minogue vs New Order - Can’t Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head (2001)

Read My Lips - Bush/Blair (2006) by atmo.se

Guinness Horses advert (1999)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)

Britain’s Got Talent Final (2009)

David after the Dentist (2009)

Pulp Fiction (1994) Scream (1996)

Jay-Z (2004) ‘The Black Album’

MIA’s ‘Paper Planes’ (2007)

Danger Mouse (2005) The Grey Album

In This World (2002)Blade Runner (1982)

Fight Club (1999)

Atonement (2007)

Cock and Bull Story (2005)

Ugly Betty (2008)

Radiohead

Aphex Twin

The Questions – Different definitions?

Simon Pegg & Trekkies

Cultural Studies

Web 2.0

The Long Tail

New social values

New cultural languages

Fans as social groups

Changing media world - changing audience habits

Broadband internet

The active audience

Citizen journalism

Twitter, YouTube, Blogger

‘The Global Village’

The Digital Divide

Photoshopping

'structures of feeling'

'cultural logic'

'society of the spectacle’

‘ecstasy of communication’

'hold up the mirror to reality’

hyperreality

‘The world we see is the world of the commodity’

mediation

simulation

'fetishised hyperreality’

pastiche, parody and intertextuality

modernismculture ‘remixing itself’

‘superficiality rather than substance’

'death of the metanarratives'

Hybridity

hierarchies of taste Bricolage

hyperconsciousness

The Questions – Different opinions?

Marshall McLuhan

Dominic Strinati

Julian McDougall

Guy Debord

Fredric Jameson

Toby MillerRichard MacManus

John Hartley

Jean Francois Lyotard

Chris Anderson

Dick Hebdige

Jean Baudrillard

The Questions – General Content

In any essay on Postmodern Media there should be emphasis on the historical, the contemporary and the future, with most attention on the present.

You will need to offer a balance of media theories, knowledge of texts and industries and personal engagement with issues and debates.

You’ll need to consider texts from videogames, postmodern cinema, interactive media, reality TV, music video, advertising, parody and pastiche in media texts or a range of other postmodern media texts.

When writing about two media, it is not necessary to devote exactly half of the time to each one. You might spend most of your time writing about postmodern films and a shorter chunk of your essay might be devoted to the development of postmodernism on TV.

Whichever way you choose to construct your answer, you will gain extra marks for comparing, linking and contrasting at least two media, rather than writing about them separately.

The Questions – General Content

1. What are the different versions of postmodernism (historical, stylistic, theoretical)?

Historical – what did postmodernism develop from?

Stylistic – what are the aesthetic indicators of postmodernism?

Theoretical – how do different postmodern theorists define postmodernism differently?

The Questions – general content

2. What are the arguments for and against understanding some forms of media (film, Reality TV, videogames, magazines) as postmodern?

How can you spot a postmodern text? How can you justify the statement that

we live in a postmodern world? How do different texts support or refute

postmodern theories?

The Questions – general content

3. How do postmodern texts challenge traditional text-reader relations and the concept of representation?

To what extent how have the distinctions between text and audience collapsed according to postmodern theories?

How have they stayed the same? How have postmodern theories

changed the way we approach the concept of representation?

The Questions – general content

4. In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a postmodern world?

How have postmodern theories revealed changes in the way audiences read texts?

How has postmodernism affected the way media institutions act and create texts?

The Questions – Specific Example

Discuss two or more media texts that you would define as ‘postmodern’ and explain why you would give them this label. Cover at least two media in your answer. [50 marks]