Baseline assessment learner response

 1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

WWW - some knowledge of GQ magazine

EBI - not enough preparation or revision has caused you to underachieve


2) Focusing on the BBC Newsbeat question, write three ways it helps to fulfil the BBC's mission statement that you didn't include in your original assessment answer. Use the mark scheme for ideas.

Newsbeat informs Radio 1 listeners about the news – important events going on in the UK
and around the world including breaking news and developing stories. This includes politics,
economics, crime, sport and entertainment. The BBC’s remit demands that it offers
informative content to all audience demographics and this helps fulfil its remit for reaching
teenagers and young adults with news content.

Newsbeat offers educational content through some of the news stories selected to be in the
daily bulletins. Examples include a Newsbeat story on a project highlighting street
harassment of women which serves to educate both male and female listeners on the
impact of harassment on victims. The construction of news stories within Newsbeat bulletins
also contributes to this – for example, with expert interviews adding an educational element
to news packages.

The news topics in a Newsbeat bulletin tend to offer entertainment to listeners. Although
the top story will usually be serious (hard news) every Newsbeat bulletin will contain some
sport or entertainment content which helps to fulfil the remit to entertain. For example,
Newsbeat will contain pretty extensive reports from major sporting events such as
Wimbledon or the World Cup and will also cover music or film awards ceremonies more
than some other BBC news programmes.

3) Question two asked you how useful media effects theories are in understanding the audience response to War of the Worlds. Complete the following:
  • Gerbner's Cultivation theory: useful or not useful? Why?
Gerbner’s Cultivation theory is very useful in understanding how American radio’s recent convention in the 1930s of ‘breaking news’ (‘We interrupt this broadcast to bring you…’) may have made audiences more likely to believe the fictional radio play was real.  Gerbner’s idea of ‘mean world syndrome’ – that heavy consumers of media are more likely to see the world as dangerous – is perhaps reinforced by the reported audience reaction to the broadcast.
  • Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle model: useful or not useful? Why?
The Frankfurt School’s hypodermic needle theory is arguably supported by the reported audience panic following the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938. However, this theory has been widely discredited and considering a media audience as ‘empty vessels’ is overly simplistic and not useful.
  • Stuart Hall's Reception theory: useful or not useful? Why?
Stuart Hall’s reception theory is arguably more useful than traditional effects theories in analysing audience reaction – some would have believed it (preferred reading?), other sections of the audiences would have challenged or rejected it entirely. Even then, was Welles’s intention to genuinely panic listeners (i.e. the preferred reading)? This is questionable.

4) Write a full essay plan for the 25-mark Magazines question. The mark scheme contains plenty of ideas you can use here. Your plan should include notes/bullet points addressing the following:
  • Paragraph 1 content/ideas: Audiences feel part of the magazine, are rewarded for their knowledge and have their expectations met.
  • Paragraph 2 content/ideas: One aspect that may be considered more successful is the way GQ has diversified in order to maintain or expand its target audience. In addition to a changing approach to masculinity Will Welch has moved the magazine’s focus away from traditional print towards digital social media and video content.
  • Paragraph 3 content/ideas: Applying Uses and Gratifications theory, The Gentlewoman provides a strong sense of personal identity, personal relationships and surveillance on issues not covered by mainstream media.
  • Paragraph 4 content/ideas: The Gentlewoman target audience of ‘confident, independent and stylish women and men from a strikingly broad range of age groups’ arguably values print (particularly the thick, quality ‘art book’ style) and therefore the magazine has been less hit by rise in digital publications. Unlike GQ, The Gentlewoman was launched in the digital age.
.

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