1. Welcome to AS Media

2. Lesson Objectives
To know: How the AS Level in Media is assessed.
To understand: What Section A of the AS examination
entails.
To learn: Some key terms that will be helpful in
preparing for the AS exam in January.

3. Media Studies
What does ‘media’ actually mean?

4. The AS exam - Section A
Involves studying the key concepts of Media Language
and Representation.
You’ll watch a short extract from a TV Drama (4 times)
and be asked to write about the ways in which the
technical codes (media language) have been used to
construct a particular representation of groups of
people.

5. The AS exam - Section A
The question doesn’t really change all that much and
will look very similar to this:
Discuss the ways in which ________________ is
represented in the extract through the:
Camera shot, movement, angle and composition.
Editing.
Sound.
Mise-en-scene.

6. The AS exam - Section A
What will change is the underlined bit. There are 7
possible focii for the clip:
Gender / Age / Ethnicity / Sexuality / Regional Identity /
Disability and Physical ability / Social Class and status.
We won’t know what the focus will be so will prepare
for all of them.

7. The AS exam - Section A
There are however some things that we do know...
The 4 technical codes won’t change.
You will have to write about representation.
It will be a piece of TV Drama (this is important!).

8. Task
Look at the TV listings - how many different types of
programme can you identify?

9. Task
How are you grouping the programmes together? What
enables you to do this?

10. Task
How might what we have just done help in terms of
preparing for the January exam?

11. Key Terms
Media Language
Representation
Genre
Generic conventions
Sub-Genre
Generic hybrid