A Level Media Studies

There are not many places in public life that the media does not bombard us with messages every day. There are the obvious areas such as television, newspapers, magazines, the cinema and radio, but just taking a walk down the high street opens us up to billboards, bus shelters, public transport, shops even down to what some people wear as fashion. If you wanted to escape the media then perhaps an isolated jungle would be your only hope but even that may have been invaded by a film crew making the next edition of I'm A Celebrity'Get Me Out of Here!'

Media messages can vary from the obvious to the subtle, from the safe to the extreme and they are all around us in some shape or form. What this course will explore is how we respond to these texts and analyse their effects.

The media, like any form of study, has its own language that you will soon come to terms with. At first it may appear that a television advert. for a household cleaner like Flash is just that; an everyday product, bought at a supermarket and not given a second thought. Yet if we begin to analyse the advert. more closely all sorts of messages are being sent out: Why is the advert. on at a certain time of day? What is the target audience? Why have certain actors or actresses been cast? What time of the day is the advert. shown and in between which programmes all this just from a simple desire to keep your house clean from germs!