Week 1: Research Sources

Media exists alongside an agenda. Sometimes this agenda is for the broader good; for example to educate and to inform. Sometimes this is to spread a political and personal viewpoint. Thinking about our sources, and where our news and research comes from, informs whether or not we should trust it and is crucial to help us navigate it and stay informed. With fake news and social media making news more divisive than ever, this is a crucial skillset to help you navigate the media landscape of the 21st century.
Homework – you must start to compile a glossary of key-terms across this unit. Each of these terms should be explained, in your own words, and backed up with examples and images or videos. If you use the internet to help you with this, you should include your research sources and reference them properly.
Resources Used in Class This Week:
The Guardian Website
The Daily Star Website
How to Report the News
BBC Bias Search Results

Week 2: Research Types

Conducting effective research is not just important in college – it’s crucial for most of the job roles within the media industry. Whether it’s doing your research on a potential cast member or learning how to use a new piece of kit, knowing where to get effective research, and what different types of research are available to you, is important to know. Quantitative and qualitative research are the two most common types: and these can be very useful for helping to evaluate your work. Understanding how to interpret the research of others, and how this might be used for both positive and negative purposes, is also crucial to understand.
Resources Used in Class This Week:
Outfoxed Documentary
BBC 10 Oclock News
ITV News at 10
British and American TV News

Week 3: Quoting and Referencing

Quoting and referencing your work efficiently is key to enabling others to know where it came from. This is important for two reasons: firstly, it shows that you haven’t copied other people’s work and secondly, it points your audience in the direction of further reading if they want to. It is ok to refer to other people’s work as long as you acknowledge it properly. To do that, we use quotes and referencing – the Harvard referencing style.
Resources Used in Class This Week:
Referencing for beginners
CiteThisForMe

Homework:
Rupert Murdoch is about to launch a new TV channel in the UK. You must write 500 words giving your thoughts on whether you think this is a good idea or not. Although this is an opinion, you must back up your argument with facts. You need to include at least one quote, and references from at least two different sources. You should include a bibliography.
Deadline for this to be submitted and marked is Monday 25^th January 2021.

Some suggested places to research are below (you don’t have to use these):
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/dec/01/rupert-murdochs-news-uk-tv-channel-given-approval-to-launch
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000kxw1/the-rise-of-the-murdoch-dynasty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P74oHhU5MDk&t=2483s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8fFOFZAkjU

Week 4: Genre and mise-en-scene

Forbidden Planet (1956), dir. Fred M. Wilcox

Mise-en-scene is the way in which the elements on screen (costume, setting, location, props, makeup) tell us something about the film. The mise-en-scene has been extensively thought about by the director and his team to give us clues about the world of the film. Combined with ideas of genre, the mise-en-scene sets audience expectations and can be said to both conform with and subvert tropes associated with films of this type.
Resources Used in Class This Week:
Disney Plus
Secrets of Cinema
100 Years of Popular Film Genres
Film Genre Icon Quiz
Parasite Film

Week 5: Auteur Theory and Story Structure
Taxi Driver (1976), dir. Martin Scorsese

The plot of a film is best structured in order to tell the story in an engaging way. Although most films are linear – with a chronological start, middle and end – it is important to recognise the impact and potential of effects such as the flashback, epilogue or reverse storytelling, in order to make the audience active in understanding what is going on.
Linked to this is the idea of the Auteur Theory – usually applied to a film’s director. This considers the director as the creator of a piece of art, with a distinct visual and storytelling style unique to them. Whether this represents the reality of filmmaking though, which is fundamentally a collaborative process, remains controversial.
Resources Used in Class This Week:
Exposition in Film
Basic Story Structure
Where Writers Go Wrong With Story
Toy Story Opening Scene
Up Flashback
What is the Three Act Structure?

Week 6: Audience and Ideology

Birth of a Nation (1915), dir. DW Griffiths

By considering issues such as race and exploring its history of representation on screen, we can ask whether film is informed by reality or whether it has the power to inform reality itself. Recognising the powerful ability of film to persuade and influence, and to represent ideology, we must question the motivations and power structures underpinning films such as Birth of a Nation in order to appreciate the contextual circumstances of their creation.
Resources Used in Class This Week:
Bombshell Film
Defining the Audience
Audience Theory

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