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http://bcsmedia2014-15.weebly.com/unit-6-critical-approaches-to-creative-media-products.html
Aim and purpose
This unit aims to develop learners’ understanding of how media producers create their products for targeted audiences. It also aims to develop their critical and personal understanding of these products. Looking at media production from these perspectives will give learners a more focused approach to their own production work
http://bcsmedia2014-15.weebly.com/unit-6-critical-approaches-to-creative-media-products.html
Aim and purpose
This unit aims to develop learners’ understanding of how media producers create their products for targeted audiences. It also aims to develop their critical and personal understanding of these products. Looking at media production from these perspectives will give learners a more focused approach to their own production work
Unit introduction
The media sector is diverse and continually developing. Across the sector media producers develop distinct products which serve a specific purpose and function. These media products have developed over time in response to changes in society, culture and technology and, more specifically, in response to changing attitudes within the industry to its audiences, and to changes in the tastes and interests of those audiences. In order to work successfully in any of the media industries it is vital that those entering the sector understand how an industry thinks about its audiences when constructing products and how those products are received by the target audiences. This means being able to think critically about the products others professionals are making or have made. The unit enables learners to consider the dynamic relationship between media producers and their audiences. Learners will explore the way producers think about and target specific audiences, looking at both how producers create products for audiences and how audiences use and respond to those products. Learners will then look at how meaning is carried by media products by considering how we ‘make sense’ of them, bearing in mind that there are many ways to approach a media product and many ways to ‘read’ it. Learners will have the opportunity
this unit can be augmented along with unit 3
The media sector is diverse and continually developing. Across the sector media producers develop distinct products which serve a specific purpose and function. These media products have developed over time in response to changes in society, culture and technology and, more specifically, in response to changing attitudes within the industry to its audiences, and to changes in the tastes and interests of those audiences. In order to work successfully in any of the media industries it is vital that those entering the sector understand how an industry thinks about its audiences when constructing products and how those products are received by the target audiences. This means being able to think critically about the products others professionals are making or have made. The unit enables learners to consider the dynamic relationship between media producers and their audiences. Learners will explore the way producers think about and target specific audiences, looking at both how producers create products for audiences and how audiences use and respond to those products. Learners will then look at how meaning is carried by media products by considering how we ‘make sense’ of them, bearing in mind that there are many ways to approach a media product and many ways to ‘read’ it. Learners will have the opportunity
this unit can be augmented along with unit 3
task 1 – Defining Media Audiences 500
Understand how media producers define audiences for their products Defining audiences: quantitative audience research, eg BARB, RAJAR, ABC; qualitative audience research, eg focus groups, questionnaires, face-to-face interviews; audience profiling, eg socio-economic status, psychographics, geodemographics, age, gender, sexual orientation, regional identity, mainstream, alternative, niche
task 2 – Media Products and their Audiences 500
Understand how media producers create products for specific audiences Addressing audiences: selection of content, eg words, images, sound, sequences, colours, fonts; construction of content, eg narratives, layout, captions, anchorage; codes and conventions, eg linguistic, visual, audio, symbolic, technical; modes of address Audience feedback: eg focus groups, audience panels, trialing and testing, reviews, complaints
task 3 – Audience Response and Behaviour 500
Understand how media audiences respond to media products Audience theory: hypodermic needle model; uses and gratifications theory; reception study; passive or active consumption Effects debates: eg effects of exposure to explicit sexual or violent content, effects of advertising, health concerns; censorship debates Responses: negotiated; preferred; oppositional; participatory; cultural competence; fan culture
task 4 – Analysis of a media product 800
Be able to develop responses to media products Critical approaches: eg content analysis, semiotic analysis, structuralism, Genre: according to production technology, eg film, video, audio, print, digital; distribution method, eg television, cinema, radio, internet, CD, iPod, mobile phone, home computer, hand-held consoles; generic codes and conventions (content, style, symbolic, cultural, technical); changes over time, eg in audience, ideological shifts, re-definition, obsolescence, spoof, pastiche, parody Narrative structures: narrative, eg single strand, multi-strand, closed, open, linear, non-linear; alternative narrative; enigma; climax; equilibrium Representation: negative; positive; of social groups; of social issues; stereotyping; presence and absence
The first part of your essay should discuss the above information into the analysis of media products. then you will move on to the actual analysis of the product. Please choose a product then come and discuss it with me. You can compare a few movies from the same genre, or break down one movie. Remember to use the audience research you have accumulated to help you explain and understand how the media reaches its audiences. And by reaches i do not just mean exhibition, codes and conventions, signs and signifiers - semiotics.