Learner response: OSP assessment

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Your learner response is as follows:


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

 23/34 C+

  • WWW: a good counter-argument in your last paragraph of question 2  
  • EBI: Needs more explanation of the oppositional reading in question 1 and closer textual analysis 
2) Read the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Identify five specific aspects from Figure 1 (the Google Home advert) that you could have mentioned in your answer (e.g. selection of image, framing and focus, colour, text etc.)

  • Positions the Google Home device as at the heart of aspirational family life.
  • The repetition of the word ‘home’ may disturb audiences who see the advert as an example that nowhere is safe from multinational capitalist giants such as Google.
  • Negotiated readings could include an acceptance of a warm picture of family life – plus the potential usefulness of the speaker – despite concerns over how the device uses data and the growing power of companies such as Google and Amazon.
  • Google presenting its smart speaker as a ‘natural’ part of home life will be strongly rejected By audiences concerned with data, privacy and the power technology companies such as Google have in modern western societies.
  • Google represented as unthreatening, safe and a natural part of middle-class family life.

3) Now use the mark scheme to identify three potential points that you could have made in your essay for Question 2 (Hesmondhalgh - narrow range of values and ideologies).
  • How media industries target audiences through the content and appeal of media products and through the ways in which they are marketed, distributed and circulated.
  • The way values and ideologies are constructed through the representations in the products.
  • Alternatively, it could be argued that Teen Vogue is replicating many of the mainstream,hegemonic values and ideologies found across the cultural industries with regards to the representation of women and the fashion industry. 
  • The Voice should be successful due to the opportunities that are offered by digital media and the new media landscape in creating a platform for values and ideologies such as a strong black British voice. However, the poor construction of the website and social media presence (poorly worded polls, cluttered design, low-quality photography, lack of fresh content, poor video production values, weak sponsored content) means it is not the powerful voice in British media it should be.
4) Use your exam response, the mark scheme and any other resources you wish to use to write a detailed essay plan for Question 2. Make sure you are planning at least five well-developed paragraphs in addition to an introduction and conclusion.

  • Introduction- offer a comparison into the two CSP's such as how big Teen Vogue is compared to The Voice and how that affects the values and ideologies.
  • Paragraph 1-  Teen Vogue: The ‘End of Audience’ that Clay Shirky writes of means that a wider, more diverse range of values and ideologies are now available to consumers. Teen Vogue illustrates this with a liberal agenda that promotes perspectives championed by digital feminists in the late 2000s (sometimes considered the fourth wave of feminism). Promoting Judith Butler’s view on gender as performance, Teen Vogue is positive on gender fluidity and an increasingly non- binary approach gender identity. This is illustrated by features such as the October 2018 article ‘How to Break Away From the Gender Binary’. Similarly, Teen Vogue has encouraged activism and played a partisan role in the gun violence debate and Black Lives Matter movement (‘Black Teens Have Been Fighting for Gun Reform for Years’ – February 2018). These are values and ideologies that have been present in mainstream media previously but not from a teenage magazine brand like Teen Vogue. Indeed, it is a huge change from the content of the first print edition of Teen Vogue in 2003.
  • Para 2: The Voice: The Voice offers an explicit black British perspective on news stories and issues in London and the UK. This alone sets it apart from mainstream media and suggests that Hesmondhalgh’s view that only a narrow range of values and ideologies are available is not entirely accurate. Features such as the first black photographer to shoot the cover picture of Vogue magazine (December 2018) and a suggestion to ‘Buy black on Black Friday’ (November 2018) both reflect this agenda. However, The Voice has been doing this to some extent since its launch in 1982 and it has arguably become less powerful and influential in recent years. This suggests the digital revolution Clay Shirky writes about (the “billion new participants in the contemporary media ecosystem”) has not benefited The Voice in its mission to promote values and ideologies that remain outside the mainstream.
  • Para 3: Teen Vogue converse:  Alternatively, it could be argued that Teen Vogue is replicating many of the mainstream, hegemonic values and ideologies found across the cultural industries with regards to the representation of women and the fashion industry. Despite appearing to champion progressive causes, Teen Vogue, in fact, reinforces the expectations placed on women with regards to beauty and appearance. This is regressive and promotes a capitalist ideal that encourages people – particularly women – to spend money to solve ‘problems’ with their life and appearance. These fashion and beauty stories often use narrative to create the idea of ‘solving’ problems and creating a new equilibrium.
  • Para 4: The Voice converse: Paul Gilroy has written extensively on the experience of black British people and his work on‘double consciousness’ is worth exploring in relation to this question. The Voice arguably plays an important role in offering a more diverse range of values and ideologies in offering black British audiences representations that more closely reflect their experience of life in Britain. Gilroy would arguably agree with Hesmondhalgh’s view that the cultural industries promote a narrow set of values and ideologies – ideologies that are dominated by white voices and a white perspective. If The Voice offers black audiences the opportunity to see representations that are not created by media producers that are overwhelmingly white (and middle class) then it is arguably offering an important service to British culture despite its low production values or YouTube view counts.
  • Para 5 : Conclusion: Evaluate which one outweighs their values and ideologies and offer a final comparison 
5) Finally, identify three key areas you plan to revise from the OSP unit (CSP aspects or theories) having looked at your feedback from this assessment

  • I Plan to revise the industries aspects of the CSP'S to solidify and make my writing sound more confident
  • I also plan to incorporate more theorists into my essays to ensure maximum marks possible
  • Lastly, I want to ensure the understanding and application of Stuart Hall's theory is improved to  have better developed answers 

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