Paper 1 mock exam learner response

 1) Type up your feedback in full (you do not need to write mark/grade if you do not wish to).

 -revise film industry   -use key media terminology    -revise keywords

-revise radio               -use examples

These are the grade boundaries we've used (out of 84): 

A* = 71; A = 62, B = 52; C = 43; D = 33; E = 24

Now read through the real AQA mark scheme for Paper 2 and the examiner's report (see your Media teacher's Google Classroom for both of these documents).

2) Write a question-by-question analysis of your performance. For each question, write how many marks you got from your the number available and identify any points that you missed by carefully studying the AQA indicative content in the mark scheme.

Q1: I could have talked about how ‘What will take your breath away’ offers a reading of both the breath-taking nature and the breath-expending (hill-walking, the scale of the view, the walkers in the foreground).

 Q2: I should have focused on how both texts are properly political but whereas Ghost Town is upfront about this, Figure 1 tries for a mannered neutrality (even Nature is compliant). Some may see the latter as properly unpolitical, which is a point of view.

Q3: for intertextuality to be in play there is a need for an audience’s understanding of parodic references to country and western culture within the mise en scene and the lyrics (eg Lil Nas X line dancing in his Hank Williams-inspired black-fringed western shirt or references to the iconic Marlboro Man character alongside modern commercial brands normally associated with hip-hop culture like Gucci, Maserati and Fendi)

Q4: Butler argues that not only is gender culturally constructed but that this also colours our understanding of sex (biological difference)  this clarifies that all attempts to prescribe and proscribe gender are essentially ideological (so gendered acts operate in an ideological manner).

Q5: Convergence: The coming together of technologies and institutions. Convergence creates new platforms, new product or media experience

Q6: Resonance occurs when a media message is especially noteworthy to an individual because it somehow coincides with a viewer’s lived experience. Newsbeat has a specific audience profile which is defined by age and outlook, and editorial choices aim to select ‘resonant’ material. It does have though, and always has had, a very clear pitch and voice and assumption about its audience: this register is a key technique.

Q7: I could have talked about the concept of ‘risk-taking’ (Hesmondhalgh) in terms of both  production scale and niche focus on subject matter eg the story of a Springsteen-obsessed Pakistani boy growing up in Thatcher’s Britain, coupled with links to contemporary concerns and debates about racial identity and multicultural tolerance in the UK and US.

3) Look at question 4 - the synoptic question. How many of the four key concepts did you cover in your answer? Write a new essay plan for this question using the indicative content in the mark scheme and taking care to include at least three of Language - Representations - Audience - Industries. You can use bullet points but make sure you offer enough content to meet the criteria for Level 5 (top level). This will be somewhere between 3-4 well-developed paragraphs planned in some detail.

Introduction: 

-define gender as a performance

-explain subversive performance

-Butler's claim is valid and demonstrate through CSP's

Score advert : reinforces traditional, rigid masculinity through performance.

Sephora: Black Beauty Is Beauty : presents fluid and subversive gender performances.

P1:

-Focus on gender as a constructed performance used to maintain male dominance

Context :

1960s Britain:

Decline of British Empire, Decriminalisation of homosexuality, Equal Pay Act

-These social changes challenged traditional male authority → crisis of masculinity.

Explanation: Masculinity in Score is not natural but performed through repeated visual codes. Advertising exploits male insecurity by presenting an idealised masculine performance.

Media Language analysis: man positioned physically higher than women, connotes dominance, power, authority. Props: gun, connotes aggression, warfare, control (hypermasculinity). Narrative: women as passive, admiring, therefore, masculinity defined through female subordination.

Link:The advert is “selling” masculinity as a role to be enacted, directly supporting Butler’s claim that gender is performative rather than innate

P2:

-focus on why this performance existed and how it reinforces Butler's ideas

-Gender performances are shaped by societal fears and ideologies.

-Masculinity here functions to reassert patriarchal power.

P3: 

-focus on gender as a fluid,subversive performance

Context: Created following Sephora’s 15% Pledge after a racial profiling scandal.Contemporary social climate values inclusivity and representation. Explanation: Drag explicitly demonstrates Butler’s idea that: Gender is stylised repetition, Femininity can be performed by anyone and Drag is a satirical performance, exposing gender as constructed. Media Language analysis: High-key, colourful lighting connotes positivity, safety, celebration,Costume and make-up - exaggeration of feminine traits highlights artificiality of gender norms. Link: Sephora actively subverts traditional gender binaries, reinforcing Butler’s claim.

P4:

-focus on validity of Butler's claim throughout both CSP's

Score : rigid, hegemonic masculinity

Sephora : fluid, inclusive gender identities

Despite their differences, both adverts prove that gender is performed and that meaning changes depending on historical and cultural context

Link: Butler’s claim is valid to a large extent.While performances may reinforce or challenge norms, they are never natural or fixed

4) Based on the whole Paper 2 Learner response, plan five topics / concepts / CSPs / theories that you will prioritise in your Easter Media revision timetable.

-Newsbeat

-Blinded by The Light

-Score CSP

-Hesmonhalgh

-Sephora CSP