Media study guides

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Media Studies guide to the audiences framework. Covers audience classification and targeting, uses and gratifications (Blumler and Katz), Hall's reception theory, cultivation and effects theory (Gerbner, hypodermic needle, two-step flow), and fandom and participatory culture (Jenkins and Shirky).

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Media Studies guide to the industries framework. Covers ownership and integration, the profit motive, the set theorists Curran and Seaton and Hesmondhalgh, public service broadcasting and the BBC, production, distribution and circulation, convergence, and regulation including the BBFC and Ofcom.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Media Studies guide to the media language framework. Covers semiotics, denotation and connotation, narrative theory (Todorov, Propp, Levi-Strauss), genre and Neale, the set theorists Barthes and Todorov, intertextuality, and the technical and stylistic codes that construct meaning across media forms.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Media Studies guide to studying media products. Covers the nine media forms and Close Study Products, applying the whole framework to set products, advertising, music video and radio, newspapers and magazines, film and video games, and online, social and participatory media.

A deep-dive AQA A-Level Media Studies guide to the representation framework. Covers representation as construction, selection and mediation, stereotyping and identity, the set theorists Hall and Gauntlett, feminist and postcolonial theory (van Zoonen, bell hooks, Gilroy), and how representations position audiences.