OCR A-Level Media Studies theoretical perspectives overview quiz quiz

Representation

Media industries

Audiences

Media language

Accurate theory plus genuine application to the set product

Reciting the theory in full and then describing the set product quite separately from it

Listing every named theorist on the specification, whether or not they fit the question

Avoiding the theory named in the question and writing about a different theorist instead

Todorov

Barthes

Curran and Seaton

Gerbner

Using only a single constraint theory and applying it throughout the whole essay

Using only a single agency theory and applying it throughout the whole essay

Pairing a constraint theory with an agency theory

Using no theory at all and simply describing the representations in the product

Whether the product is popular and commercially successful with its target audience

How long the product is and how much screen time each character or group receives

Who owns the product and which conglomerate the producing company belongs to

Whether the representation reinforces or challenges the dominant ideology

Ownership (Curran and Seaton), risk (Hesmondhalgh), regulation (Livingstone and Lunt)

All three of the industry theories answer exactly the same question about ownership

All three are concerned only with how the media industries are regulated by the state

All three are concerned only with the needs and gratifications that audiences bring

Using only one of the industry theories and applying it across the whole essay

Connecting ownership, risk and regulation on named industry detail

Ignoring the set product entirely and writing about the theories in the abstract

Listing the names of all the regulators without linking them to any of the theories

Alphabetically by the surname of each named theorist on the specification

By the date each theory was first published, working from the oldest to the newest

On the active-passive spectrum, setting passive against active

By the length of each theory, dealing with the shortest theories first

Audiences are entirely passive and simply absorb whatever messages the media send them

Audiences ignore the media completely, so media products have no effect on them at all

Theory cannot describe audiences at all, so it is pointless to apply any of it to them

Audiences are active interpreters and producers but still influenced and guided

Choose, apply, judge, combine

Define, copy, repeat, stop

List, describe, conclude, ignore

Read, watch, write, submit