Analysing video game, online, social and participatory media set products through the four frameworks, including interactivity, user-generated content, the games industry, and how online media engages and targets audiences.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to analyse video game and online, social and participatory media set products through the four frameworks. You should understand interactivity, user-generated content, the games industry, and how online media engages and targets audiences. These are the most interactive media forms in the AQA GCSE Media Studies (8572) specification, examined in Paper 2, and they make the active audience and convergence ideas especially relevant.

Interactivity and participation

Interactivity is what sets these forms apart from older media. A film viewer receives a fixed text, but a game player makes choices that shape their experience, and a social-media user creates and shares content that becomes part of the product. This makes uses and gratifications and the active audience debate central: the player or user clearly chooses, interprets and acts. The gratifications are easy to identify and apply, for example entertainment through gameplay, personal identity through customising a character or profile, and social interaction through multiplayer modes and online communities. Always tie the interactivity to a specific feature of the set product.

The games industry and online media

The industry framework is rich here. Games are funded through sales, downloadable content, in-game purchases and subscriptions, and they are regulated by age-rating systems that connect to the wider regulation debate. Representation matters because games construct characters and worlds that can reinforce or challenge stereotypes, just as other media do. Online and social media platforms are funded largely by advertising and the data they gather from users, which raises questions about privacy and power. Connecting these points to a specific set product, rather than discussing the industry in general, is what earns marks.

Engaging and targeting audiences

Video games and online media engage audiences through interactivity, reward systems, community and shareable content, and they target audiences through genre, platform and marketing. Because audiences participate, engagement is often deeper and more social than in older media: players invest time and identity, and users build communities and reputations. The shift to participation underpins the idea of the prosumer, the audience member who is also a producer, which links directly to convergence and to the active audience.

How this is examined

Video game and online set products are examined in Paper 2, with questions worth up to 12 marks that name a framework. Questions may ask you to explain how interactivity engages the audience, analyse industry issues, or evaluate whether audiences have become producers. The reliable scoring move is to tie interactivity to the active audience and gratifications, connect industry and representation to the specific product, and weigh participation against producer control where a judgement is required.