Media syllabus, dot point by dot point

Component 03/04: applying the theoretical framework to your own production, using media language conventions to make meaning, constructing deliberate representations, following the industry conventions of the chosen form, and designing the product to address its target audience (AO3).

Component 03/04: creating the media product to a high technical and creative standard using your own original assets, meeting every requirement of the brief, and judging the finished product against the brief and the framework (technical quality, conventions, representation and audience appeal).

Component 03/04: researching the form and audience of the chosen brief, planning the production (concept, audience, conventions and original assets), and using research and planning to make deliberate, convention-led choices that meet the brief.

Component 03/04: the Creating Media NEA, responding to one OCR-set brief to create a media product for an intended audience, understanding the brief's requirements, and writing the assessed Statement of Intent that explains how the production will apply the framework.

Exam skills: using accurate subject terminology and applying the framework's key ideas (and named thinkers such as Todorov, Propp, Barthes and Hall) to support analysis, so that terminology and theory serve the argument rather than being listed for their own sake.

Exam skills: the OCR command words (identify, explain, analyse, compare, discuss) and question types across the two components, what each requires of you, and how to match the depth and shape of your answer to the command word and mark tariff.

Exam skills: the structure of the two written components (Component 01 Television and Promoting Media, with viewing time; Component 02 Music and News), their sections, marks and timing, and how to manage time across the questions to maximise marks.

Exam skills: structuring the extended (higher-tariff) responses, building an argument with clear points anchored in named detail, using the framework, comparing directly where required, and reaching a judgement, the shape that lifts an answer into the top level of response.

Media audiences: how audiences interpret and respond to media products, the difference between passive and active audience models, the idea of media effects, and how different audiences can read the same product in different ways (Hall's preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings).

Media industries: who owns media companies (including conglomerates and concentrated ownership), how products are funded (advertising, subscription, licence fee, public funding), and how ownership and funding models shape the products that are made and who they serve.

Media industries: the processes of production, distribution and circulation, the role of regulation and regulators (such as the BBFC, Ofcom and the press regulators), and why regulation exists to protect audiences and uphold standards.

Media audiences: how producers identify, categorise and target audiences (by demographics such as age, gender and social class, and by psychographics such as lifestyle and values), and how products are constructed to appeal to and reach a target audience.

Media industries: how digital technology and convergence have changed production, distribution and consumption, including cross-media and synergistic production, participatory and user-generated content, and how convergence reshapes the relationship between producers and audiences.

Media language: how the codes and conventions of media products (technical, visual, audio and written codes, and the conventions of form and genre) communicate meaning, and how producers select and combine them to construct a preferred reading for the audience.

Media representation: how the media re-present (rather than simply reflect) events, people, places and social groups through selection, construction and mediation, the choices that shape a representation, and how representations carry particular viewpoints and values for the audience to accept or reject (Hall).

Media language: narrative (how stories are structured, including equilibrium and disruption, and character roles) and genre (how products are grouped by shared conventions, and how genres develop and hybridise), and how both shape audience expectations (Todorov, Propp).

Media language: semiotics and the study of signs, the difference between denotation (the literal meaning) and connotation (the associated meaning), and how audiences read the signs in a media product to construct its meaning (Barthes).

Media representation: how the media represent social groups (including by gender, age, ethnicity, region and class), what a stereotype is and why stereotypes are used, and how representations can reinforce, challenge or subvert stereotypes for the audience.

Component 02 Section B: comparing historic and contemporary news front covers (and across the music products) to show how media language, representation, industry and audience have changed over time, tying change to the social, technological and historical contexts of each era.

Component 02 Section B: the online, social and participatory media of the set news brand (its website and social media), how the brand extends across platforms (convergence), and how interactivity, comment and sharing change the relationship between the news producer and its audience.

Component 02 Section A: the set music magazine (MOJO), studied for media language (the conventions of a magazine cover and contents), representation, industries (the publisher, funding by sales and advertising) and audiences (a specialist, knowledgeable target reader).

Component 02 Section A: the set pair of music videos, studied for media language (performance and narrative conventions, editing to the beat, star image), representation (gender, identity), and how they construct meaning and an artist's image for the audience.

Component 02 Section B: the set news product (The Observer), its print front covers studied for media language (the conventions of a front page), representation and mediation (how news is selected and constructed), industries (the publisher, funding and press regulation) and audiences.

Component 02 Section A: the set radio product (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge), studied for media language (audio codes, the conventions of music radio), industries (public service broadcasting, the BBC's remit and funding) and audiences (who it targets and how it reaches them).

Component 01 Section A: analysing the media language of the screened television extract, reading the technical codes (camera, editing, lighting), audio codes (music, sound, dialogue) and mise-en-scene to explain how meaning is created, and applying this to the unseen extract in the exam.

Component 01 Section B: how the promoting media set products use synergy and convergence to promote one property across film, marketing and a tie-in video game, the role of the global conglomerate, and how cross-media promotion reaches and persuades audiences.

Component 01 Section A: how the television crime drama set products construct representations of social groups, gender, age, ethnicity and place, how these reflect the contexts of their eras, and how representations have changed between the historic and contemporary products.

Component 01 Section A: the industries and audiences of the television crime drama set products, who produced and broadcast them (public service and commercial broadcasters), how broadcast television is regulated, who the dramas target, and how the social, cultural, historical and technological contexts shaped them.

Component 01 Section B: the promoting media set products from one global conglomerate (the film poster, trailer and tie-in video game of a film franchise), studied for media language, representation, industries and audiences, and how they promote a property across forms.

Component 01 Section A: the television crime drama set products, a historic and a contemporary episode studied in depth across the whole framework (media language, representation, industries and audiences) and their contexts, and how the comparison shows the genre developing over time.