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Media Language

5 dot points across 5 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do you apply Steve Neale's genre theory, that genres are instances of repetition and difference, to analyse media products?

Genre theory (Steve Neale): genres are processes of repetition and difference, defined by audience and industry expectation, and they change over time through hybridity and the play between convention and variation.
How to apply Steve Neale's genre theory in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers genres as repetition and difference, conventions and audience expectation, why genres evolve and hybridise, the industrial logic of genre, and how to use the theory on set products in the exam.
12 min answer →

How do you apply Todorov's narratology, especially the equilibrium model, to analyse the way media products are structured to make meaning?

Narratology (Tzvetan Todorov): media narratives tend to move through equilibrium, disruption and a new equilibrium; the structure of disruption and resolution carries meaning and ideology.
How to apply Tzvetan Todorov's narratology in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers the equilibrium model (equilibrium, disruption, recognition, repair, new equilibrium), why the structure carries meaning and ideology, how it applies across media forms, and how to use it on set products in the exam.
12 min answer →

How do you apply Baudrillard's postmodernism, including simulacra and hyperreality, to analyse media products that blur the boundary between reality and representation?

Postmodernism (Jean Baudrillard): in a media-saturated culture, simulations and simulacra replace reality, producing hyperreality where the distinction between the real and its representation collapses.
How to apply Jean Baudrillard's postmodernism in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers simulation, simulacra and hyperreality, how media-saturated culture blurs reality and representation, intertextuality and pastiche, and how to use the theory on set products in the exam.
12 min answer →

How do you use Barthes' semiotics to analyse the way a media product makes meaning through signs, denotation, connotation and myth?

Semiotics (Roland Barthes): media products communicate meaning through signs; analysis works through denotation and connotation, and ideological myth naturalises constructed meanings as common sense.
How to apply Roland Barthes' semiotics in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers signs, signifier and signified, denotation and connotation, the way connotations carry ideological myth, and how to use the theory to analyse media language in print and audio-visual products for the exam.
13 min answer →

How do you use Levi-Strauss's structuralism and the idea of binary oppositions to uncover the underlying meaning and ideology of media products?

Structuralism (Claude Levi-Strauss): meaning depends on binary oppositions; the conflicts a media text is built around (good or evil, nature or culture) reveal its underlying structure and ideological values.
How to apply Claude Levi-Strauss's structuralism in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers binary oppositions, how the conflicts a text is organised around carry meaning and ideology, how to identify oppositions in set products, and how to use the theory in the exam.
12 min answer →