Learner response: OSP assessment

Learner response: OSP assessment

1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

WWW - There is a lot of potential here in both answers - with some work on your exam technique, I think you could quickly move to C+ grades. You clearly know details of the CSPs and theories and now need to explore both sides of the argument. 

EBI - In Q1, you confuse elements of preferred and negotiated readings. Also, don't waste time describing theories - just deconstruct the text you are given. 

In Q2, you need to try and cover both sides of the debate and offer more in terms of theories and examples. Revise the OSP theorist and CSPs and look at the mark scheme for ideas here.  

2) Read the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Identify five specific aspects from Figure 1 (the Google Home advert) that you could have mentioned in your answer (e.g. selection of image, framing and focus, colour, text etc.)

- Links Google brand to vision of ideal family life – creative play with parent; coloured pencils, paint bottle and corner of child’s picture all reinforce creativity and colour.

- The repetition of the word ‘home’ may disturb audiences who see the advert as an example that nowhere is safe from multinational capitalist giants such as Google.

- Negotiated readings could include an acceptance of a warm picture of family life – plus the potential usefulness of the speaker – despite concerns over how the device uses data and the growing power of companies such as Google and Amazon.

- Google presenting its smart speaker as a ‘natural’ part of home life will be strongly rejected by audiences concerned with data, privacy and the power technology companies such as Google have in modern western societies.

- Google represented as unthreatening, safe and a natural part of middle-class family life.

3) Now use the mark scheme to identify three potential points that you could have made in your essay for Question 2 (Hesmondhalgh - narrow range of values and ideologies).

- The role of the cultural industries in society and the way media products can influence or impact on audiences.

- The ‘End of Audience’ that Clay Shirky writes of means that a wider, more diverse range of values and ideologies are now available to consumers. Teen Vogue illustrates this with a liberal agenda that promotes perspectives championed by digital feminists in the late 2000s (sometimes considered the fourth wave of feminism). Promoting Judith Butler’s view on gender as performance, Teen Vogue is positive on gender fluidity and an increasingly non- binary approach gender identity.

- The Voice should be successful due to the opportunities that are offered by digital media and the new media landscape in creating a platform for values and ideologies such as a strong black British voice. However, the poor construction of the website and social media presence (poorly worded polls, cluttered design, low-quality photography, lack of fresh content, poor video production values, weak sponsored content) means it is not the

powerful voice in British media it should be.

4) Use your exam response, the mark scheme and any other resources you wish to use to write a detailed essay plan for Question 2. Make sure you are planning at least five well-developed paragraphs in addition to an introduction and conclusion.

- Intro; talk about how a narrow range of ideas dominate cultural industries and talk a bit on industries. 
- Para 1; link it to teen vogue and use examples showing you know the CSP. 
- Para 2; link it to the voice and incorporate examples once again.
- Para 3; talk about similarities and differences both CSPs have. 
- Para 4; link it to other media theorists and their values and ideologies. 

5) Finally, identify three key areas you plan to revise from the OSP unit (CSP aspects or theories) having looked at your feedback from this assessment.

- Revise more theorists to link back to in answers

- Focus on exam techniques and how to answer questions 

- Do more research myself on the CSPs to have additional knowledge that I can include in my answers.