Media Studies
GCSE Media Studies engages students in the in-depth study of media products in relation to the four areas of the theoretical framework: media language, media representation, media industries and media audiences. Students are required to study media products from across a range of different media forms.
What is Media?
Media is about communication, particularly mass communication with lots of people. The media creates products that are designed to entertain and inform, created for lots of people to hear, watch or read, often at roughly the same time. Whenever you are watching television, streaming films, scrolling through social media or listening to a podcast, you are consuming media.
Does studying the media mean watching lots of television, then?
In fact, you will need to explore lots of different media products. The power that the media has is huge. Think about the idea that the average adult consumes media for almost 8 hours a day1 , and within that time, they are being bombarded by other people’s ideas and opinions and images of the world and its people. How someone responds to that will affect their ideas about people, places and society, politics and culture, of themselves and of their place in the world. Doesn’t that sound like something we should know more about?
So, what will I study?
As a Media Studies student, you will analyse how media products like TV programmes and music videos use images, sounds, language, and representations to create meaning. You will learn about the media industry and how the industry affects how media products are made. You will investigate media audiences, exploring who are the people who watch, read and consume the products, and consider how different people might be affected by media products differently, and why. You will study lots of different media forms, such as: There’s also a significant amount of practical work where you might create music videos, magazines, television programmes, advertisements and more.
