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: Good image of synoptic references in question 2 

EBI: Limited reference to The Voice in question 1 - more balance needed
2) Read the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Identify three potential points that you could have made in your essay for Question 1 (Shirky, audiences and producers).

• The Voice is a very typical newspaper website. In terms of conventions, it is dated – it has the feel of a 2010 news website (for example, the old BBC website). In many ways, it doesn’t reflect the changing landscape in the way one might expect – and this perhaps explains its relative lack of success in recent years. At a time digital media has been used powerfully to spotlight minority issues (such as the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA), The Voice in the UK seems to have been largely silenced. The refusal to publish website or circulation statistics suggests a brand that has failed to adapt to the “contemporary media ecosystem” Shirky describes.
• Analysis of the social media content reinforces this. The Voice’s YouTube channel offers videos with startlingly low production values such as ‘Meet Six Influential Black Women’. This should be attractive content with the potential to go viral but it is poorly constructed with low-quality audio, an irrelevant and distracting whiteboard in the background and a YouTube view count of just 150. Indeed, while audience data for The Voice’s website and print version are not available, the low number of YouTube views suggests a brand struggling to survive in the 21 st century media landscape.
• The Voice should be successful – the opportunities that are offered by digital media and the new media landscape in targeting niche audiences could provide an ideal platform for a strong black British voice. However, the poor construction of the website and social media presence (dead links, cluttered design, low-quality photography, lack of fresh content, poor video production values) means it is not the powerful voice in British media it set out to be when launched in 1982. Shirky discusses the “mass amatuerisation” of the media but successful products still need to at least imitate professional production values and The Voice fails to do this.

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

• Teen Vogue has encouraged activism and played a partisan role in the gun violence debate and Black Lives Matter movement (‘Black Teens Have Been Fighting for Gun Reform for Years’ – February 2018). These are values and ideologies that have been present in mainstream media previously but not from a teenage magazine brand like Teen Vogue. Indeed, it is a huge change from the content of the first print edition of Teen Vogue in 2003.
• 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 (dead links, cluttered design, low-quality photography, lack of fresh content, poor video production values) means it is not the powerful voice in British media it should be.
• The Voice offers an explicit black British perspective on news stories and issues in London and the UK. This alone sets it apart from mainstream media and suggests that Hesmondhalgh’s view that only a narrow range of values and ideologies are available is not entirely accurate. Features such as the first black photographer to shoot the cover picture of Vogue magazine (December 2018) and a suggestion to ‘Buy black on Black Friday’ (November 2018) both reflect this agenda. However, The Voice has been doing this to some extent since its launch in 1982 and it has arguably become less powerful and influential in recent years. This suggests the digital revolution Clay Shirky writes about (the “billion new participants in the contemporary media ecosystem”) has not benefited The Voice in its mission to promote values and ideologies that remain outside the mainstream.

4) Use your exam response, the mark scheme and any other resource you wish to use to write a detailed essay plan for Question 1. 

Introduction: 

- support statement in question to a significant extent, Teen Vogue more so

- both CSPs are examples of 'open technology'; built to suit the principles of 'equality', 'social justice' and 'free expressions' that are increasing in contemporary society

- both CSPs have strong connection with their consumer; actively reflecting societal ideologies relevant to the audience through website content 
P1: 

- Teen Vogue reflective of Clay Shirky's "new ecosystem"; media is decreasingly in the hands of the professionals and is progressively becoming more from the hands of consumers

- "woke brand" ; awareness of issues concerning social justice, aiming to make change towards a more equal, progressive society

- reflects the "new participants in the contemporary media ecosystem" ; they work with and understand their audience in order to. carry out their mission statement of "amplifying the voices of the unheard, telling stories that go untold" :  this represents the relationship with audience so consumers feel represented in mainstream media

- articles take on a more left wing activist stance reflecting the majority of their readers political view - "Donald Trump gaslighting America" "Break Away from Gender Binary"

P2: 

- digitalisation: Teen Vogue is a representation of digital influencers changing the media landscape for women in particular 

- women, a high proportion of Teen Vogue's target audience, are a minority group who have been unheard and misrepresented in traditional media 

- 'Skai Jackson' Black American TV star used on Teen Vogue digital platform as an influencer, representing a change in diversity in the media

- digital influencers becoming more apparent with in media news industry, great in showing the decrease in professionals presenting news to audiences 

- social media: audiences can actively interact with Teen Vogue through platforms such as facebook, twitter and instagram

- social media link = growth in amateurisation, growth in the amount of self published content which allows audience to produce and publish their own news "anyone can be a publisher, anyone can be a journalist" 

P3:

- The voice doesn't reflect the change in relationship between audiences and producers as much a teen vogue 

- The Voice is a very typical newspaper website: it is dated; it has

the feel of a 2010 news website (for example, the old BBC website)

- poor website aesthetic = relative lack of success in recent years

- at a time digital media has been used powerfully to spotlight minority issues (Black Lives Matter movement), The Voice has been silent on such topics

- refusal to publish website or circulation statistics suggests brand has failed to adapt to the “contemporary media ecosystem”

- however, does show how reflective its ideologies are of its audience

- set up to give black Britons a voice and accurate representation in the news industry; an industry where they often go unheard or misrepresented 

- Gilroy's 'double consciousness' = The Voice was launched to see the world through audiences own eyes rather than through white, often racist mainstream media.

Conclusion:

- since digitalisation there has been a more evident change in the relationship between audiences and producers as it is becoming easier for audiences to create their own texts and put it out online 

-as audiences are becoming more represented through the media, especially minority groups, the change in relationship between producers and audiences is more evident as producers are becoming more understanding and reaching out to give a more accurate representation of their audiences - Teen Vogue in particular

5) Do the same for Question 2. Remember, Question 2 is a synoptic question so your answer must refer to aspects from the whole A Level Media course. Therefore, make sure you are bringing in CSPs, theories or debates from across the whole course of study.

Introduction: 

- Teen Vogue and The Voice are both media products that promote social justice + strive to create equality for minority groups

- CSP's strong social activist beliefs: they undermine the argument that the cultural industries are dominated by a narrow range of values and ideologies

P1:

- The Voice online news platform formed after the Brixton race riots : intended to give a voice to the misrepresented and unheard black Britons in a white dominated mainstream media

- reflective of a cultural industry that produces texts that do not support conditions where large companies make money; instead the Voice challenges these mainstream capitalist ideologies and the inequalities of race and gender in society

- challenges various institutions and mainstream beliefs of our contemporary society

- CONTRAST TO 'The Sun' newspaper which lacks in offering more controversial texts, giving minority groups a voice rather than reinforcing mainstream beliefs 

- The Sun = more right wing political stance, large product produced by upper class white British, not appealing to smaller minority groups in society

- The Voice = left wing political stance, more of a niche product, specifically target black Britons who are a minority group - goes against the idea that cultural industries are dominated by a narrow range of values and ideologies

- Gilroy's double consciousness 

P2:

The Voice offers an explicit black British perspective on news stories and issues in London

and the UK. This alone sets it apart from mainstream media and suggests that

Hesmondhalgh’s view that only a narrow range of values and ideologies are available is not entirely accurate. Features such as the first black photographer to shoot the cover picture of Vogue magazine (December 2018) and a suggestion to ‘Buy black on Black Friday’ (November 2018) both reflect this agenda. However, The Voice has been doing this to some extent since its launch in 1982 and it has arguably become less powerful and influential in recent years. This suggests the digital revolution Clay Shirky writes about (the “billion new participants in the contemporary media ecosystem”) has not benefited The Voice in its mission to promote values and ideologies that remain outside the mainstream.

P3: 

- Teen Vogue mission statement "amplifying the voices of the unheard, telling stories that normally go untold"

- pro LGBT, pro- feminism, pro equality, "woke brand" aiming for social justice

- left wing dominated controversial product which goes against dominating values and ideologies presented in mainstream media

- "production of social meaning" = support of gender fluidity, LGBT community, empowering these communities through their articles addressing the topic which often gos unspoken or underrepresented in mainstream media 

- "How to break away from gender binary" 

- Oh Comely = similar ideologies to Teen Vogue; niche magazine empowering gender and fighting for social justice 

- both texts are an example of broader values and ideologies in the cultural industries

- Oh comely = produced a story about a girl's journey through her transgender transformation, educating audiences on a controversial topic that normally goes unexplained in mainstream media 

Conclusion:

-Both CSPs are successful in reflecting representation of minority groups in the cultural industries