How to get marks in A-Level Media Studies

• make reference to media theory
• use media language consistently
• answer the question - underline key terms
• structure - PEA, PEE
• make reference to explicit examples

Print Media Language:

• masthead
• headline
• by-line
• sub-heading
• caption
• image
• author
• date
• Lexis - the choice of language (e.g informal or formal)
• anchorage - anything that weighs down meaning (e.g caption under an image)
• design and layout
• colour
• conventional and unconventional
• mise-en-scene (MES) → put in scene
• graphics
• ideology
• font - sans serif, serid
• composition - where everything is
• the z-line rule
• main type
• shot types - close up, mid shot, long shot
• lighting
• cover lines
• pull quotes
• copy (body text)
• centre spread
• gutters

Media Studies is using media language to point out the deeper meaning of media products

Liesbet Van Zoonen

• gender is constructed through media language → e.g shot types, camera angles, mise-en-scene
• men and women are represented differently in media products
• what it means to be a man and a woman has changed over time
• patriarchal hegemony- rules put in place by men

• the mise-en-scene of Kelly's eyeshadow draws attention to the fact that this woman is particularly hegemonically attractive. This is further anchored through her dark, rich lipstick which has connotations of wealth and power as well as sexuality. 
• Further anchorage is provided through the caption which asserts her "tantalising beauty". Ultimately, Kelly is presented as a spectacle for a perceived heterosexual male audience, which reinforces patriarchal hegemony.
• Kelly appears as an aspirational role model for the target audience, though this goal would be impossible for many of the target audience to achieve. By repeating and reinforcing images of beautiful and hegemonically attractive women. Women magazine cultivates the dominant patriarchial ideology that in order to be successful, one must be attractive. By placing unrealistic beauty on women, Woman magazine cultivates a sense of insecurity for it's target audience. This is purely for the reasons of power and profit, as by making the target audience upset, it ensures that they will continue to buy the magazine
• her slightly parted lips function as a proairetic code, placing the audience in a romantic and even sexual mode of address
• use of the headline of 'Alfred Hitchcock' instantly attracts the audience to the newspaper and the double page spread as he is a known name in the film industry, and many (particularly middle-class white business men) will be interested to know his perspectives on "the mystery of british women"
• bold and sans-serif headline is exciting and striking, and communicates explicitly to the target audience that Hitchcock is an important man
• the sequence CU shots of Hitchcock emphasises his status as a hegemonically unattractive man. However, if anything this reinforces his power and privilege. Hitchcock is under no obligations to be sexually attractive, which reinforces a double standard that exists between men and women