GCSE Media Studies

Why Choose Media Studies?

We live in a media-saturated world. From video clips on your phone, to TV ads to blockbuster movies, to posters at the bus stop, to the music in your earbuds, you are surrounded by media messages for most of your waking hours. How do you make sense of them all? How do you know what they are trying to communicate — both on an obvious and a less obvious level? How do you know how much you have been influenced — consciously or subconsciously — by these media messages? Does the media reflect your reality, or control the way you view it?

It's been said that media literacy is as important to living in the 21st century as regular literacy was to the 20th century. Media Studies helps you develop an important set of skills that will help you navigate the rest of your education and then, your working life. Media Studies will help you increase your knowledge and understanding of:

Studying the Media

Media Studies information is not always to be found in textbooks. You need to take the principles that you learn in class and apply them to the media that you find around you. Most students have in-depth knowledge of particular forms of media (your favourite genre of music, or movies, or video games) and you can apply what you have learned in school to the media that play the biggest part in your life.

Use the menu on the left to go to the main topic areas covered, or use the search box: just enter a keyword. You can stick to the GCSE pages or may want to look ahead to some of the A-level information.

If you haven't already read them (or if you're having trouble with core topics), the Introductory Pages will provide you with an easy run down of the most important ideas.

You will also find it useful to browse the news in order to keep up with the latest in media developments. The Mediaknowall blog includes quick daily media news highlights, so you may want to get into the habit of checking us regularly.

If you join our Facebook page, blog entries will be automatically posted to your News Feed. You can also ask for help on the discussion page.

If you search online, you'll find a lot of schools and colleges are developing their own Media Studies websites, including student blogs that share notes, ideas and information.

Plagiarism

It seems very tempting to cut and paste - don't! It's vital that you put your thinking and explanations into your own words, especially when it comes to coursework. Many teachers and examiners now use services such as TurnItIn.com which instantly checks your work against the entire internet. Even more simply, your teacher can Google a phrase from your essay and find the original online - you are immediately busted. DON'T DO IT.