OSP assessment learner response

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 - You clearly know some clear details about the CSPs as well as some theory. There is clear potential here if you can work on your exam technique

EBI - The 25 mark essay needs planning, organisation and an argument running through it. You need to focus on the Q throughout. Where are your paragraphs?!

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.)
Five aspects that I could have mentioned in my answer to question 1 are as follows:

• 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.

• Reinforces white, western, middle-class representation of family life to the exclusion of other backgrounds (race/ethnicity, sexuality, age, class). Presents the white, western ‘2.4 children’ average as desirable, aspirational lifestyle – some audiences will reject this.

• Some audiences may reject the stereotypical gender roles with a mother playing with the two children and no father in shot (presumably at work). This arguably reinforces negative and outdated gender stereotypes.

• 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.

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).

• Alternatively, it could be argued that Teen Vogue is replicating many of the mainstream, hegemonic values and ideologies found across the cultural industries with regards to the representation of women and the fashion industry. Despite appearing to champion progressive causes, Teen Vogue in fact reinforces the expectations placed on women with regards to beauty and appearance. This is regressive and promotes a capitalist ideal that encourages people – particularly women – to spend money to solve ‘problems’ with their life and appearance. These fashion and beauty stories often use narrative to create the idea of ‘solving’ problems and creating a new equilibrium.

• 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.

• Paul Gilroy has written extensively on the experience of black British people and his work on ‘double consciousness’ is worth exploring in relation to this question. The Voice arguably plays an important role in offering a more diverse range of values and ideologies in offering black British audiences representations that more closely reflect their experience of life in Britain. Gilroy would arguably agree with Hesmondhalgh’s view that the cultural industries promote a narrow set of values and ideologies – ideologies that are dominated by white voices and a white perspective. If The Voice offers black audiences the opportunity to see representations that are not created by media producers that are overwhelmingly white (and middle class) then it is arguably offering an important service to British culture despite its low production values or YouTube view counts.

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.

1st paragraph - For this first little introduction paragraph I need to introduce what exactly I'm going to be arguing throughout this essay. I also need to include words from the question as that could also get me quick marks.

2nd paragraph - Second paragraph I must talk about the first CSP which is Teen Vogue and mention the values and ideologies it offers. I can talk about the different theorists that link to Teen Vogue such as Judith Butler. Mention Hegemonic values in regards to the representations of women and the fashion industry. 

3rd paragraph - I'll talk about The Voice CSP and how the quality of it has really deteriorated and that the YouTube channel offers content that is really low in production.

4th paragraph - Wide range of values in both CSP's Teen Vogue and The Voice. 

5th paragraph begin to close up the essay, summarise the points, mention another theorist.

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.
I need to focus on my planning, organisation and timing as they seem to be the reoccuring problems. I wil also revise feminist theory to do with Van Zoonen  as wel as Butler's gender as a performance. I also intend to go over The Voice and Teen Vogue in more depth to gain more knowledge about these CSPS.