OSP: Assessment learner response

 Your learner response is as follows:

Create a new blog post on your Media 1 Exam blog called 'OSP assessment learner response' and complete the following tasks:

1. Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

22/34- mark   grade-c 

Q1 WWW: Some good textual analysis on connotation

EBI: More explicit reference to "myths"  and how it works 

Q2;

WWW: A balanced answer covering  both texts well and including a range of theory's

EBI: more on audience - The consumption of products  

2. Read the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully (posted on your Google Classroom). Identify three specific aspects from Figure 1 (the Bioshock Infinite game cover) that you could have mentioned in your answer (e.g. selection of images, colour scheme, text etc).

Denotation: The cover shows Booker DeWitt, the male protagonist, in a three-quarter pose. He’s holding a gun (slung over his shoulder), with a serious or determined expression. 

Booker’s gun and posture connote strength, readiness for conflict, and traditional masculine heroism. He’s not a passive figure he seems to be someone who must fight, defend, or take action. 

Zeppelin / airship: Connotes an alternate-history, steampunk or early 20thcentury technological aesthetic. It emphasizes the “floating city” idea  Columbia is not a typical city, but one suspended in the sky. 

Myth of the lone hero / individualism: Booker’s solitary figure with a gun underlines the cultural myth that a single individual (often male) stands to make a difference, to confront systemic problems. This ties into Western heroic narratives.

3. Now use the mark scheme to identify three potential points that you could have made in your essay for Question 2 (Jenkins - participatory culture or Curran and Seaton's - concentration of ownership).

Music videos structured around layered meanings demonstrate Barthes ' theory of polysemy, encouraging multiple interpretations. 

Curated online persona highlights Swift is constructed across convergent media as both authentic and mythologised.

Streaming as the dominant mode of consumption embodies Shirky’s idea of the end of traditional gatekeeping, with users controlling when and how they listen.

Search engine optimisation-driven headlines and thumbnail optimisation show digital convergence shaping production, supporting Van Zoonen’s view of digital media as data- driven and responsive to online structures.

Multimedia storytelling (video, hyperlinks, interactives) reflects Jenkins’ convergence culture, as news content is produced to move fluidly across platforms. Features such as the first black photographer to shoot the cover picture of Vogue magazine (December 2018) and campaigns such as the Black Pound campaign encouraging readers to spend their money with Black businesses (also seen in the suggestion to ‘Buy Black on Black Friday’) both reflect this agenda.

4. Write down two other CSPs from across the course that you could have referenced in your essay which link to digital convergence in relation to production, distribution and consumption and how they have impacted their products.

GQ  and Gentlewomen 

5. 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 three well-developed paragraphs in addition to an introduction (thesis statement) and conclusion.

Introduction:

Address the  question in the first  paragraph as well as have a stance e.g digital convergence has had significant impact  on the production, distribution and consumption of all media products e.g  Taylor Swift, The Voice    

Production 

• When The Voice was first founded 
• traditionally print 
• decline of print 
• Digital producing e.g article, subscription
• Jenkins - Hesmondhalgh,
• Taylor Swift - full control of star power , Follower count 
• Digital-first video design reflects Jenkins’ convergence culture, where content is created with.

Distribution 

• multi-platform distribution in mind (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram).
• Black Diaspora 
• Paul Gilroy 
• Taylor swift  Globalisation - support democrats / hate for Trump 
• Livingstone and Lunt regulation theory  
• Curated online persona highlights Swift is constructed across convergent media as both
• authentic and mythologised.
• Fans’ reinterpretations of symbols and clues reflect Hall’s encoding/decoding, as audiences
• generate negotiated and oppositional readings. For example, at the Woman of the Decade
• award ceremony) her marketing material for the Tortured Poets Department (which is
• plastered across her website and social media)
•  Online rebranding through “eras” with Swift actively shaping how she is seen across
• platforms.

Consumption 

• Access articles anywhere 
• Clay shirky end of audience 
• Taylor swift Blumler and Katz Uses and Gratifications theory  
• Simultaneous global releases across platforms reflect Curran & Seaton’s theory of
• concentration of ownership, but Swift subverts this by maintaining strong individual power. 
• Targeting diaspora audiences through social platforms illustrates globalised digital
• distribution, central to Jenkins’ ideas about networked societies.

6. Finally, identify three key areas you plan to revise from the OSP unit before the January mock exams (e.g. CSP elements of media theories) having looked at your feedback from this assessment.

• Theorists  
• key dates/ figures 
• Media language