Higher Media Course Outline:

• Coursework: Production Assignment (50%)

• Exam Paper 1: Analysis of Media Content in Context (30%)

• Exam Paper 2: Role of Media (20%)

Key Skills:

• analysing media content, as appropriate to purpose, audience and context 

• applying and analysing the key aspects of media literacy, as appropriate to content

• critical understanding of the role of media 

• creating media content, as appropriate to purpose, audience and context

• knowledge and understanding of how to plan and research when creating media content, as appropriate to purpose, audience and context

• knowledge of contextual factors, constraints and freedoms that affect producers of media content  a wide range of evaluation skills 

How to support your child:

• Join your child's Google Classroom for Media

• Check in with your child regularly about what they are learning in Media

• Encourage and support your child with completing homework, regular revision and coursework

The N5 Media course is taught alongside the Higher course and essentially follows the same structure as the above. The only difference is in the way that the course is assessed.

Exam: Analysis of Media Content (50%)

As with the above Higher Media course, we study a range of media texts and the exam paper requires you to analyse this media content in relation to the seven key aspects of media literacy:

• Categories (how to group media texts - e.g. by genre, form, etc)

• Language (media techniques used to put forward meaning - e.g. mise-en-scene, camera angles, layout, sound design, etc)

• Representation (how certain groups, peoples and institutions are depicted in the media, focusing on the use of stereotypes)

• Narrative (what drives the story in media texts)

• Audience (who the text is aimed at and how different audiences may respond differently)

• Institutions (the people and companies who make media texts, with a focus on the industry issues that can affect the final media text - e.g. budget, broadcasting guidelines, etc)

• Society (the relationship between media texts and the society that has created them)

You can present your answers to these exam questions as a series of bullet points (getting one mark for explaining a concept, giving a relevant example from a piece of media and/or analysing that example). One of the questions in the exam will be a 10-mark question about the role that media plays in society, so you can use the same text used for the Higher 'Role of Media' exam paper. In the same exam, you are expected to analyse one unseen film poster.

Production Assignment (50%)

This part of the course essentially involves researching, planning, creating and evaluating your own piece of media. In previous years, the brief has been to work in groups to create a television advert for Irn Bru.

The following areas are covered in this section of the course:

Planning and research:

• identifying areas of content, audience and institutional research appropriate to a brief

• carrying out appropriate research and drawing conclusions from findings

• planning how to carry out specific production role(s) and/or institutional research

• using research findings to plan media content appropriate to purpose, audience and context

Production processes: 

• applying knowledge of pre-production, production and post-production processes appropriate to medium/form 

• applying knowledge of production roles and responsibilities appropriate to medium/form 

• applying knowledge of media codes and conventions to create finished content appropriate to purpose, audience and context

Evaluation:

• evaluating how effectively production role(s) were carried out within the institutional context

• evaluating how effectively media codes and/or techniques were used in finished content

Application of key aspects of media literacy:

• applying, where relevant, content- and context-based key aspects of media literacy to planning and research, production processes and evaluation