Media

The media plays a central role in our world. It affects society at all levels, from economics, politics, community, culture and individual.

In this course you will analyse the media and its role in everyday life. You will develop your analytical and critical skills through looking at various examples of texts from newspapers, TV, film, radio or the internet. And, you will improve your creative and expressive skills when you learn to create your own media content.

The skills you learn in this course are useful in many career areas. This includes writing, the performing arts, journalism and publishing.

This course aims to help you improve your critical and creative skills through analysing and creating media content. You will learn to look critically at examples of different media like film trailers, websites, radio or posters. And, you will get to know key concepts of media, such as language, representation, narrative, audience and categories. Learning to create media content is a big part of this course, where you might use camerawork or desktop publishing skills. You will learn to appreciate the opportunities and challenges going on in the media industry.

The course has two compulsory units, plus an added value unit that assesses your practical skills. 

Analysing Media Content (9 SCQF credit points)

In this unit you will:

• learn the skills to study media content

• learn key concepts of media to help you study media content in a straightforward way: categories, language, representation, narrative, audience and institution.

Creating Media Content (9 SCQF credit points)

In this unit you will:

• learn skills you need to create straightforward media content

• learn key concepts of media to help you create straightforward media content: categories, language, representation, narrative, audience and institution.

Added Value Unit: Media Assignment (6 SCQF credit points)

In this unit you will: 

• research a chosen topic

• plan and create media content, carrying out at least one specific production role

• reflect on the process and product. 

The course gives you the opportunity to develop knowledge of the role of media and the key aspects of media literacy: categories, language, representation, narrative, audience, institution and society.

You will:

• analyse and create media content as appropriate to purpose, audience and context

• develop knowledge and understanding of the key aspects of media literacy as appropriate to content

• develop knowledge and understanding of the role of media within society

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

• develop evaluation skills.

Your teacher or tutor will assess your work on a regular basis throughout the course. Items of work might include:

• practical work – creating an advert, or carrying out research

• written or verbal work – producing a report or giving a presentation

• class-based exams.

You must pass both units to gain the course qualification.

The course assessment has two components totalling 108 marks:

• Component 1: question paper – worth 60 marks

• Component 2: assignment – worth 48 marks.

For the assignment component (which has 2 sections - planning, 20 marks and development, 28 marks), you will be asked to generate ideas appropriate to a brief, develop and justify media content choices, create media content and evaluate the strengths and/or weaknesses of the finished content.

Both the assignment component and the question paper will be set and externally marked by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

The grade awarded is based on the total marks achieved across all course assessment components.

The course assessment is graded A-D.