01 TELEVISION

 OCR pdf guide to Television : Industry and Audience here
https://clickv.ie/w/9Lun
Our specification asks us to learn about television, its institutions and audiences through the comparison of two case studies (see below). We learn about Public service broadcasting.
We compare the social, cultural, political and historical contexts of the two television texts.
We analyse the film language: how is meaning made through sound, camerawork, mise-en-scene and editing?
We also learn how to draw on theory to understand how television programmes meet audiences' needs such as the uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour, Blumler and Katz.
Here is our specification: 

The exam is 1 hour 45 minutes long. Section A is on television (for information about Section B, see 01 Promoting Media).
In the exam, there will be an extract played. Here are all the sample exam questions from the specimen paper:

Worth 5 marks: write half a side of A4

Worth 10 marks: write one and a half a sides of A4

Worth15 marks: write 2 sides of A4

Worth 5 marks: write half a side of A4

 

Worth 10 marks: write a side and a half of A4

The 'historical' television drama programme is The Avengers Series 4, Episode 1 "The Town of No Return" (open the link).
We are introduced to the world of The Avengers in the documentary programme (open link on left) which sets it in context.

We compare it to Cuffs, starting with a table of comparisons, which we are currently making.

Cuffs is a pre-watershed drama illustrating, for example: the dominance of the police drama genre in contemporary television schedules and the industrial importance of the serial narrative form, the role of BBC1 in the contemporary television industry, how representations seek to reflect contemporary contexts, the offering of uses and gratifications to attract  a mass audience in an increasingly segmented market.

The Avengers is a PG certificate drama illustrating a historically significant media product.

The Avengers was a landmark television series in the 1960s  and reflects  the brand image of ITV as more daring in this era. The media language is comparatively rich for a television product of this era and a monochrome episode has been set to illustrate changing television technology. The Avengers TV show helped define the ‘spy drama’ genre in the 1960s  and was influenced by events occurring as it was filmed, including episodes that parodied current and historical events. The Avengers also included one of the first memorable examples of product placement (the ‘Lotus Elan’), a technique which has great historical significance in contributing towards the funding of films and commercial television programmes in the present day.

The Avengers also illustrates the industrial importance of the series narrative form in 1960s television, the role of ITV in the era of three channel television, how representations reflect the 1960s contexts, how audience responses and interpretations may change over time as popular television products develop cult status.

2    The Avengers series is also a significant product due to its cultural and social impact and reach. The Avengers was a long-running series that was a mainstay of 1960s primetime television. Series four was sold to American television and the series played a role in representing 1960s Britain to the rest of the world – eventually showing in 120 countries – reinforcing stereotypes of the traditional British

upper-class. It became a cult programme as an important example of 1960s popular drama and is still aired on British television today.

Learners must study at least the one set episode of each of these programmes in detail, practising

analysis of extracts, and developing their knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework as it applies to the programmes as a whole.

Learners must study the contexts associated with the media products and develop an understanding of the differences between how the two media products illuminate the changing social, cultural, historical and political contexts of the mid-1960s and mid-2010s, enabling learners to develop a detailed understanding of how they appear in mainstream drama. It is recommended that learners investigate other similar media products from these periods to reinforce their understanding of how the two products reflect their contexts.

Learners must study the listed episodes in terms of all four areas of the theoretical  framework,  including the theoretical perspectives, and the media products’ social, cultural, historical and political contexts, listed in the table at the end of Component 01.

 

Question 1 terminology