Comparing media forms
Big Brother
The next two techniques involve looking at how different media affect the message, story or information that they carry. In considering the role of the media in society, both these techniques are very useful for looking at how messages are conveyed in different ways by different media to different audiences , how some messages may have more impact in one medium than in another, and how some media are more effective at conveying certain types of information. By using these techniques students will also learn that each medium has its own conventions, genres and languages. In doing these activities students will really explore how the different media work and that sometimes the boundary between fact and fiction can be hard to draw, in that both drama and documentary can present a theme effectively.
Generic translation
Students could 'translate'
- An item from a news broadcast into a newspaper article - considering whether this gives them an opportunity to give more information about the story.
- A newspaper article into an item for a one-minute slot on a news broadcast. What is the key information to get across, and how would they use the visual medium to convey more information than can be conveyed in a newspaper.
- A documentary into a feature length magazine or newspaper article. How does this affect what can be explained or described?
- Starting with a magazine interview of a TV or film personality, role-play it as a television interview such as on Richard and Judy or as a Jeremy Paxman interview. Discuss afterwards what one can do that the other cannot.
Cross media comparisons
- Ask students to compare the treatment of an issue in two different media and/or for two different audiences, eg a sport event on TV and one on radio;
- Select an issue such as homelessness and compare how it is treated in a newspaper feature, a drama such as Cathy Come Home, and a documentary such as Housing Problems , made in 1935, also on the DVD. See Cathy Come Home: Key Stage 4 Lesson plans (PDF, 98kb)
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