Textual Investigation 1 continued

Learning objective:
To bring textual investigation 1 (genre) up to date with paragraphs on audience and iconography.

Key terms:
Denotation, connotation, implies, target audience,  NRS, desensitised, iconography, codes.

Textual Investigations are an important part of your GCSE final grade.
You need to use lesson time this week to put in some hard work on your first textual investigation.
Be sure to use media terminology, every blog post here includes key terms that will gain you marks.
Each time you complete a paragraph, email the document to Mr Ealey as an attachment for feedback.

By the end of this week you should have at least completed the following on the digital version of your investigation:

• A dictionary definition of the concept of genre.
• An introductory paragraph

Here you should set out what you are going to be writing about in the essay and what you are going to be comparing your main text with. This part should also include an illustration of your text.

You will return to the introductory paragraph when the essay is complete, then you can state any theorists you have written about.

• A paragraph about audiences which can include:

State what category the target audience falls into using NRS categories (A, B, C1 or C2, D, E).

What is the age rating for your actual text? PEGI ratings for games. 

Say why the text is or isn't suitable for certain audiences. 

Remember that young people need to be protected from harmful content that they may otherwise consider to be normal behaviour. Describe what desensitized means if appropriate.

What would the target audience expect when they see the poster?

Expectations depend on what they have seen the stars appear in before, what other texts have the distributors been involved with before?

This leads to....

• A comparison of iconography with another text of the same genre

State what iconography is usually associated with the genre you are dealing with.

Costumes, props, settings, special effects or stars that are associated with that genre.

Say if your text conforms or challenges genre conventions.

Compare your text with another text of the same genre which conforms or challenges the genre conventions.

Go through the visual codes (costume, facial expression, colour, body language, graphics and setting) and the technical codes (Framing and lighting) to see if you can find interesting aspects of your text to discuss.

When you complete these you should discuss representation of males or females and how they are used to give clues about genre.

Other aspects of your text that you need to consider writing about are:

Narrative structure (Todorov, Propp), layout (rule of thirds), the marketing campaign for your text is also important.