Welcome to Media
Purpose:
In today’s ever-evolving world of social-networking, advertising and digital technology, there has never been a more important time to study Media to help understand and navigate this constantly shifting landscape. The UK’s creative industry alone is now worth over £100 billion per year to the UK economy. The purpose of Media Studies within Meden’s curriculum is to explore how this creative industry has the power to influence, shape and change our lives.
Media studies aims to provide students with opportunities to engage more critically with the world around them, to question the motives and messages embedded within the media products they consume. Another key purpose of Media studies is helping develop students’ social-awareness and making them more socially and politically informed of the world around them. This means exploring the impact that technology can have on people’s lives and broadening students’ understanding of how media can have both a negative and positive impact on the world around them. Topics explored will include press bias, cyber-bullying, the impact of social-media related, internet regulation, air-brushing, fake news and the representation; these are just some of the wider issues discussed whilst studying Media.
How is Media going to engage and excite our learners?
- Making lessons that are relatable and linked to real world issues e.g. cyber bullying, internet safety, air-brushing, impact of media on people’s lives, gender stereotyping etc.
- Trips to places of interest e.g. local newspapers, Bradford Media Museum, BFI in London.
- Updating lessons and linking them to what is currently happening in the media e.g. discussions about fake news, internet regulation, misuse of online data by media companies, rise of social-media, changing nature of media consumption.
- Making lessons visually engaging and not focused too much on note-taking e.g. use of modelling, visualizers, collaborative planning and use of online learning platforms/VLEs like Edmodo.
- Making lessons more discussion based and student led.
- Cross-curricular links between departments and setting up joint projects that share similar interests (Media – Sociology – Psychology – Business Studies – ICT)