A-Level Sociology: the media

The Media is one of the four options in the second section of Paper 2 in A-level Sociology (for example, AQA A-level Sociology 7192), alongside Beliefs in Society, Global Development and Stratification. Its content runs from ownership and control, new media and globalisation to news selection, representations of social groups and audiences. This material covers each of those areas.

The quiz opens with ownership and control. You decide whether an invented owner steering his papers during an election supports the instrumental Marxist view, how the Glasgow University Media Group would explain one-sided strike coverage that nobody ordered, what the pluralist case against worrying about ownership rests on, and what vertical integration means. New media come next: Jenkins's optimistic view of participatory culture, and the digital divide that challenges it. A question on globalisation sets cultural imperialism against glocalisation and hybridity.

Two questions deal with the news: Galtung and Ruge's news values, applied to an invented bulletin, and agenda setting. Representations follow, with Tuchman's symbolic annihilation of women and Van Dijk's finding that ethnic minorities are represented mainly as a problem. The bank ends with audiences, using reception analysis to explain why three viewers read the same report in dominant, negotiated and oppositional ways.

Every quiz question describes an invented owner, newsroom, study or audience and has one defensible answer; each explanation places the idea in its debate and adds a criticism.

The material offers four formats. The 12-question quiz explains each answer. The 17-card flashcard deck covers the key concepts, from horizontal integration to the two-step flow and uses and gratifications. The printable written work sets eight open questions, including representations of class, age and disability, which the quiz does not test, with ruled space for handwritten answers that are then checked. The oral exam puts you in front of an examiner who asks one question at a time, follows up on your reasoning and gives brief feedback at the end.

Use it if you are studying the Media option, or to add media evidence to answers on crime, culture and identity.

• Compare pluralist, instrumental Marxist and hegemonic views of media ownership and control
• Explain concentration of ownership, vertical and horizontal integration
• Evaluate optimistic and pessimistic views of new media, including the digital divide
• Assess the cultural imperialism and glocalisation views of media globalisation
• Explain news selection through news values, agenda setting and gatekeeping
• Analyse media representations of gender, ethnicity, class, age and disability, and compare models of audience response

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the Media option of A-level Sociology specifications (for example AQA A-level Sociology 7192, specification version 1.2, section 4.2.7). Ownership figure: Media Reform Coalition, Who Owns the UK Media?, 2023.