January assessment: Learner response

1) Type up your feedback in full (you do not need to write mark/grade if you do not wish to).

34= B

WWW-

• Plenty to credit here: you're engaged with the question in depth and clearly show strong critical autonomy. I love the new neutrality example and you've used fair number of theories +examples.

EBI- 

• Learn to spell theorists names! And check English in places.
• Topic sentences: significant area for development. They need to be clear, correct and show sharp focus on the question. 
• Unfinished! A conclusion would be helpful but use this as a good lesson timing.

2) Which level you think YOU are currently working at for each one. Explain WHY and, for any that are not Level 4, what you are going to do to improve in that area. 

Level 3: I am working at a level 3 because this essay contained good critical autonomy and a good understanding of but also keeping relevance to the question. However, to achieve a level 4 I will need to include more range of media debate and issues that are relevant to the question. 

3) Look at the Examiners' Report for this particular paper. Read page 10 - Section B New/digital media. How many of the good points or higher level answer examples did you include in your essay? What were they? What could you have added to improve your mark?

I achieved points of the answer examples like the impact of new and digital media has had on enabling audien to participate and the concept of democracy itself and the ability to talk of other issues from other countries as examples. However, I could have included debates on the power and control of media organisations and the obstacles to equal participation and democracy in the UK and globally, . 

4) Identify things you can take from these essays to improve your own responses in future.

• Relevant examples in current day society that can be applied
• Link to news industry as a whole rather than general points
• Quotes and theorists viewpoints to support arguments
• Current affairs, up to date research and case studies
• Statistics

5) Write ONE new paragraph for your January assessment essay. Ideally, this should be a section you did not cover in your original essay. This paragraph needs to be comprehensive and meet the criteria for Level 4 of the mark scheme. Minimum 300 words.

Furthering paragraph on UGC:

The use of citizen journalism has been used positively in the news and an example to how the evolving of the news aided by of new and digital media has enabled a democratic society because of this. The use of UGC has changed the views of traditional media with it being presented on television. Such things as citizen journalism allowed users on social media or the internet as a whole the ability to partake in the news telling much like news industries. This may reflect the pluralist idea for audiences to hold power because they are able to produce content, showing audience involvement,which even the news industry themselves show for 'realism' reinforcing the idea of a democratic space in the internet because of the ability to produce their own content. The Rodeny King case where an unarmed Black man was a victim to police brutality, the footage of it was filmed on a bystander's phone and used as evidence for the case for convicting the police officer. The footage being filmed by someone not of a traditional media such as news anchors and using a mobile phone to capture the moment highlights that new digital media such as development of technology show a democratic effect on news and the public to see this as a way to be involved in the news. However, the disadvantages of UGC is shown in the fact that unlike news outlets, UGC doesn't go through keeping which may be used to find inaccuracies or bias' in the media which would lead to poor media and a bad name for the news channel themselves showing that the internet can't be a democratic space with the ability to change and shape certain images of subjects. Another disadvantage to a form of UGC is in social media a democratisation of people's thoughts leading social networks having a larger dominance over audiences in news. The way news has worked on social media has been done so certain algorithms have tailored the way audiences can see news due to the fact that when a certain news feed is linked they are shown the same story but from different sources highlighting the fact that audiences would only be shown things which cater to their own viewpoint and not from different perspectives from other sources. Because of this inability to be shown different things, which is an example of hypodermic-needle as elitie news conglomerates ar able to feed their ideologies on audiences, is an undemocratic, and as 24% of people in the UK trust social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram when looking for information (The Guardian), this would be a form of changing ideologies of audience and the idea of "dumbing" down audiences, all not in line with what is expected to be a democracy for the people.