January assessment: Learner Response

Complete the following tasks on your blog as your learner response:

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

- www: Good references to Marxism and Pluralism. 

- ebi: You need to talk more about the news case study - the impact of NDM upon it. Write a paragraph on this. 

2) Read through the mark scheme (go to the last two pages of the document - Section B New/digital media). Of the six different statements for each level (e.g. A sophisticated and comprehensive essay, showing very good critical autonomy.) write 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.  

 ; A sophisticated and comprehensive essay, showing very good critical autonomy; level 3. I could improve explaining my answers in depth and giving clarity to the overall paragraph. 

; Sophisticated and detailed understanding of new and digital media; level 3. I could improve on mentions different methods/examples (exploring the wider media issues) of new and digital media, this way i could be also specific to making my points. 

; Sharp focus on the question throughout; Level 3 - I am believe that as i already have clear topic sentences to introduce what i will be talking about within the paragraph,but I do need to be clearer to how I link it back at the end. 

; Sophisticated application of a wide range of media debates, issues and theories and wider contexts; Level 3 - Using more theories and quotation to back up my points also using more terminology throughout my essay. 

; A comprehensive individual case study, with a wide range of detailed examples; Needing to include specific references from wider range of debates and examples of NDM. 

; Well structured, articulate and engaged ; Level 3 - linking it back to the question at the end of each paragraph and not being also so repetitive. 

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?

- The examples that I have used in my essay were: 

 ; Higher level answers debated the arguments for and against. 

 ; Good answers discussed the reasons why there was democracy or not, using media issues, debates and wider contexts.  

- To improve my mark i could have added: 

 ; Addressed the harder concepts of democracy, but were able to apply it to a really wide range of cause studies and just obvious ones like news

 ; discuss the roles of audiences and producers. 

4) Read through these exemplar A grade essays from last year. What do these essays offer that yours does not? Identify THREE things you can take from these essays to improve your own responses in future.

[] What the essays offer that mine don't: 

- Wider context - add in the weekly stories examples/info 

- more quotations/theories 

- mentioning social networking and other new and digital examples 

[] What i can take away: 

- following paragraphs 

- Specific examples - linking them back to question much more specifically

- Exploring wider debates. 

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.

Question 6: "The internet is a democratic space, where we all free to participate equally." 

Using your own case study, discuss whether the impact of new and final media is democratic. 

Following the statement of the internet being a democratic space, to where we are all free to participate equally is can also mean that there is a lot of impact on new and digital media, this can have a mostly positive impact but there also a negative impact and this all depends on the users of the internet. Through the development of new and digital media, users of the internet are being more active rather than passive to what they see and how they act online. Social networks such as Instagram and Twitter engage their audiences very well through their site as well as how they take part in the site. The new update of Instagram of having a "live video" means that audiences are able to connect to such a wider audiences and have the access of watching people whatever the distance is, this update is sort of what periscope is but Instagram have also allowed this stream to happen on their site, the benefit of convergence on one social site means that audience have much better accessibility to what is being offered to them. Audience are active within this term because taking part of a live video means that audiences are using the update that is bought to them, through the live video, opinions/thoughts can be expressed or audiences keeping each other updated but just through a video way instead of a writing form. In addition, audiences are also active in the sense of expressing their views on matters that issues that matters to them, for example, a recent march went through against Donald Trump being a president, women took part in the march specifically. Hashtags on Twitter was trending and kept everyone aware of it, on Snapchat there was also a story itself of the march and what was going on for such a large audience to see. By this, it shows that the internet is a democratic space, where we are all free to participate equally because these examples are allowing audience to be active and express themselves in different ways and having platforms do them in. 

Additional paragraph on NDM weekly story examples

The internet is such a large platform for audiences to get involved in and be a part of, some of the things that are put on have a beneficial for the audiences to know survival; this being one of the uses and gratification theory. Lately, there have been uses alarming fake news specially on social media such as Facebook, there has been a lot of stories stating the rise of fake news on Facebook especially and nothing has been really done about it as audiences do believe what they read, this questions if audiences are really active or not. Through the fake news, it can be seen that Andrew Keens quote of "dumbing down" can be reinforced on how fake news can dumb down audience and make them believe everything that they seen online. This ongoing issue can question if audience are really active or not, this also can be seen as a issue because online there aren't gatekeepers to track and see if the information is real or not. On traditional media such as newspaper, audience would believe that all the information that is put across is true because there would have been several people checking the resources and seeing if the information is correct, online; audiences don't have that. Anyone and everyone can upload anything and make the source feel real and that is the dangerous part of the internet being such as democratic space and where audience are free to participate equally.