Section A: Selling Images – Advertising, Marketing and Music Video 

In this section, learners will be introduced to key approaches and skills for analysing media products, exploring how meanings are created through media language in online, print-based and audio-visual texts. The focus in this topic is on the construction of representations of gender, ethnicity and issues. 

The detailed study of advertising and music video as a form of marketing facilitates exploration of how particular representations are used to sell values, lifestyles and images, as well as to promote messages. The diverse range of representations offered by advertising and music video makes them a rich site for analysis and debate, particularly where representations may be controversial (as in some music videos).

Learners will consider both commercial advertising and advertising with a different purpose, through a focus on how issues are represented in charity or public information advertisements. Advertising and music video also provide rich opportunities for exploration of how audiences are categorised, constructed and targeted by media producers, as well as consideration of how audiences may interpret or respond to these products.