R093 TA1: Sectors, Products and Purpose
The sectors of the media industry, the products each one makes, and the purpose behind every product. The paper opens here almost every year.
The sectors
The media industry is split into sectors. A sector is a group of companies making the same broad kind of product. You need to be able to name them and give products for each, because the paper asks for exactly that.
| Sector | What it makes |
|---|---|
| Television and film | Programmes, feature films, adverts, trailers, streaming series |
| Publishing | Books, magazines, newspapers, e-books, digital editions |
| Advertising and marketing | Campaigns, banner adverts, social media content, branding |
| Music | Recordings, streaming releases, music videos, cover artwork |
| Video games | Console, PC and mobile games, and the assets inside them |
| Web and app development | Websites, mobile apps, web applications |
| Photography | Commercial, editorial, product and event photography |
| Animation and visual effects | 2D and 3D animation, motion graphics, VFX for film |
A sector is the part of the industry. A product is the thing it makes. "Television and film" is a sector; "a trailer" is a product. Questions that ask for a sector and get a product back score nothing.
Companies work across sectors
A single company often sits in several. A games studio makes the game (video games), the trailer for it (television and film) and the website that sells it (web development). If a question describes a company, read what it actually produces rather than what its name suggests.
Types of product
Products are grouped by the form they take, and this is the other half of the same question.
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Audio visual | Film, television, animation, video, streaming content |
| Print based | Magazines, books, posters, packaging, leaflets, newspapers |
| Digital and interactive | Websites, apps, games, interactive multimedia, e-learning |
| Audio | Podcasts, radio programmes, music, sound effects |
| Multimedia | Products combining several of the above, such as a museum kiosk |
A product can belong to more than one type. A music video is audio visual and audio. A website carrying video is digital and interactive, and audio visual.
- Print: a static page, such as a magazine, poster or leaflet.
- Moving image: film, TV and video, which play over time.
- Audio: sound that plays over time.
- Interactive: the user's actions change what happens.
- Digital graphics: static images such as logos and social posts.
- Animation: drawn or computer made movement.
Purpose
Every media product exists to do something. The specification lists these, and a question asking for "the purpose" wants one of them, not a description of the product.
- Entertain — a drama series, a game, a comedy podcast
- Inform — a news bulletin, a documentary, an instruction leaflet
- Educate — a revision website, a training video, an e-learning module
- Advertise or promote — a poster, a trailer, a sponsored social post
- Persuade or influence — a charity appeal, a political broadcast
- Provide a service — online banking, a council website, a booking app
Most products have more than one purpose
A charity television advert entertains enough to stop you skipping it, informs you about the problem, and persuades you to donate. Saying only "to advertise" leaves marks on the table when the question is worth more than one.
Name the purpose, say which part of the product achieves it, and say what effect that has on the audience. "To persuade. The closing shot of the child looking at the camera with the donation number over it is designed to make the viewer feel personally responsible, so they are more likely to give."
Key terms you must be able to define
- Sector
- A part of the media industry grouping companies that make the same broad kind of product.
- Audio visual
- A product combining moving image and sound, such as film, television or animation.
- Purpose
- What a media product is made to do: entertain, inform, educate, advertise, persuade or provide a service.
- Multimedia
- A product that combines several media types, such as text, image, audio and video together.
Flashcards
Say the definition out loud before you flip the card. Retrieving it from memory is what builds recall, reading it again is not.
Reach the top grade on this topic
The difference between a pass and a distinction on this topic area is almost always specificity. "A magazine" is a product. "A monthly print magazine for mountain bikers, sold in supermarkets and by subscription" shows you understand the sector, the product, the audience and the distribution all at once, and the longer questions are marked on exactly that.
Mistakes that cost marks here
- Giving a product when the question asked for a sector, or the other way round.
- Listing only one purpose when the question is worth three or more marks.
- Naming a company rather than a sector. Netflix is a company; television and film is the sector.
- Writing 'social media' as a sector. It is a distribution platform, and it belongs in TA4.
The credits on a feature film can run past two thousand names. Almost none of them are people the audience could name, and most of their work happened before a single frame was shot or long after the last one was.
Knowledge check
Exam-style questions
Five written questions in the style of the real paper. Write a full answer, then let the marker check it against the mark scheme.
- LA valid sector is named
- LA product that genuinely belongs to that sector
- LA second, different valid sector is named
- LA product that genuinely belongs to the second sector
Television and film is a sector, and it produces products such as film trailers. Publishing is a second sector, and it produces products such as monthly magazines.
- LOne purpose from the specification list
- LA second, different purpose
- LA third, different purpose
To entertain, to inform and to persuade.
- LPersuade is identified as a purpose
- LHow persuasion is achieved in the advert
- LInform is identified as a second purpose
- LHow informing is achieved
One purpose is to persuade, which is achieved through emotive content: close shots of an affected child with slow music underneath, ending on a direct call to action with the donation number on screen. A second purpose is to inform, which is achieved through a voiceover and on screen captions giving statistics about how many people the problem affects, so that the viewer understands why their donation is needed.
- LThe sector is correctly identified as publishing
- LThe product type is correctly identified as print based
- LAt least one purpose is identified
- LA decision that follows from it being print
- LA decision that follows from the audience being experienced
- LA decision that follows from the purpose
- LA consequence of being monthly rather than daily or online
- LA judgement that weighs the points against each other
The magazine sits in the publishing sector and is a print based product, and both of those shape the work. Because it is printed, every image must be supplied at around 300 dpi in CMYK rather than RGB, pages need bleed, and once the issue goes to press nothing can be corrected, so proofreading and sign off matter far more than they would online. Because it is monthly, the content has a long lead time and must be planned issue by issue; it cannot react to news in the way a website could, so the publisher will favour features and reviews over reporting. The purposes are to inform and to entertain, with a commercial purpose underneath, since the magazine is funded by advertisers who want to reach climbers, and that affects the mix of content and where adverts sit. Because the audience is experienced rather than beginner, the writing can use technical terms without explaining them, and the photography has to be credible to people who climb, since a staged or technically wrong image would lose the readers' trust. The constraint that drives the most decisions is print itself: it fixes the deadline, the colour mode and the resolution, and it removes any chance of correcting a mistake afterwards.