Section B: Your study will include (key areas)

Section B: Institutions and Audiences

One compulsory question will be answered by candidates based upon a case study of a specific media industry.

Centres should choose a topic area, in advance of the examination. Through 

specific case studies of the centre’s choice, candidates should be prepared to demonstrate 

understanding of contemporary institutional processes of production, distribution, marketing and exchange/exhibition at a local, national or international level as well as British audiences’ reception and consumption. There should also be some emphasis on the students’ own experiences of being audiences of a particular medium.  

The media industry we will be studying is the music industry: 

Section B: Institutions and Audiences:

Candidates should be prepared to understand and discuss the processes of production, 

distribution, marketing and exchange as they relate to contemporary media institutions, as well as, 


the nature of audience consumption and the relationship between audiences and institutions. In addition candidates should be familiar with: 

the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice; 

the importance of cross media convergence and synergy, in production, distribution and 

marketing; 

the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, 

marketing and exchange; 

 the significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences; 

 the importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences; 

the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by 

international and global institutions; 

the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider 

patterns and trends of audience behaviour. 

This unit should be approached through contemporary examples in the form of case studies based upon one of the specified media areas. Examples may include the following: 

Music 

A study of a particular record label within the contemporary music industry that targets a British audience, including its patterns of production, distribution marketing and consumption by audiences. This should be accompanied by the study of strategies used by the record labels to counter the practice of file sharing and their impact on music production, marketing and consumption. 

There are many record labels out there if you click on the link below you might be surprised just how many there are. However, some of the more famous ones are:

Sony
EMI

You should also take into consideration when completing your research that targeting the British market is an expectation of the exam board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_record_labels:_A–H

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_record_labels:_A–H