AQA A-Level Sociology: The Media
6 exam-style questions with full mark schemes and model answers. Write your own answer and the AI examiner marks it against the mark scheme.
Read Item A below and answer the question that follows.
Item A — written for this exercise
The ownership of the major media in the UK is highly concentrated. A small number of large companies and wealthy individuals control most national newspapers, and a handful of global corporations dominate film, television and online platforms. One study of media ownership written for this exercise reports the following invented distribution of national newspaper circulation:
| Owner group | Share of national newspaper circulation (%) |
|---|---|
| Owner group 1 | 34 |
| Owner group 2 | 26 |
| Owner group 3 | 18 |
| Owner group 4 | 11 |
| All other owners combined | 11 |
The same research argues that because so few people own so much of the press, the political views expressed in newspapers tend to cluster around a narrow, broadly pro-business outlook, and that proprietors can promote or demote editors who do not deliver the slant they want. Others, however, insist that owners are first and foremost businesspeople who must give audiences what they want, and that competition, consumer choice and regulation place real limits on what any owner can dictate.
Question: Applying material from Item A and your knowledge, evaluate the view that the content of the media is controlled by those who own it. [20 marks]
Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.
Item B — written for this exercise
Sociologists have long argued that the media do not simply hold up a mirror to the world but help to shape how their audiences understand it. One view stresses that the media decide which issues are placed before the public and which are left out, so that audiences come to see some topics as important and barely notice others. Writing for this exercise, one commentator suggests that "the front page does more than report the news of the day; by deciding what counts as news at all, it quietly tells the audience what to think about, even where it does not tell them what to think." Whether audiences absorb these messages passively, or interpret them in their own ways, remains a matter of debate.
Question: Applying material from Item B, analyse two ways in which the media may shape the audience's view of the world. [10 marks]
Outline and explain two ways in which news content is socially constructed rather than simply reflecting reality. [10 marks]
Outline three ways in which women are represented in the media. [6 marks]
Outline two characteristics of the new media. [4 marks]
Outline two reasons why some social groups have greater access to the media than others. [4 marks]