• debates around meaning and evaluation
• issues of audience (audience positioning; target audience; the text’s assumptions about the audience; possible audience readings and evaluations; conditions of reception); the candidate’s own reading and evaluation of the text, and the major cultural and subculturalinfluences upon this)
• issues of representation (e.g. of gender, race, nationality, region,heroes, villains, historical periods etc). Debates around the fairness, accuracy, function and purpose of particular
representations
• narrative issues (e.g. study of specific narratives; comparison of different narrative structures and techniques; major differences between film and television narratives; types of television fictional narrative - soaps, series, serials and single narratives; influence of genre on narrative; influence of conditions of viewing; narrative openings and closures; use of character and actors in narrative;techniques of audience engagement and identification)
• institutional issues (influence of film/broadcasting institutions
upon texts; differences within film and broadcasting institutions
e.g. Hollywood v non-Hollywood; public service v commercial broadcasting; influence of finance, marketing and distribution upon the production and reception of texts. Debates around aesthetic value, profit, public-service values etc)
• questions of, and debates around, values and ideology.
