GCE Communications and Culture – launch video
Transcript
Have you got a mobile phone or an MP3 player? How important are they to you, and why? Why are they designed the way they are? Can they tell us anything about ourselves and the way we relate to others? As objects, what do they mean?
These are the kinds of questions asked by AQA's new GCE in Communication and Culture. Communication and Culture is a logical and coherent development from Communication Studies, which it replaces. Teachers of Communication Studies will find much that is familiar here, but they will also find innovations designed to make the subject more interesting, more relevant and more rewarding for their students and themselves.
The specification takes the everyday experience of students as its starting point to makes the subject interesting, accessible and challenging.
Students learn about their culture; its unwritten rules and codes, its power structures and value systems – and its importance for their own sense of identity.
At the same time, they will place their own culture within wider contexts to gain an understanding of cultural difference and cultural diversity.
AS looks at the relationship between individuals and the broader cultural environment. Unit One introduces basic principles, starting with definitions and interpretations of the concept of culture itself.
Students will draw on their own experiences to explore the differences between 'high' and 'popular' culture and the reasons why different values are placed on different cultural products and practices. For example: is skateboarding better than polo?Also, this unit looks at the ways in which culture is communicated by signs and symbols such as language and Non Verbal Communication to make us the individuals we are.
Unit Two develops understanding of the ideas in Unit One through practice and application.
Students prepare a portfolio of investigations, explorations and a presentation. At A2, Unit Three introduces theoretical perspectives such as postmodernism and feminism, and key concepts such as power, discourse and technology, in relation to at least one of the following cultural sites:
Spaces and Places – the constructed environment of town and cityscapes, the countryside, shopping malls and holiday destinations.
Fictions – the ‘stories’ that make up our culture in the form of plays, novels, films, exhibitions, displays, computer games.
And –
Objects of Desire – the products which we may covet or cherish; which symbolise important aspects of different cultures. This is the study of how culture invests things with meanings.
Unit Four is a synoptic coursework unit. AQA will provide a rolling programme of topic titles and topic guides.
This unit should inspire and challenge students to produce work of distinction; which they will remember with pride long after A-levels are over.
Within the context of set topics such as Celebrity, Body Modification or Cinema as Cultural Practice, students will produce a case study investigation of verbal and visual material and a web-based presentation which could, perhaps, be similar in form to this one – only better.
Key documents
