brose said:
hi kettlegirl.
ive gotta use 2 frontline episodes and 2 supplementary texts two write a speech on how media tells the truth. for my supplementary texts i was thinking Good News Week and the movie Bowling for Colombine. wot do u think??
thnx
You may need to actually email kettlegirl (as she has said) to get a reply. However just some of my thoughts.
Is the actual question 'how the media tells the truth'? Because from a teacher's perspective, that is a very limiting question in the sense that you must focus on mass media. Just to put things into perspective, in the HSC (and common trials such as CSSA, Independent et al) they would never provide such a specific question as the focus 'telling the truth' is normally one of the most significant things to consider (along with representation and text - see my earlier posts in thread).
Also, markers in the HSC have commented in the past on student's reductive and unnecessarily limited focus on 'media' and how they are 'bad' and 'manipulate' the truth. To put it simply, it has become a cliche and an almost ironic cliche in using this as the crux of one's thesis now.
I say all this because again generally, 'media' shows like Good News Week are not the best texts to choose. If you are studying Frontline which is already a satirical, behind-the-scenes look at a current affairs program, then choosing a somewhat similar text with similar format may make it difficult to show you have wide reading and gained insight into the "various modes of production in media" (almost verbatim from the syllabus).
Also, Bowling for Columbine is not the strongest as it is a VERY popular text (with substantial notes in the BoS resource section) and is also focused on America. Again generally, there are some English teachers who are very fond of 'Australian' texts (we do live in Australia after all) and since Frontline is located in a distinctive temporal milieu based on actual domestic events, then it is usually better to look at 'Australian' "events, personalities and situations" (ibid). As i earlier stated, the Chamberlain incident and feature articles found in SMH, DT, TA (The Australian) have all fared well in the past.
Having said that though, i did mentor one student last year who decided (against my advice) to analyse Bowling for Columbine where his final HSC mark was 92. So that's not to say you can't do well, just again what the rest of the state may be doing!