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Citizenship at key stage 4 (Year 10-11)
Unit 08: Producing the news
Section 1: Preparation - who makes the news?
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Objectives |
| Children should learn: |
- about the role and responsibilities of the media in providing information to the public in a democratic society
- to contribute to group decision-making
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Activities |
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Outcomes |
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Children: |
- Explain the purpose of the unit to pupils. Pupils listen to several pre-recorded news broadcasts and look at several news websites. They analyse them both from a technical viewpoint and from the point of view of bias, breadth, interest, intended audience, etc.
- Pupils prepare and practise editing and recording sample news items. Where the samples have been e-mailed from a local radio station or gathered by cutting and pasting from news websites, pupils should use ICT to edit them.
- In groups, pupils discuss how, if they had selected the samples themselves, they would have made their selections. They discuss, decide upon and write down a set of guidelines they think should be used to check the quality and suitability of material for broadcast, but which do not infringe the rights of the free press, eg they could consider how to balance the right to free speech and the right to privacy.
- Each group feeds back to the class what they discussed. They compare their guidelines with those used by the media, eg the BBC's Producers' Guidelines.
- Extension activity: groups of pupils investigate the rights of the free press, contrasting these with a situation where reporting is controlled or restricted. They research why restrictions are sometimes imposed on the press, eg for the safety of civilians during war, as a result of a political regime. They debate why a free press is important in a democratic society.
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- produce a news bulletin from pre-recorded news items, having first analysed them for bias and technical information
- reflect on their broadcast and agree a set of criteria or guidelines to ensure the quality and suitability of broadcast material
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Points to note |
- Teachers will need to prepare a selection of news items in advance, using a variety of sources, eg 'serious' and 'pop' radio stations, different news websites.
- Pupils may already have worked through unit 9 'The significance of the media in society' in the key stage 3 citizenship scheme of work. Sections of this unit may be adapted or combined for use at key stage 4.
- Visits to local radio and TV stations, or visits from journalists and programme makers would be helpful.
- Link with ICT: 1b in the key stage 4 programme of study. In order for pupils to be able to detect or infer bias, it would be useful for them to understand how to interpret a web address and how to go about verifying the content of websites.
- Link with geography: builds on 3a and 3b in the key stage 3 programme of study and links with GCSE criteria: issues (3.1vi); values/attitudes (3.1vii); locational knowledge (3.1viii).
- Link with history: the extension activity provides an opportunity to link with work in history. It builds on the programme of study at key stage 3.
- This section links with work on balancing competing rights in unit 3 'Human rights' in the key stage 3 scheme and unit 1 'Human rights' in the key stage 4 scheme.
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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of
activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by
moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.
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