The media plays an ever more central role in contemporary society and culture. Media products shape our perceptions of the world through the representations, viewpoints and meanings they construct. The media communicates to us and, ever more increasingly, provides us with a platform to communicate with others and, as a global network, allows us to engage with other cultures and countries. Media products construct representations through a toolkit of media language in order to appeal to, and provoke a response from an audience whom media institutions seek to engage.

The economic importance of media and film is unquestionable. Not only are established media institutions employers on a large scale but also smaller organisations and businesses expect their employees to have a competence and understanding of using media platforms to communicate. Additionally, the shape of the Media and Creative Industries is changing and, with investment in this field and working practices becoming more remote, Exmouth and the South West has seen an increase in employment in this sector. Technology has shaped how we consume media products today and it has truly democratised how we can produce it; every teenager has the means to produce and broadcast content from their smartphones! With this, however, comes the issues of regulation and control. The arguments and debates relating to media control, accuracy and intent require a media literacy to consume safely media products and to produce them responsibly. According to Sonia Livingstone of the LSE, “in our media-saturated age, it’s vital that young people can evaluate competing sources of information, and communicate effectively within a fast-changing digital environment”.

Film is a powerful and significant medium. Film offers a window onto the world and inspires, in spectators, a range of responses from the emotional to the reflective. Those who study film characteristically do so with enthusiasm and excitement. Film students in Exmouth challenge, question and empathise whilst, vicariously, experiencing situations and settings beyond their locale. Film studies makes a hugely important contribution to the curriculum as it offers the opportunity to investigate film in detail not just exploring it as an aesthetic medium but also as a medium of representation.

A media and film curriculum would be incomplete without the opportunity to produce media texts. Through following the processes of researching, planning, producing and editing media texts, learners are able to express themselves creatively and consider the commercial viability and aesthetic quality of their product. Practical experience allows the concepts of choice and representation to become clear and enhances understanding of the relationship between producer and audience.