Question – Excellent. Do you have a snappy quote that can go
above your essay question and sum up the overall essay? Not essential but can
work very well.
Opening paragraph – The opening definition works well but
the rest of your intro lacks clarity. It feels like a very general essay on
censorship and the media – in fact, it needs to be a focused analysis of your
primary text and a related media issue. Have you got enough words in a 2,000
word essay to discuss bias as well as censorship? I’m not convinced. You also
need to introduce your primary and secondary/historical texts in your
introduction and link them clearly to your issue (censorship).
Section 1 – Primary text: Famous music video. Make sure
you’re addressing media key concepts, film language etc. Very detailed
deconstruction please! Possible impact on audience can work here too (and allow
you to weave in some quotes from your research). 600 words.
Section 2 – Secondary texts. More textual analysis of music
videos. Make sure you’re discussing the issue rather than describing
videos/narratives. Don’t take on too much in terms of textual analysis – ‘a lot
about a little’ is the rule of thumb. 400 words.
Section 3 – Historical context: perhaps add a historical
text (as in a music video from 20/30/40 years ago). Madonna would be a
potential example of a controversial artist who produced music videos in the
late 80s and early 90s that were subject to censorship. You’ve already
mentioned the Queen video from 1982 so why not add that to this section. 300
words.
Section 4 – Academic research into censorship: the arguments
for and against censorship in the media (with relation to music videos where
possible – but can go wider). I would use all your planning on audience and
institution here. This will also bring in wider context, more examples, social
impact, audience effects theory etc. Loads of potential here to discuss
research, Guardian/MM articles. This is where you need to bring in your
academic research from the BFI and the PDFs in your notes and quotes etc. Try
and link your research and discussion of this issue back to the texts you’ve
discussed throughout the essay – but some discussion of film censorship should
be OK. 600 words.
Section 5 – How will this debate look in future? Is
censorship even possible in the digital age? How does new technology change the
media landscape? 400 words.
Conclusion – sum up your argument, snappy ending please! 150
words.
Next steps… update/finish your plan based on this tutorial.
You don’t need to stick to the above by any means but hopefully it has at least
clarified your thinking and provided a potential structure that will be easy to
follow.
This essay has great potential – the key is making sure you
are specific in your analysis and don’t try and take on too much. The research
section is also going to be vital – you may need to do some additional research
to have enough to write about here.
Publish this tutorial to your blog with your next steps as
usual.
