Media Studies GCSE looks at the crucial role that the media has in the world today. Students study how media organisations provide information, pleasure and entertainment as well as how the media supports and provides opportunities for business and commerce.

During the three years of the course, students study media texts from a variety of organisations and sources ranging from newspapers and film to modern multimedia texts such as games and WebPages. They also produce their own work to demonstrate their knowledge of the techniques and approaches that they have learnt.

Media Studies builds on and supports several subjects that students will have studied at Key Stage 3. It has close links with English, where students are also encouraged to analyse and evaluate a wide range of media texts, but also shares skills and approach with subjects including Art, Music, Drama, Design Technology and ICT. Media Studies is one of the most popular courses taken by students and when the GCSE course is taken alongside GCSE English courses, statistics suggest that grades are improved across both subjects due to the supportive and complementary nature of text analysis.

At Key Stage 4, students can opt to take EDUQAS GCSE Media Studies. The Media Studies course looks at the different roles and methods of media organisations in the world today. Students explore three distinct study areas: Media Texts, Media Audiences and Media Organisations and the links between them. Assessment is divided between two exams (covering a range of texts from newspapers and magazines to television crime drama and the music industry) and a Controlled Assessment project.