Media sectors and products: R093 revision

Traditional media are the sectors that existed before the internet. OCR names four: film, television, radio and print publishing (newspapers, magazines, books, comics, posters and leaflets). What they have in common is that the audience mostly receives the product rather than taking part in it. You watch a film, listen to a radio show or read a magazine, but you don't change what happens.

Traditional media were built around fixed schedules and physical copies: a programme went out at a set time on one channel, and a newspaper was printed overnight and delivered. Some products still work like that, but nearly every traditional sector now distributes digitally as well, which is why the line between the two groups has blurred.

New media depend on digital technology and, usually, the internet. OCR lists computer games, interactive media, the internet and digital publishing. New media products are normally interactive: the user chooses, clicks, scrolls, comments or plays, and the product responds. They tend to be available on demand, on many different devices, and audiences can make and share content themselves.

Digital publishing shows how close the two groups sit. A printed magazine belongs to print publishing. The same magazine as an app or an eBook, with video and links, is digital publishing. A computer game is new media even when it is sold in a box, because the product itself is digital and interactive.

A sector is a part of the industry; a product is the thing it makes. The specification lists these product types, and you should be able to give an example of each:

• Video: adverts, music videos, documentaries, vlogs.
• Audio: podcasts, radio adverts, audiobooks.
• Music: albums, soundtracks, jingles.
• Animation: cartoons, explainer videos, channel idents, animated adverts.
• Special effects: SFX are physical effects created on set during filming, such as rain machines, smoke or prosthetic make-up. VFX are added digitally afterwards, such as CGI creatures or green-screen backgrounds.
• Digital imaging and graphics: logos, posters, edited photographs, infographics.
• Social media platforms and apps, digital games, comics and graphic novels, websites and eBooks.
• Multimedia: products that combine text, images, sound, video and interactivity, such as an interactive museum display or an e-learning course.
• AR and VR: augmented reality adds digital content on top of the real world (a phone filter, a museum app that brings an exhibit to life); virtual reality replaces the real world with a computer-generated one, usually through a headset.

The specification expects you to know that one type of product can be used by several sectors. Video is made for television, film, websites and social media. Animation turns up in cinema, TV adverts, games and apps. Graphics appear in print, on websites and inside games.

Big releases spread across sectors on purpose. A fantasy film might come with a tie-in mobile game, an eBook of the story, a soundtrack album and short clips cut for social media. Each product reaches a slightly different part of the audience, and each one advertises the others. In an answer, keep the two words apart: television is the sector; a quiz show is a product of that sector.

The specification also asks how sectors are evolving. Learn the main changes as cause and effect:

• Streaming and on-demand viewing. Audiences watch film and television when they choose, on any screen, instead of at a broadcast time or in a cinema. Broadcasters now run their own streaming services next to their channels.
• Print moving online. Newspapers and magazines publish websites, apps and digital editions, and many charge subscriptions because printed sales have fallen.
• Audio on demand. Radio stations publish their shows as podcasts and streams, and podcasts have become products in their own right.
• Convergence. One device, usually a smartphone, now does the job of a camera, music player, television, games console and newspaper, so products have to work on a small screen.
• Audiences as creators. Social media lets anyone publish, so content creators compete with established media for attention.
• Immersive products. AR and VR are spreading from games into education, shopping, museums and training.

Traditional sectors have not disappeared. They have added digital channels, which is why one company can work in both groups at once.

In the four R093 papers we have analysed (OCR's sample paper, January 2024, June 2024 and January 2025), sectors and products were worth between 2 and 6 marks each time. Expect short recall questions in Section A, such as which sector a product belongs to, and applied questions in Section B, such as which products a client could use to reach its audience.

For how the long answers and pre-production documents are marked, see how R093 is marked.