Media Magazine Conference 2023

Recently, Hatch End High School Year 12 students had the fantastic opportunity to attend the Media Magazine Conference, hosted by BFI London.

Year 12 student Zara tells us all about the visit:

The Media Magazine Conference first started off with two speakers from The Guardian; Margaret Holborn and Jane Prinsely. They spoke about the behind the scenes of how the newspaper gets written, when and why. They even told us how to look out for real news and fake news, with a very interactive performance, which kept us all intrigued.

Shortly after, Simon Bird, well-known from the show, The Inbetweeners, spoke about his love for writing comedy sketches, and we even got the opportunity to ask numerous questions.

The University Professor Maitrayee Basu spoke to us about Janelle Monae, and Afrofuturism displayed in her music videos, which portray a strong message about protesting and the great major changes we can receive in doing so, inspiring us all.

Next, was the director of the short film, Olive Morris, Alex Kayode-Kay, who had a passion to express to the nation Olive’s incredible story, fighting against racism in Britain. Alex then gave a lot of great advice to us about producing short films, which we all felt deeply grateful for.

The theorist David Hesmondalgh who has a major role in our Media Studies learning, also came. He further explained to us about his theory about maximizing benefits and minimizing risks in the Media, and how he felt about being in our textbooks, making us laugh.

Lastly, Anamik Saha, who actually got taught by Hesmondalgh in the 90's, vocalized the importance of one of our theorists, Stuart Hall, who had a great impact on ethnic minorities in the industry.

 

Media Magazine have even given us a chance to develop our interests in Media and enter a competition, where we can make a short film, telling a story of our choice. 

 

This trip has had a great influence on us to evolve our ambitions further in Media Studies.