From the moment your alarm goes off to the last scroll before sleep, media is already in your day. Radio in the kitchen, a short-video feed on the bus, a poster on the corridor wall, a group chat at lunch, a series episode at night.
Today you name the main media forms this module uses, sort everyday encounters into them, then map one full typical day of yours. That map is your communication analysis for today and it lands in your Communication Portfolio.
A media form is the shape a message takes. These five labels are the ones this module uses. Some pieces sit between two; pick the main job.
| Term | What it means for you | Real example |
|---|---|---|
| Audio (mainly listening) | You hear it; you do not watch a screen for the main message | An audiobook playing on a long car journey |
| Visual (mainly watching a moving image) | Film, TV, streaming series, a full how-to watched start to finish, games followed for the on-screen story | A nature documentary on the television after dinner |
| Print (fixed words and images on a page or poster) | Newspapers, magazines, posters, flyers, billboards | A takeaway menu pushed through the letterbox |
| Digital (online texts and feeds you mainly read or scroll) | News sites, short-video feeds, blogs | A council website checked for bin days |
| Interactive (you reply, comment or shape what happens) | Group chats, comment threads, live stream chat, forums | Voting in a poll on a friend's story |
Short clips and feeds you flick through count as digital. A single video or episode you sit through for the whole piece counts as visual. Interactive means you reply or change what happens.
Worked slice of a morning (a model of the move, not your day):
07:10. Weather app checked for rain. Form: digital. Purpose: decide whether to bring a coat.
07:40. Voice note from a friend on the walk in. Form: audio. Purpose: hear the plan for after school.
08:05. Timetable at the bus stop. Form: print. Purpose: check when the next bus is due.
Same person, three forms, one purpose sentence each. That is the move for a full day.
Warm-up sort (practice only, do not file this): get the five forms into your hands before you map your own day. Fourteen everyday media encounters are waiting below. Drag each one into the form it belongs to. If one could sit in two places, put it where the main job is and be ready to say why. The Communication Portfolio piece is the day map in the next step, not this sort.
This is the only piece that goes in your Communication Portfolio. Build a 24-hour map of one typical school day of yours. Each line is one encounter: the time, what you met, the form label, and one purpose sentence. Forms may repeat across the day.
Aim for at least eight encounter lines (not eight unique form types). The list is not saved when you leave the page, so copy each block into the box below as you go. When you finish, copy the box into your Communication Portfolio as m3_l62_media_forms_map_<your-initials>.
Talk this through with the person beside you, or sit with it for a minute on your own.
Which media form did the most work in your day: not the one you spent longest on, but the one that actually changed what you knew, felt or decided? What would a stranger learn about you from the forms you chose? Someone might see a lot of group chat and almost no print; that already says something about how you get information.
The longer thinking can go in your Reflective Journal later if you want it there.
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