Modern languages

28th February 2003, 12:00am
The media features on the A-Level syllabus topic list and with good cause.

The unique character of each nation’s press reveals a lot about its culture, social mores, political preoccupations and attitude to life. One approach is to ask students to focus on a specific theme and compare its treatment by The Times and a similar publication from the relevant country.

Another is to take a single issue of both papers for in-depth analysis.

Points could include: presentation (layout, ratio of pictures to text, length of article etc); style of headline; proportion of international to domestic coverage; choice of story and its treatment; political slant; how Britain is portrayed abroad and vice versa; features - number, subject matter, tone.