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Media Industry Sectors and Products
A sector is a part of the media industry. A product is what that part of the industry makes. Mixing the two up is the quickest way to lose a mark you already knew the answer to, so most of this guide is about telling them apart.
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What you need to know
- Name the four traditional and the four new media sectors.
- Give a product when the question asks for a product, and a sector when it asks for a sector.
- Explain why the same animation or graphic can turn up in more than one sector.
Start here
Sector, product, platform
Three words that sound similar and mean different things. Nearly every mark lost in this subtopic comes from swapping one for another.
A sector is a part of the media industry. Radio is a sector. Film is a sector. A product is the thing that part of the industry makes: a radio advert, a feature film, a graphic novel. A platform is where someone finds it — a streaming service, a social media app, a shelf in a shop.
They overlap, which is what makes it awkward. A social media app is a platform when it is delivering somebody else’s video, and a product when you are asked what its developers built. So read the question and answer the word it actually used, rather than deciding once that “TikTok is a platform” and sticking to it.
Common trap
“Video” is not a sector — it describes what was made. If a question asks for a traditional sector, the answers it wants are film, television, radio or print publishing.
Try it
Sector or product?
Ten terms. For each one, decide whether it names a part of the industry or something the industry made — the exam marks those two things differently.
Learn the list
The eight sectors
Four traditional and four new media. Learn them as two groups of four rather than one list of eight — the exam often asks for one group, and four is much easier to hold on to.
Traditional does not mean dead, and it does not mean analogue. A newspaper runs a website. A broadcaster puts its programmes online. The sector is still print publishing and still television — what changed is how the audience receives it, not who makes it or why.
| Group | Sector | Something it makes |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional | Film | A feature film or documentary. |
| Traditional | Television | A drama series or a televised advert. |
| Traditional | Radio | A radio programme or an audio advert. |
| Traditional | Print publishing | A printed magazine, newspaper or comic. |
| New media | Computer games | A game for a console or a phone. |
| New media | Interactive media | A touchscreen display in a museum. |
| New media | Internet | A website or a social media platform. |
| New media | Digital publishing | An eBook, digital magazine or digital signage. |
Learn the list
The products they make
You will be asked to suggest a suitable product for a client, so it helps to know the range instead of defaulting to “a video” every time.
| Product | What it gives the audience |
|---|---|
| Video, audio and music | Moving images or sound, either on their own or inside something bigger. |
| Animation and special effects | Movement that was built rather than filmed. SFX are practical effects done in front of the camera; VFX are created or combined digitally. |
| Digital imaging and graphics | Still images — edited photographs, logos, promotional graphics. |
| Social media platforms, apps and websites | Somewhere online to read, watch, communicate or buy. |
| Digital games and multimedia | Games respond to what the player does. Multimedia combines media types, such as text with sound and video. |
| Comics, graphic novels and eBooks | Illustrated stories told in sequence, or books published electronically. |
| AR and VR | AR adds digital content on top of the real world you can see. VR replaces it with a simulated one. |
In the exam
Choosing a product for a client
Worked answer
3 marks
A wildlife centre wants visitors to explore how different animals live. Identify a product from the interactive media sector and explain why it is suitable.
Tempting, but this does not score
They should use interactive media because it is more interesting and it will engage the visitors.
It never names a product — interactive media is the sector the question already gave you. And “more interesting” is not a reason: it does not say what the product does or what the visitor gets from it.
Worth writing
An interactive presentation on a touchscreen. Visitors can select an animal and play a short video and its call, so each visitor sees the animals they are curious about instead of waiting through a fixed sequence for the one they want.
Where the marks come from
- Names an actual product, rather than repeating the sector back.
- Describes a specific feature — selecting an animal to play video and sound.
- Links that feature to the visitor: they choose, and they do not have to wait.
Key takeaways
- Traditional sectors: film, television, radio, print publishing.
- New media sectors: computer games, interactive media, internet, digital publishing.
- “New media” tells you which sector something belongs to, not how recently it was made.
- Making something digitally does not move television or film into new media.
- One product can be reused across sectors, but it usually has to be changed for each one.
Glossary
- Sector
- A part of the media industry that makes a related type of content or service.
- Product
- Something made for an audience and a purpose.
- Platform
- Where an audience gets to the content — a service, app or environment.
- Multimedia
- More than one media type combined in a single product.
- New media
- The four digital sectors named in R093: computer games, interactive media, internet and digital publishing.
Test yourself
5 questions
Which four sectors are the traditional ones?
Film, television, radio and print publishing.
Is an eBook a sector or a product?
A product. The sector that publishes it is digital publishing.
A newspaper launches a website. Has it become a new media sector?
No. It is still print publishing. The way the audience receives it changed, not the sector.
Can the same animation appear in more than one sector?
Yes — for example in a film, a digital game and an interactive display. It usually needs adapting for each one.
What is the difference between AR and VR?
AR adds digital content on top of the real world you can see. VR replaces it with a simulated environment.
Common questions
Does “new media” mean the product was made recently?
No. It names the four digital sectors in the specification. A game from 1995 is still a computer games product.
Could a printed comic and a digital comic be in different sectors?
Yes. The printed one is a print publishing product; an electronically published edition can be a digital publishing product.
If a question just says “give a media product”, does any answer count?
It has to fit the client and purpose in the scenario. A named product that suits the brief scores; a sector name does not.