Assignment 3
This assignment requires you to prepare an essay of approximately 1000?1500 words (4?6 pages) on the topic outlined below. The essay must be double spaced, typed in 12-point font, and with margins of no more than 1 inch. This essay must conform to the MLA style and follow the footnoting and documentation format described online at the Purdue Online Writing Lab.
Choose a media representation and identify how it constructs its audience. Use Graeme Turner?s analysis of Sarah Jackson?s ?Hamid Karzai portrayal? as an exemplar.
Your essay should address the following three areas:
What do you believe the ?preferred reading? will likely be, i.e., what kinds of roles/subject positions are viewers/listeners/readers expected to assume? what conclusions does the preferred reading encourage us to form about the topic represented?
Can you think of one or more alternative interpretations that could be based on the same representation? Provide examples.
Discuss some of the characteristics of both representations (texts) and audiences (readers) that make plural interpretations not only possible, but also probable.
This course is under culture studies. Textbooks 1. Bennett, Tony, Lawrence Grossberg and Meaghan Morris, eds. New Key Words: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Blackwell, 2005. 2. Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan, eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. 3. Turner, Graeme. British Cultural Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2003. Please answer the questions base on the text book only!!! Due: Upon completion of Unit 3 of each of the three books!! Do not use other sources
Clarifying your topic for Assignment #3
Assignment topic:
Choose a media representation and identify how it constructs its audience. Use Graeme Turner’s analysis of Sarah Jackson’s “Hamid Karzai portrayal” as an exemplar.
Your essay should address the following three areas:
• What do you believe the “preferred reading” will likely be, i.e., what kinds of roles/subject positions are viewers/listeners/readers expected to assume? What conclusions does the preferred reading encourage us to form about the topic represented?
• Can you think of one or more alternative interpretations that could be based on the same representation? Provide examples.
• Discuss some of the characteristics of both representations (texts) and audiences (readers) that make plural interpretations not only possible, but also probable.
Guidelines:
This topic is asking you to use the concepts you have learned to analyze a specific form of cultural representation. The object of your study is the cultural product. As a cultural studies scholar, you are trying to unpack the ideas the product desires to convey.
The purpose of your study is to explore/examine how that product is put together to create a certain kind of response in the reader. The language or text of the product is of primary importance here (remember a text does not refer to words alone (refer to Hall, Turner).
There are several parts to the audience’s response: the text itself (words, image, color, expression, overall composition), the kind of reader (politically aware, interested/curious, sceptical), the venue of publication (newspaper, website, magazine,) and much more. Turner’s analysis of the photograph of Hamid Karzai provides a useful model. What are these responses based on? Make detailed notes. A working definition of terms such as “preferred reading” will keep you focused. Ask yourself questions about how changing the image (Karzai in a suit and tie, for example), its composition, or the words accompanying it might change the message. Using your answers to these questions, you can then start to investigate how your object of analysis is put together (somewhat like a system) to elicit a specific kind of responses.
Chapters on Textuality and Audience in Turner are critical to this essay. Re-read those chapters—take notes that are relevant to your topic. Avoid commonsensical and generalized commentary. Use the concepts you have learned to analyze the subject of your essay.
Topics that students have chosen are the Disneyfication of traditional folklore, the production of heroes in sports, music, or book culture, the impact of certain advertisments in creating“taste,” “choice,” or “need” for certain products.
Some steps you need to follow in drafting your essay:
• Make your rationale clear (ask yourself these questions–Why have I chosen this topic? What will it enable me to explore/examine?)
• Work with drafts. Write and rewrite
• Have a clear, well stated purpose (thesis)
• Defend your thesis through clearly articulated points
Summary and Paraphrase
One of the key aspects of this assignment is research. Therefore, it is very important that you are aware of the following: (1) the appropriate MLA guidelines for citation, quotation, and documentation and (2) the difference between quotation and paraphrase or summary.
A summary is the condensed version of the main points of your source, restated in your own words. Summarizing allows writers to draw upon the essential elements of an external source without getting into too many details. A paraphrase is also the restatement of a source in about the same number of words. Paraphrasing allows you to demonstrate how well you have understood the original and is usually used for complex arguments and debates and explications. A paraphrase, like a summary, must be entirely in your own words. Providing the page reference does not entitle you to using the author’s words as your own. Unless you enclose the author’s words in quotation marks, do not mix them with your own. Also do not make the mistake of thinking you can use synonyms for an author’s words while preserving the sentence structure.
Plagiarism:
To use another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging through quotation marks is to plagiarize. In the strictest sense, plagiarism constitutes intellectual theft. You do need to guard against unintentional plagiarism by taking careful notes and distinguishing between your own thoughts and those of another source. Please review your essay with a fine toothcomb and make sure you have acknowledged all quotations with quotation marks AND page reference.
