Assignment Details essay

In the second half of this course we have explored the idea that television and new media do more than simply represent social reality; their capacity to create an aesthetic sense of “liveness,” intimacy, and/or immediacy also allows them to play a key role in constructing social reality as we know it, and shaping the norms of behavior, identity, and citizenship that define it from one culture to the next. Your task in this assignment is to write a short paper analyzing how one television show or online video can be said to perform this function—representing “reality” in a way that not only naturalizes a particular set of ideological values and beliefs, but also “governs at a distance” by creating collective social relationships and/or teaching viewers how to identify, behave, and relate to one another as fellow citizens.

Further Assignment Details: All papers should respond to one of the three essay prompts below in order to complete this analysis. However, the goal of this assignment is to further develop your skills of close formal analysis and give you practice connecting this type of analysis to the presentation of a well-formulated argument concerning concepts and ideas explored in class. Therefore, regardless of which prompt you choose, the basic requirements of the assignment will remain the same:

Ÿ Essays should consist of 1500-2000 words (6-8 pages, double-spaced, with standard margins, not including footnotes and/or bibliography).

Ÿ Essays should present an original thesissupported by evidence, includingdetailed formal analysis of examples and thorough explanations of relevant concepts, quotations, and ideas from readings. Your thesis should not simply repeat an argument suggested in class or readings; it should be your own idea and interpretation.

Ÿ Essays should engage with at least two scholarly sources—one from assigned readings and one from an unassigned text—in a substantive way. They should cite these sources properly and consistently, using either MLA or Chicago style as outlined in the Hacker & Somers Pocket Style Manual.

Ÿ Essays should explicitly demonstrate a clear understanding of all relevant conceptual terms and stylistic conventions, defining key ideas such as “disciplinary power,” “performativity,” “liveness,” “naturalism,” and any other relevant terms by referring to readings and/or examples as needed.

Ÿ Essays should be clearly written using correct grammar and spelling. Arguments should be well-organized and develop in a logical progression of ideas; style and quality count.

Essay Prompts: Choose one of the following three options and respond according to the criteria laid out above.

1. Benedict Anderson has argued that “communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined.” We read about and discussed the idea that “live” media events and more contemporary “social media” platforms help construct an experience of urban, national and/or global social existence as an “imagined community.” Write an essay that meets the guidelines laid out above and explains how one particular media event or social media platform (such as the Super Bowl, the Olympics, FourSquare, Instagram, Twitter, or any other type discussed by Friedman, Doane, or Sturken) can be said to construct a particular sense of national, global, or civic social identity, informed by a specific “style” of “imagined community” that is predicated on a set of cultural and/or ideological values.

Note: In order to answer this question thoroughly, you will need to do a close formal analysis of a specific scene or scenes from an actual media event, such as the half-time show of the Super Bowl or the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, or a specific use of a social media interface. In particular, you will need to describe how the visual style of the broadcast or the interface uses aesthetic conventions of realism, naturalism, and/or TV liveness, etc. to create an experience of social unity. So make sure you can find video of the event or use the platform you have in mind online and watch it repeatedly. You will also need to demonstrate a basic grasp of Anderson’s concept of the “imagined community,” so you will want to read a chapter from his book on the subject. To this end, I have posted a selection from the book online under Optional Readings.

2. Over the last few weeks we have explored the argument that reality TV programs can be understood as a “technology of governance” that shapes social norms of identity, behavior, and good citizenship in liberal democratic societies. Along the way, we explored a number of different concepts that help to explain this process—including “disciplinary power,” “governmentality,” “performativity,” and “environmentality,” to name a few. Write an essay that meets the requirements laid out above and explains how one particular example of “reality TV” or a specific “social media” platform (such as a YouTube) can be said to function along these lines, focusing on one of the concepts listed above to explain how and why. Once again, keep in mind that much of your evidence will come from a close formal analysis of the stylistic features that allow one particular text to function in this way (for instance, conventions of naturalism, intimacy, etc) and the particular ideological values it instills as norms in the process, so make sure you can look at your example repeatedly and discuss these aspects of it.

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