What this assignment is asking

Unit 1 asks one question: what is this piece of media doing, and how do you look at it critically? The premise is that media doesn’t reflect reality — it constructs a version of it. Your job in this audit is to catch a media object in the act of construction, using this unit’s vocabulary: representation, discourse, sign, denotation, connotation.

This is not a summary assignment. Describing what an ad, show, or post is “about” does not meet the bar. You need to show the construction — the specific choices (framing, casting, language, sound, omission) that build a particular meaning, and name what that meaning is doing.

What to submit

  • Choose one media object: an advertisement, a social media post or account, a scene from a show or film, a news segment, a game trailer, or similar. One object, examined closely, beats several examined thinly.
  • Describe or attach the object so a reader who hasn’t seen it can follow your analysis (a link, screenshot, or transcript excerpt is fine).
  • Work through the four components of the SOCC framework (see belo)w and write them up as connected prose — not a fill-in-the-blank form.
  • Length: 1000 words
  • Submit on Moodle by Saturday, October 3, 9:00 a.m.

The audit framework

As we’ve practiced in class, you should draw from the SOCC framework (Sourcing, Observing, Contextualizing, Corroborating) which we are using for media representation rather than historical documents.

How this gets assessed

This project is graded Complete or Redo, consistent with the course’s ungrading approach.

Complete means that you have:

  • identified representation-as-construction (not reflection) in the chosen media object; and
  • used the unit’s vocabulary – representation, discourse, sign, denotation/connotation — accurately, not just as labels dropped in; and
  • provided  specific evidence from the media object you have chosen; and
  • written in your own words except where quoting either text.

Redo means one or more of those conditions isn’t met yet, and my feedback will name which one(s). There’s no cap on redo attempts — the goal is that you actually get there, not that you get it right the first time.

Submission

PDF, uploaded to Moodle under Unit 1. Include or link your media object.