Unit 2 Assignment – Naming: Annotated Media Analysis

Overview

In Unit 1 you asked what is constructed here? Now you ask whose idea of “normal” does the construction serve? You’ll name the system of meaning at work in one media object: who it hails, what it treats as common sense, and who gets othered, stereotyped or left out.

Choosing your object

You can return to your Unit 1 media object or pick a new one. Going back to the same object is encouraged: you already know it well, and now you’re digging a layer deeper. It needs to show people, or to be noticeably missing them.

Part A: Annotations (6 to 10)

Mark up the object itself. Each annotation points to one specific choice (words, camera angle, casting, sound, setting, colour, or something left out) and says:

  1. what the choice is,
  2. what it connotes, and
  3. which concept it shows: ideology, interpellation, othering, stereotyping, or erasure.

At least one annotation has to deal with absence: who or what isn’t there, and what that absence does.

Any format works: annotated screenshots, a list of timestamps for video, a marked-up transcript, PDF comments, or a photo of hand-written notes.

Part B: Analysis (about 700 words, connected prose)

Use your annotations as evidence to answer:

  • Who does this object hail as “you,” and how?
    • Your first sentence should be: This piece of media hails viewers as ______ by _______, which makes ________ seem normal.
  • What has to feel like common sense for that hail to work? (This is the ideology.)
  • Which representational category or categories (race, gender, class, Indigeneity) does it construct, and who is othered or erased in the process?
  • How do you read it: dominant, negotiated or oppositional (Hall, 1980)? What about where you stand shapes that reading?

“Complete” when your work:

  • Points to specific, observable choices in the object, not a summary of it
  • Names the ideology the object makes seem normal and ties it to at least one representational category
  • Uses at least three Unit 2 concepts accurately (ideology, interpellation, othering, stereotyping, erasure)
  • Explains what an absence in the object does
  • Stays in your own voice except in quotations; any AI use follows our class AI guidelines and is disclosed

A Redo means one or more of these needs more work. You can redo as many times as you need.

Due: Monday, October 26, 9:00 a.m., on Moodle. Submit one PDF with Parts A and B, plus the media object or a link to it. If you annotate a video in VideoAnt, paste the link to your Ant in the PDF and share the Ant with me.