CMNS 202 / POLI 291 (Media and Power in Canadian Society) – Journal: News Survey
Grade weight:
40%
The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate your mastery of the course material through application, synthesis and evaluation. You will trace a chosen issue or ongoing event to monitor over several months. It is strongly suggested that you begin as soon as possible after starting the course and continue over at least two months in order to ensure you have scope to gather sufficient material to examine.
For this assignment, you will:
- build an electronic portfolio that surveys an issue based on media and power in Canadian society that includes 6 – 8 artefacts;
- write an introduction and conclusion explaining the relevance of this issue to media and power in Canadian society (support by specific concepts from the course material); write a 200 – 250 word commentary for each of the pieces of evidence (or blocks) included in the e-Portfolio contextualizing their presentation and relevance of the subject chosen.
A recommended methodology is presented below as well as a marking rubric that will be used to evaluate your work. Your finished e-Portfolio should contain 6 - 8 commented pieces of evidence. Note that APA or MLA formatting should be used consistently throughout your commentary to acknowledge the source of the material included; please advise your tutor if you require guidance or resources for citation. Note that the Purdue University On-Line Writing Lab (OWL) offers current information on both styles of academic formatting, which could be of great use to you. Athabasca University’s WriteSite also presents useful tools and information on academic writing and formatting.
It is essential to include textual proof within your essay; quotes and citations taken directly from the course material should appear within your content whenever possible, properly cited, to support the arguments presented.
Methodology:
- choose a topic or issue that relates to media and power in Canadian society. Possible topics include media policy development or debate, media mergers, production or consumption issues, examples of representation and mediation practices, the media's role in political events, historical patterns and contexts, or Canadian content in the new media. Government websites and media watchdog sites such as Mediawatch are potential sources. Another good source of media stories is the business section of your local or national newspapers. Note that the issue or event chosen may involve mass media as its content (policies, technologies) or as its context (coverage of and influence on another issue). Also, you do not need to follow a current news story; you may instead choose a primary news source archived in a library or on the Internet and report on this history in the journal form.
- write an introduction to your topic to put it into context. Explain why this topic is significant to the politics of Canadian communication. What ideas or arguments from selected course resources support your sense of its significance or prove its relevance?
- review the Mahara e-Portfolio tutorial, create an ePortfolio that will enable you to collect and upload examples of the media formats chosen, whether these are photographs, images, links to YouTube videos, etc.; the items you upload into your ePortfolio are called “blocks.” You will base the written component of your assignment on these pieces of evidence, or blocks.
- build an e-Portfolio of electronic evidence (videos, news stories, editorials, etc.) that focus on your chosen topic. Your e-Portfolio should consist of 6 – 8 pieces of evidence, or blocks, sourced over the course of your two-month long research; these blocks will create the survey upon which you will comment within your journal entries.
- comment on the media evidence that you have included within your e-Portfolio creating journal entries. Include comments of roughly one complete paragraph in length for each block included within your e-Portfolio. The commentary included should explain how these blocks present the topic chosen and how these relate to the course concepts. Your survey of the chosen topic will take the form of a chronological journal. In it, trace the topic as reported in the media (newspapers, magazines, broadcasting, and/or the Internet). In each entry, summarize the important points according to the source in which you found the story. Cite all your sources in APA or MLA style.
- write a conclusion of roughly 500 words (2 well-developed paragraphs). Read over your entries as a coherent narrative, and briefly summarize the event or issue as it is represented in this narrative. Comment on the relevance of your news survey to course themes of news frames, hegemony, agenda, political economy, or another theme as appropriate.
- note that instead of writing your introduction, commentary and conclusion, you could record the information (audio or audio-visual) and provide your tutor with a list of Works Cited/References by e-mail. If you are interested in such an option, kindly contact your tutor in this respect.
Evaluation:
The following rubric will be used to evaluate your submission. Please read the criteria before beginning the assignment and refer back to it as you work on your paper to make sure that assignment expectations are being met.
|
Criterion |
A Range |
B Range 70 – 89% |
C Range 60 – 69% |
D Range 50 – 59% |
|
Content |
Relevance - demonstrates thorough understanding of course concepts by synthesizing the most appropriate information from the materials chosen - demonstrates thorough understanding of the artefacts chosen by focusing on the most appropriate aspects of these media forms |
- demonstrates a considerable degree of understanding of course concepts by synthesizing highly appropriate information from the materials chosen - demonstrates a considerable degree of understanding of the artefacts chosen by focusing on highly appropriate aspects of these media forms |
- demonstrates understanding of course concepts by synthesizing some appropriate information from the materials chosen - demonstrates understanding of the artefacts chosen by focusing on some appropriate aspects of these media forms
|
- demonstrates little understanding of course concepts by synthesizing little to no appropriate information from the materials chosen - demonstrates limited understanding of the artefacts chosen by focusing on few appropriate aspects of these media forms
|
|
Reasoning |
Definition and precision of terms - shows thorough understanding of the relationship between the assignment requirements and content (artefacts and theory)
Use of evidence - offers pertinent arguments to justify response, draws from a variety of course materials; demonstrates a subtle understanding of relationships between ideas |
- shows definite understanding of the relationship between the assignment requirements and content (artefacts and theory)
- offers pertinent arguments to justify response, draws from course materials |
- shows some understanding of the relationship between the assignment requirements and content (artefacts and theory)
- offers some arguments to justify response, draws from a limited selection of course materials |
- shows limited understanding of the relationship between the assignment requirements and content (artefacts and theory)
- offers few arguments to justify response |
|
Organization |
Logical consistency - follows all recommended writing guidelines as set forth in the Student Manual, follows an appropriate academic style rigorously (APA or MLA) |
- follows most recommended writing guidelines as set forth in the Student Manual, follows an appropriate academic style consistently (APA or MLA) |
- follows some of the recommended writing guidelines as set forth in the Student Manual, follows an appropriate academic style (APA or MLA) |
- follows few of the recommended writing guidelines as set forth in the Student Manual, and fails to use an appropriate academic style (APA or MLA) |
|
Research Skills |
Accuracy and variety of information - demonstrates a high degree of research ability: applies a wide variety of course concepts; consistently and accurately references sources - includes a wide variety of artefacts from different media within portfolio (ex.: youtube video, still image, website, etc.) |
- demonstrates research abilities: applies a variety of course concepts; consistently and accurately references sources
- includes a variety of artefacts from different media within portfolio |
- demonstrates some degree of research ability: applies some course concepts; references sources
- includes some variety of artefacts from different media within portfolio |
- demonstrates little research ability: applies few course concepts; references sources
- includes little variety of artefacts from different media within portfolio |
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