Video Production: Social Media Addiction

Task
That’s right, form a group to make a short film: your topic, your camera, your production values. This film could be as simple as a series of interviews that you conduct on camera, or can be an edited selection from clips that you find from other sources. The goal here is not to produce a feature film or something with high production values, but to engage in a process of collaborative production. Learn by doing. This film should stand on its own, with no additional verbal commentary

Click the "Read More" link to read the analysis of our video.

Activist Project: The Media Carta

Task
For this assignment, your group engages in some kind of activist intervention. Organize a flash-mob. Sponsor a set activist activities related to the study of media. Look to media activist projects that you could bring to the university campus. The point of this assignment is to demonstrate active civic engagement in the political discourse that is occurring on our campus this semester. In so doing, we demonstrate our active involvement in a democratic community. Your object is not to raise money for an organization – but to raise awareness about an issue important to media students at Guelph-Humber. In this task you must try to determine an appropriate means for creating awareness about your chosen issue.

Click "Read More" to learn more about how we engaged Guelph-Humber students with the Media Carta.

Media Hegemonies: Who Owns What?

Task
In June 2003, a House of Commons Heritage Committee study of the Canadian broadcasting system concluded that the potential problems with cross-media ownership make it essential “that the Government issue a clear and unequivocal policy concerning cross-media ownership.” This hasn’t happened yet. As a result, you must research cross media ownership, convergence, and concentration in Canada. Start by browsing through (http://www.yourmedia.ca/). Then, as a group, you must build a map of Media Ownership/Hegemony. I don’t expect you to map all media ownership – but to select a theme and consider the varying implications of media concentration and convergence. For example, you might organize your map in such a way to include print media (i.e., newspapers and magazines), broadcast media (i.e., radio and television) and/or the Internet—you might choose to map one of the big six (GE, Disney, CBS, Viacom, News Corp., Time Warner). What you are making here is a poster, to be presented in class.

Click the "Read More" link to view our media ownership map and analysis.

Social Media / Bookmarking

Task
Student uses of social media will play an important role in learning for this course, and will act as a communication tool between students and the instructor. This task calls for an explicit engagement with social media platforms. You are encouraged to join online social media/bookmarking services, especially Twitter (http://twitter.com) and Delicious (http://delicious.com). Throughout the semester you will draw on these tools to catalog and disseminate course-related materials. It is here that you will explore the praxis of mass communication, that is, of participating in the consumption and dissemination of various texts (broadly conceived).

Click the "Read More" link to view our social media accounts and analysis.

Podcasting/Geomapping in the City

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Task
For this task you are to write a script that could be recorded, distributed, or published as a digital text. The point of the script is to look for a particular site and provide a brief alternative tour. So, for example, you could look to any of Toronto’s museums and redesign the audio tour. Or you could research a neighbourhood in Toronto and provide an alternative map that outlines your research. For this assignment, you are welcome to do something sincere/political or humorous/tongue-in-cheek. Of course, serious research will still be necessary. The goal here is to provide an alternative version of some institutional tour – take back the public and/or private spaces – boroughs, buildings, and landmarks – of Toronto. Please reclaim at least five (5) sites.

Click the "Read More" link to view our podcast script and analysis.

Social Media Timeline

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Task
Consider the origins and subsequent changes to media practices and media technologies by making a timeline of media history. Identify up to five (5) key technological inventions and consider their cultural implications. Keep in mind the ecology of media. Through this research, you will outline major trends and debates in media studies paying particular attention to the distinct relationship between media history/theory/technology and other forms of social history/theory/technology. You will be asked to map out connections among these areas to show how both theory and technology emerge in historical patterns.

Click the "Read More" link to view our timeline and analysis.

Image Curation

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Task
In this task, you must collect several images and organize these images into a slide show. Your goal here is to represent visual culture through visual means. This might involve collecting pre-existing images or producing original images (of the class or of the groups in process, the community, etc.). Remember that visual presentation isn’t just about photographs but also about ideas. The best collections will be organized around a theme, such as those examples in Berger’s Ways of Seeing, and your blog post must include some semiotic analyses of the key components of your selected images that illustrate how your theme works within the larger set of questions and concerns we discuss in class. Some slides may only include written text, others might integrate both image and text. This slide show should stand on its own, with no additional verbal/spoken commentary, and will be screened in public or private given scheduled deadlines. Please keep these curations short: 3-5 minutes.

Click the "Read More" link to view our image slideshow and analysis.