Assignments & Readings
[News & Information]
[Images]
[Television, Illusion & Realism]
[Film as History?]
[Final Evaluative Essay]
Text
Rhetoric Through Media by Gary Thompson (Allyn and Bacon, 1997)
News & Information
In Rhetoric Through Media read: Chapters 1-4
1. News & Information in the Academic Context
- examining the rhetoric of others: assessing the quality of informationHow do we know what we know?
- what sort of filters do we have at our disposal? what sort of filters can we create?
- what sources of information have helped you define your view of the world? any stories? how reliable are your sources?
- what is reality? how does media fit into your version of reality?
- can we make any assumptions about media & news and information? any inferences? look at page 143: Pause and react; are there any narratives behind what you're saying?
2. What is the Information Telling Us?
- "a dialogue between informants..."
- write about a particular situation you see & experience within your community (home, school, state, etc.) that troubles you.
1. what are the key phrases?
2. what are the issues? tensions
3. who are the players?
4. do you suppose there is a narrative behind any of this that is long standing?
5. any stereotypes?
- in one media, find as many related sources of news & information...
- write a brief summary of each, addressing any or all of the above 5 points.
- now, search other sources--National Review; The Nation; New Republic; Mother Jones; PBS; film/tv; academic publications, etc.--to discover/uncover related stories, issues, views...
- compare and contrast what you have found out: can you state a thesis or theory about News & Information ?
3. All Other Sources of Information
- In a single day, what are all the other sources of information you confront?
- How many of these contain information related to your story--even if remotely? how?
- Now what can you say about the relationships existing between all of your sources of News & Information? Do you want to modify your thesis/theory?
- See page 159: What is News?
4 News, Information and Rhetoric
- How would you define the balance between journalistic integrity and the commercial system in the various sources of News & Information pertaining to your story?
- Did this balance soften the news? how? What then is the general audience's perception of the problem you're writing about?
- Were journalists, reporters, etc., playing to the story's integrity or to their notion of the consumer's needs and wants?
- Did the story's shape--location, size, time/space alloted--contribute to your conclusions? explain...
- How would you define the elements of News and the commercial as these relate to the reporting of your story? who or what is being favored? (see pages 175, 176 & 178)
- How does the coverage of your story train its audience to see the world, understand the world, and, ultimately, view the news?
- What is the Reality of the situation? based on your assessment, how should we read the story?
5 News, Information, Rhetoric and ME
- How has this work affected your perception of News & Information --Media?
- What do you know now that you didn't know before?
- How now do you react to the Problems section of our text (191-205)?
Note: you may use any portion of our text to support, clarify, enlighten, your discussion.
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Images
In Rhetoric Through Media read: Chapters 5 & 6
1. Developing a Grammar for Discussing Ads
- Why ads?
- Are any ads annoying? why? are we saturated with ads?
- Develop a quick hypothesis: what's the relationship between the ad, or commercial, and the content?
2. Getting in Closer: An Early Critical Analysis
- On page 231 do the Pause for Reflection
3. Gathering and Collecting Ads and Information from Magazines
- Purchase a popular magazine: women should purchase a male oriented magazine & women should purchase a female oriented one.
- Research the following:
Who owns the magazine?
What is the ratio of male writers to female writers?
Are there any editorials? short stories? poems? that are strong in content?
how many ads are there?
- Analyze the following:
Examine at least two articles and give a synopsis of their subjects.
Examine the ads [1] in the entire magazine, then [2] around the two articles: do you find that there is a general pattern existing between the ads and the articles? is there any relationship between the ads near your two articles and the articles themselves?
- Define the following:
Who would you say is the average reader of your magazine?
Why do they read the magazine?
How does your magazine define the male persona? OR, the female persona?
- What effect does your magazine have on our culture's image of itself? How, in fact, does your magazine define the American ? What does your magazine leave out? What does your magazine assume?
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Television, Illusion and Reality
In Rhetoric Through Media read: (re-examine) Chapters 1 & 2
We are trying to examine how television delivers a standard of living, how it defines it. To this aim, we will endeavor to describe the very different and complex methods used by television to deliver an understandable standard of living. And we will therefore be able to define the metaphors suggestive of the average American .
Each group has to watch the following: TV News; magazine shows; situation comedies; dramas; specials; children's programs; adult oriented programs.
Each student is reponsible for one channel--only.
1.Creating a Log
- Take a week and create a log of your viewing, including cable television (follow format on page 14 of your text)
2. Displaying Ideas: Intentions, Desires and Space
- How are your own ideas and convictions portrayed?
- How are other, perhaps adversarial ideas portrayed?
- Are issues that concern either you or your idea of community raised?
- Is there discussion? Room to respond?
3. Models to Live By: Establishing Protocol
- What kind of behavior is condoned?
- What kind of behavior is not condoned?
- What patterns of behavior and thought portrayed on TV do you see replicated in the community?
4. Describing & Defining: Celluloid Images Come to Life
- Who is the viewer?
- What are her/his habits? Thinking? Interests?
- What part of America does this viewer hold or define?
5. So who cares?: Establishing a Sense of Urgency
- Is there a moral absolute or value?
- Describe a future in which the world alluded to above rules, dominates and evolves--or: devolves. What will the world be like in, say, 10 years, based on your comments and ideas?
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Film as History?
Texts for this assignment:
- Citizen Kane
- Network
- 12 Monkeys
- handout: The Public Sphere [Habermas]
A Staged Form of Publicity: Re-defining the Individual in the New Public Sphere
Throughout the term, you've dealt with different ways in which Media are used to define experiences. So some questions inevitably must come up: what exactly is the individual? how is s/he defined? how, then, do we find ourselves, and our voices, in the cophonous noise of Media ? And equally as important, how do we express our needs, our wants, our desires--our dreams--in a world that seems increasingly to be more like a Kafkaesque cell, made so by sound bites, electronic messages, of all varieties and sorts, and images, some alluring, some violent, and, yet, others disturbing for no apparent reason other then they are not discernable?
Citizen Kane is a text stressing, in part, the Machiavellian.
Network is an ironic text, pointing to the lusts and fantasies associated with the conglomeration of Media , a dilemma we are currently facing as only 4 or 5 major communications multinational corporations control world wide distribution of ideas, images and information. And, in
12 Monkeys, there is no right. There's no wrong, only popular opinion. Proposed here is the notion that the human mind is not made to exist in two dimensions. James Cole posits that he wants the future to be unknown, yet, in an ironic twist, the signs suggest that the future is known. This is doubly proven by a retrospective reading of the texts in this course--and the work you've done.
Finally, The Public Sphere is a short and poignant definition of a public space, a place where power can be articulated, defined and critically assessed so as to disseminate it, work with it, and thus ensure a meritocratic society. But is this what we have? Where are we, really? And, most importantly, where are we going?
Well, find out! Use your writing not as a way to resolve anything, but rather, as a way to investigate these particular notions, opening yourself up to an ongoing discussion intellectuals are having concerning the state of our state.
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