Fluent Essays

Type of service: Research Proposal Academic level: Undergraduate (1st and 2nd year) Word count:600 words excluding reference list Course name:Alternative media Citation style:APA Number of sources:3 Project Title/Topic: Research Proposal on Major Paper plus Annotated Bibliography on 3 Scholarly Sources Paper details/Instructions: Dear writer, In this order, you need to write 1 page proposal plus 1 page annotated bibliography with 3 sources There are topics that listed in the attachment “MDSC61-W2019_MajorPaper”, you can decide the topic. I also upload the “syllabus” for your use. Instructions for Research Proposal and Annotated Bibliography Your proposal should provide a brief outline of the topic you intend to explore in your final. A good proposal does three things: (1) it should identify and describe the primary research question animating your investigation; (2) it should provide a justification for why this question is relevant within the context of this course; and, (3) it should provide an outline of how your paper proposes to investigate this question. The annotated bibliography should have 3 scholarly sources, none of which are assigned as course readings (you can use course readings and/or non-scholarly as sources for your final paper, but NOT for the proposal). Each should provide a properly formatted bibliographic entry bibliographic entry, a brief summary of the source, and a brief description of how it is appropriate to your chosen research topic. Please use simple English and deliberately keep some grammar and word choice mistake in the paper. Thanks a lot. ALTERNATIVE MEDIA MDSC61H3 Major Essay Assignment DUE DATES Proposal and Annotated Bibliography 5\% of final grade Length: 1.5 pages (not including headers) PLUS annotations Final Paper 30\% of final grade Week 11 – Mar. 25 Length: 8 pages (not including headers and bibliography) ** Please know you may take a one week extension and hand your paper in week 12. Should you do so, your paper will be returned with minimal comments. Also please know that this only applies to the final paper and NOT the proposal. This assignment is a standard academic essay. Your papers are expected to make use of original research (i.e. you MUST go beyond the readings listed in the syllabus), develop an original insight or perspective, and put forth an original and compelling argument. Instructions for Research Proposal and Annotated Bibliography Your proposal should provide a brief outline of the topic you intend to explore in your final. A good proposal does three things: (1) it should identify and describe the primary research question animating your investigation; (2) it should provide a justification for why this question is relevant within the context of this course; and, (3) it should provide an outline of how your paper proposes to investigate this question. The annotated bibliography should have 3 scholarly sources, none of which are assigned as course readings (you can use course readings and/or non-scholarly as sources for your final paper, but NOT for the proposal). Each should provide a properly formatted bibliographic entry bibliographic entry, a brief summary of the source, and a brief description of how it is appropriate to your chosen research topic. Suggested Research Topics （you can decide the topic） 1) Profile an alternative media organization of your choice. Pay attention to its historical development. What inspired its founders to create the organization? Does it cooperate with other similar organizations? What sort of challenges has it faced over the years? What, exactly, makes it alternative? 2) Compare similar alternative media organizations across national boundaries, history or technologies. For example, how is community radio different in Canada and the United States? How is pirate radio constituted differently in the UK and the US? How is alternative news podcasting different from alternative or community radio? 3) Do an historical overview of a particular alternative media practice. What are the origins of this particular practice? Are there related or similar practices in different media? Has there been any sort of social, cultural, legal or economic resistance to the development and proliferation of this practice? Be sure to provide a compelling argument as to why your chosen focus constitutes an alternative media practice. 4) Explore the definitions of, and possible tensions surrounding, the idea of alternative media. What do we actually mean by alternative media? Alternative to what? For whom? Be sure to reference at least THREE definitions of alternative media (and the scholars who provide them) and include concrete examples to illustrate your argument. 5) How has the Internet helped transform a particular alternative media practice? How has it changed the conditions for practitioners or audiences? Has it made things easier, or more difficult? In what ways? Be sure to clearly identify the media practice you are talking about, as well as describe its history and the dynamics of change you are identifying. NOTE: This is NOT a general question about how the Internet has changed the media. Be sure to focus on an alternative media practice and be sure to provide a discussion of what makes this practice alternative in the first place. 6) Develop and propose your own topic. If you wish to do this, it is a very good idea to consult with me before either part of the assignment is due. UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO SCARBOROUGH DEPARTMENT OF ARTS, CULTURE & MEDIA MDSC61H3 ALTERNATIVE MEDIA Winter, 2019 Monday, 1 – 3PM BV355 COURSE DESCRIPTION This course examines the history, organization and social role of a range of independent, progressive, and oppositional media practices. It emphasizes the ways alternative media practices, including the digital, are the product of and contribute to political movements and perspectives that challenge the status quo of mainstream consumerist ideologies. The course takes a broad view of the idea of alternative media. Specifically, it begins with the question alternative to what? Alternative, by definition, means something along the lines of different than the mainstream or different from that which predominates. This course will approach this notion of alternative along four separate, but nonetheless interconnected, lines: • alternative content and perspectives • alternative organizational & structural models • alternative practices • alternative technological configurations ASSIGNMENTS (see weekly class schedule for due dates) *** Detailed assignment sheets will be provided on Blackboard 1) Slow media assignment 15\% (of final grade) 3 page (or equivalent) exploration of a slow media practice of your choice 2) Reading analysis 15\% 2-2.5 page summary and analysis of selected weeks readings 3) Research essay 35\% 5\% 1 page proposal plus annotated bibliography with 3 sources 30\% 7-8 page final paper 4) Final exam 35\% ASSIGNMENT FORMATS, DUE DATES AND LATENESS PENALTIES All assignments are due AT THE BEGINNING of class. All assignments are expected to be legible (e.g. in dark ink, on white paper, NOT printed out with empty toner cartridges, etc.), properly identified and correctly stapled. All formal assignments must make consistent use of an accepted citation format (preferably APA style). For information about how to do this, please see http://ctl.utsc.utoronto.ca/twc/citations There will be a penalty deduction of 2.5\% per day (including weekends) for late assignments. To avoid extra late penalties, email a copy of the late assignment to me when completed, and bring a paper copy next class. We will NOT be responsible for printing out copies of assignments for students, stapling them, if your email file is corrupt or for your failure to attach the file. Failure to submit a paper copy after having submitted an email copy of any assignment will constitute failure to submit the assignment. Deadline extensions will be granted only for a compelling reason and with authorized documentation. Such reasons include illness (documented with a Doctors note) or family emergency. Extensions will NOT be granted for reasons such as computer crashes or breakdowns, inability to print the file on time, or other such technical problems. ALWAYS MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR FILES AS YOU WORK! CLASSROOM CONDUCT AND COMPORTMENT Students are expected to assist in maintaining a classroom environment that is conducive to learning. In order to assure that all students have an opportunity to gain from time spent in class, and unless otherwise approved by the instructor, silence your mobile phones and put them away at the beginning of every class and use your notebook computers for classroom purposes only. Inappropriate behavior, making offensive remarks, or engaging in any other form of distraction in the classroom shall result in, at the minimum, a request to leave. STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACADEMIC INTEGRITY It is the student’s responsibility to be aware of policies, procedures and deadlines that are in effect during their attendance at the University of Toronto. It is also the student’s responsibility to attend classes regularly, to keep their work up to date, and to complete assignments as required. Academic Integrity is essential to the pursuit of learning and scholarship, and breaches in the form of plagiarism and cheating are taken very seriously. All violations of the standards of integrity found in the university’s Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters will be reported. Please familiarize yourself with aspects of academic integrity and methods of proper citation: How not to plagiarize: http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/using-sources/how-not-to-plagiarize How to use and cite sources: http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/twc/using-and-citing-sources-0 Information regarding academic integrity: http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/aacc/academic-integrity CONTACTING PROFESSOR KAYE I encourage you to contact me regarding issues involving the course, including questions about material covered and or your own progress. This is best done during my weekly office hours or, if those are not convenient, at another scheduled time. Email is not an option for questions where a proper answer requires a discussion. If you do send one, I will try to respond within 72 hours however this is not always possible. I am absolutely not available or accessible on weekends. When communicating with me via email you must use your U of T email account and address, use the course number (i.e. MDSC61) in the subject line, and clearly identify yourself in the main body of the message. Please address your message Dear Dr. Kaye. Please note it is my policy to not discuss grades over email. WEEKLY CLASS SCHEDULE Week 1, Jan. 7 What do we mean by Alternative? This week introduces the idea of alternative media by addressing the basic and fundamental question of what we mean by alternative. Put another way, the key question is Alternative to what? Hamilton, James (2000) Alternative Media: Conceptual Difficulties, Critical Possibilities. Journal of Communication Inquiry. 24(4), pp.357-378. Sandoval, Marisol and Christian Fuchs (2010) Towards a critical theory of alternative media. Telematics and Informatics. 27(2), pp.141–150. Week 2, Jan. 14 Slow Media as Alternative Practice What do we mean by slow media? Has the rush to embrace all things digital led us to ignore a whole host of slower, analog alternatives? How do these alternatives differ from their faster, digital counterparts? What can they teach us about our own media practices? Rauch, J. (2011) The Origin of Slow Media: Early Diffusion of a Cultural Innovation through Popular and Press Discourse, 2002-2010. Transformations: Journal of Media & Culture. iss. #20. http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/12/Rauch_Trans20.pdf http://en.slow-media.net/manifesto http://slow-media.org/2009/12/students-slow-media-experiments-the-weirdest-three-hours- i-ever-spent.html http://slow-media.org/2010/05/slow-media-experiment-ii.html Week 3, Jan. 21 From Dada to Dilla: Appropriation as Alternative Practice What do we mean by cultural practices of appropriation? How are they to be considered as alternative? What are problems are posed by the reappropriation of such practices back into the cultural mainstream? Schaefer, Janek (2001) Audio Oh!: Appropriation, Accident and Alteration. Leonardo Music Journal. 11. pp. 71-76. Zimmermann, Patricia R. (2006) JUST SAY NO: Negativlands No Business. Cultural Studies. 20 (2/3), March/May. pp.316-322. videos: RIP: A Remix Manifesto http://films.onf.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/ Negativland – Gimme The Mermaid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTrHwH2gEY8 Week 4, Jan. 28 Noise, Glitch and Error as Alternative Digital Culture ASSIGNMENT DUE: Research Paper Proposal And Annotated Bibliography If traditional cultural production is predicated on the idea of a complete, finished and perfect final product, what happens when we start consciously basing our work on mistakes? Could errors, glitches, skips and noise become the basis for alternative cultural production in the digital age? Menkman, Rosa (2010) Glitch Studies Manifesto. http://rosa- menkman.blogspot.com/2010/02/glitch-studies-manifesto.html Kelly, Caleb (2009) Cracked Media: The Sound of Malfunction. chap. 1, Recording and Noise: Approaches to Cracked Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Week 5, Feb. 4 Open Source Culture and the Idea of the Digital Commons What is free software? How does it differ from open source software? How do both of these models of software production and distribution present an alternative to the predominant mode of commercial, proprietary software production? Ghosh, Rishab A., Rüdiger Glott, Bernhard Krieger and Gregorio Robles (2005) Free software developers: Who, how and why. in The Economics of the Digital Society. L. Soete and B. ter Weel (eds.). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Stallman, Richard (2010) Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman 2nd ed. chap. 1, The Free Software Definition and chap. 2, The GNU Project. book available at http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/ Vaidhyanathan, Siva (2012) Open Source as Culture/Culture as Open Source. in The Social Media Reader. M. Mandiberg (ed.). New York: New York University Press. pp.24- 31. Electronic copies of this book are available at http://archive.org/details/TheSocialMediaReader Week 6, Feb. 11 Social Networks, The Interface and Alternatives ASSIGNMENT DUE: Reading Analysis How do digital technologies and services mediate online social interaction? Does this mediation create expectations about how such interaction should occur? What might alternatives to mainstream social networking platform look like, and how might they mediate interaction in a way that empowers, rather than exploits, its users? Langlois, Ganaele (2013) Social Media, or Towards a Political Economy of Social Life. pp.50-60. AND Sevignani, Sebastian (2013) Facebook vs. Diaspora: A Critical Study. pp.323-327. Both are found in G. Lovink and M. Rasch (eds.) Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and Their Alternatives. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. *** A free PDF copy of the Unlike Us Reader is available at http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/\%238UnlikeUs.pdf Rokeby, David (1998) The Construction of Experience: Interface as Content http://www.davidrokeby.com/experience.html Week 7, Feb. 25 Indymedia What is Indymedia, and where did it emerge? What are the relationships between Indymedia practices and practitioners and anti-capitalist and anti-globalization social movements? How does the content, form and social organization of Indymedia differ from the mainstream media? Ballvé, Teo (2004) Another Media Is Possible. NACLA Report on the Americas. 37(4), Jan/Feb. Giraud, Eva (2014) Has radical participatory online media really ‘failed’? Indymedia and its legacies. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 20(4), 419–437. Kidd, Dorothy (2003) The Independent Media Center: A new model. Media Development. 50(4). Pickard, Victor W. (2006) Assessing the Radical Democracy of Indymedia: Discursive, Technical, and Institutional Constructions. Critical Studies in Media Communication. 23(1), March. pp.19-38. Week 8, Mar. 4 Zines, Blogs and Subcultures What are zines? How are they implicated in processes of identity formation? How are they related to other media forms such as music and visual art? How do they help weave subcultures together across time and space? Are blogs the zines of the 21st Century? Atton, Chris (2002) chap. 2, What Use is a Zine? Identity-building and Social Signification in Zine Culture. Alternative Media. London: Sage. pp.54-79. Jetto, Beatrice (2010) Music Blogs, Music Scenes, Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs Week 9, Mar. 11 Independent Music and Alternative Distribution Does where we buy (or how we acquire) our music have anything to do with the actual types of music that we listen to? How have alternative and non-commercial musical forms survived and thrived outside the mainstream? In a period of flux such as today, where mainstream channels of distribution are being challenged by emerging online forms, is there the possibility for new musical forms and genres flourish? McLeod, Kembrew (2005) MP3s Are Killing Home Taping: The Rise of Internet Distribution and Its Challenge to the Major Label Music Monopoly. Popular Music and Society. 28(4), October. pp. 521–531. Harrison, Anthony Kwame (2006) ‘Cheaper than a CD, plus we really mean it’: Bay Area underground hip hop tapes as subcultural artefacts. Popular Music. 25(2). pp. 283–301. Jones, Simon (1995) Rocking the House: Sound System Cultures and the Politics of Space. Journal of Popular Music Studies. 7(1), March. pp.1-24. Week 10, Mar. 18 Alternative Radio Radio is a powerful medium, one with a long history of alternative forms and uses. This week will explore and compare a number of these, including pirate radio, community radio and low-power microradio. Boyd, Douglas A. (1986) Pirate Radio in Britain: A Programming Alternative. Journal of Communication. 36(2), Spring. Dunbar-Hester, Christina (2008) Geeks, Meta-Geeks, and Gender Trouble: Activism, Identity, and Low-power FM Radio. Social Studies of Science. 38(2), April. pp. 201–232 Price-Davies, Eryl and Jo Tacchi (2001) Community Radio In A Global Context: A Comparative Analysis. London: AMARC. Introduction, chap. 7 Comparative Analysis and chap. 8 Recommendations. http://www.amarc.org/documents/articles/Community_Radio_Global.pdf Week 11, Mar. 25 Ethnic Media as Alternative Media ASSIGNMENT DUE: Slow Media Project ASSIGNMENT DUE: Final Research Paper What place do ethnic media have in our overall media landscape? If media in a democratic society are supposed to be representative, why do we need ethnic media? What sort of alternatives do ethnic media provide? Ojo, Tokunbo (2006) Ethnic print media in the multicultural nation of Canada: A case study of the black newspaper in Montreal. Journalism. 7(3), pp. 343–361. Deuze, Mark (2006) Ethnic media, community media and participatory culture. Journalism. 7(3), pp. 262-280. Week 12, Apr. 1 Self-Produced Media as Alternative Media? In an era where media production technologies and distribution systems are more accessible than ever, we now have the ability to circumvent mainstream media oligopolies on our own. But is this enough for us to consider such self-production practices as alternative media? Croteau, David (2006) The Growth of Self-Produced Media Content and the Challenge to Media Studies. Critical Studies in Media Communication. 23(4), October. pp. 340-344. van Dijck, José (2006) Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content. Media, Culture & Society. 31(1), pp. 41-58.