Dear Students!
We are now one week into the new term – so time to get back to the Critical Media Studies again! Please make sure that you read notices on your blogsites - there are a number of students whose links to their site are not given clearly, so that I cannot reach them from my site - PLEASE SET THAT RIGHT.
Just to summarise how far we are, what has already been achieved:
In July and August the topics we were working with were:
1. Definitions of “media”, “news media” and “new media”;
2. Free speech and the freedom of the press;
3. Censorship
4. Blogging as a form of “new media”
Please go to your course outline and see how these topics fit into the bigger picture.
My suggestion is that we arrange for two workshop-style meetings during October to discuss and integrate all the sections of the work, and do some planning and preparation for the exam in November. Then I will also help with integrating the various sections of the coursework.
You completed FOUR assignments during the course of last term.
Here is your next assignment – the fifth in the course, the first of this term!
In the course outline you will see that one of the aims of this course, is to reflect on how the news functions as “a means of linguistically and discursively constructing the identities of individuals and groups”. Please look at the readings I left for you – copies to be made from originals left with Mrs Williams: particularly the work of Ron Scollon and Jean Aitchison, should give you an idea of what we refer to when we talk of how the media “constructs identity”.
To help you with this concept I will suggest the following:
Think of what you know about, e.g. Barak Obama, Nicholas Sarkozy, JacobZuma.
Think of what you know about Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, Caster Semenya, Patrick Swayze.
Think of what you know about Wayne Rooney, Serena Williams, Nelson Piquet jr.
So which of these individuals have you met?
Why do you support some and perhaps really not like some others??
How do you know these people?
Clearly the media have constructed identities of each of these ‘celebrities’.
As media students you need to ask how much of what is given to us fits who the real person is.
And you are not allowed to just say that “the media” are so terrible, the journalists are such manipulative cheats – “they” mislead the public, they have a hidden agenda, they want to cloud their readers mi9nds, etc. – That is too simple an explanation. And it is stereotyping in anunhelpful manner.
Next, think about groups of people:
- the Americans, the Palestinians, motorcyclists, Hollywood filmstars, Bollywood filmstars.
How have their identities been constructed? Can you ‘unpack’ all the salient and not-so-salient components of their identities?
If you were to become a serious blogger – what kind of personal identity would you give yourself on your blog?
See for example what Penelope Trunk says of personal blogging:
“Storytellers, memoirists, journalers, bloggers — anyone who talks or writes about himself or herself in a public forum — is faced with the dilemma of how much to reveal about oneself.” (http://astoriedcareer.com/2009/07/difficulty-not-talking-about-t.html)
When you are writing, you are always selecting what to say, what to imply, what to just leave out – either because you think it is not important, or because you don’t like it, don’t want to be boastful, don’t want to make a bade impression, etc.
So, here is your assignment – an essay of 2000 words, due on Monday 28 September at 16h00 on your blogsite:
1. 1. Read the attached document by Loseke – you will need to refer throughout to concepts and categories that she introduces.
(file:///M:/My%20Documents/CA%20docs/UWC%20media%20st/narrative%20identity.pdf)
2. 2. Refer to the attached article that appeared in the New York Times of 4th September.
Show how the identities of Berlusconi and editor Dino Boffo are discursively mediated and constructed in this particular article. Consider speicifcally what is directly given, what is implied, what is completely muted.
Best wishes!
