COMM 150: REVISED essay assignment for the week of Nov. 28-Dec. 2

PLEASE NOTE REVISED ESSAY QUESTION in red type below. We will workshop your papers the day after the Thanksgiving holiday, Monday, Nov. 28.

Your assignment is to write a documented essay five to eight pages in length, reflecting on the following topic:

In "The Media of Mass Communication," John Vivian discusses the worldwide distribution on Twitter of pictures of the 2009 demonstrations against the government in Iran and asks, "Is the Twitter Revolution truly a revolution? Are we at last embracing new media and using them to their fullest potential?" (185). Later he says blogging has "spawn[ed] a wide range of user-generated Internet content." He adds:

The effect has been transformational on the mass media. Just about anybody can create and distribute content - in contrast to the traditional model with munumentally high costs of entry, like starting a newspaper or putting a television station on the air. With user-generated content, the Internet has democratized the mass media by enabling anyone with a computer and a modem to become a mass communicator. (193)

Discuss: How are social media (sometimes hyped as Internet 2.0) changing the face of American culture? You may consider entertainment, politics and/or government. Provide specific examples from Vivian, from your own reading and your own experience communicating with the World Wide Web. Remember: An unsupported generalization is sudden death in college writing. So be specific.

The paper is documented. In my classes, that means sources of information in all of your writing must be attributed or documented according to the basic guidelines of an academic system like MLA or APA. Key concept: If you write down anything you didn’t know before, say where you found it! Failure to do so, even unintentional, is plagiarism. In our field, it may also be copyright infringement.

Do not write just to fill up space. Create clear, concise, accurate, and relevant thoughts. And convey them to readers in a well-written, grammatical, engaging fashion. If you are majoring in communications, consider yourself a professional writer already. If you're not a major ... consider yourself a professional writer already, too, and consider changing majors to comm arts while you're at it!

In researching the topic, you should quote John Vivian's discussion of social media and find more recent examples of the trends he discusses on the Internet or in your own reading or viewing of broadcast media. See also the post on social media links [permalink immediately below], and the post on the "pepper spray cop" internet meme I put up Monday.

I do not require a title page, but you should put your name at the top and center a title above the first paragraph. Please leave two to three inches at the top of the first page. You need to list your sources at the end, by author (when available), title and web address. You can just copy and paste the address into your Microsoft Word document.

Bring me a hard copy of the paper at the beginning of class any day during the week, and email me a backup copy as well at eellertsen@ben.edu.