Final Paper Instructions
The final paper is an academic essay that critically discusses a specific quotation from a media/communications theorist. The task is to: 1) explain and deconstruct the key concepts found in the quote, 2) situate the quote within the broader issues discussed in Com101, 3) relate this quote with the positions of other theories / theorists, 4) develop a critique of the author’s arguments by identifying its strengths and weaknesses, and 5) applying the key ideas to everyday life.
The paper should be three- to five- pages long, 1.5 or 2-spaced, 12pt font, on short bond paper. This is due October 9, Thursday, 12NN, to be dropped in my pigeonhole at the Department of Communication, 3F Social Sciences Building. This does not include the bibliography page. As this is an academic essay, you are required to cite at least five academic texts (feel free to use some of the quotes I used in my lectures) from books and journals in addition to examples that you might cite from pop culture artifacts (newspapers, websites, tv shows, etc.). Citations should follow the social science format of citation, e.g., “(Ong 2007: 47)”. As the message of the course is one about responsible practices of communication, I will be severe with cases of plagiarism, which breaks all ethical codes of communication.
Papers are to be marked for their a) depth in argumentation, b) breadth of knowledge about the field and related concepts to the article, c) ability to link ideas (discussed in class or in other classes, in the article or in other texts) with one another, d) clarity of argument, e) integration with everyday life, and f) creativity and originality. The key here is NOT to regurgitate the ideas discussed in class but to present your own argument about the topic at hand. In this light, you are given freedom to construct your paper as you see fit. You can, for instance, begin by presenting a real-life example or application of the key concept discussed in the article. Or you can narrate the debates within the field and then present your own stand.
1) “It is all about power, of course, in the end. The power the media have to set an agenda. The power they have to destroy one… The power to shift the balance between state and citizen, between country and country, between state, by the market, by the resistant or resisting audience, citizen, consumer… It is about reach. And it is about representation… It as about the power to listen and the power to speak and to be heard. The power to prompt and guide reflection and reflexivity. We study the media because we are concerned about their power: we fear it, we decry it, we adore it. And we want to harness that power for good rather than ill.” (Silverstone 1999)
2) “Communication has become central to reflections on democracy, love, romance, and our changing times. A great variety of thinkers have dealt with the tragedy, comedy, or absurdity of failed communication. The difficulty of communication across various social boundaries—gender, class, race, age, religion, nation, language—confronts us daily. But horizons of incommunicability loom beyond the merely human as well, in the vexing question of communication with animals, extraterrestrials, and smart machines. Communication is a registry of modern longings. The term evokes a utopia where nothing is understood, where hearts are open, and expression is uninhibited.” (Peters 1999)
3) “What is the epitome of love—the love that occurs between equals who are present to each other in body and soul? Or the love that leaps across the chasms?” (Peters 1999)
4) “Evil is a category of though which has emerged to try and account for the horrors of the world, horrors beyond understanding. Evil refers to actions and thoughts beyond reach, beyond imagination, beyond defence. Evil goes beyond crime, for crime has been imagined and framed in law… The supposed presence of evil has become a reason for not thinking… The presence of the discourse of evil in public culture has to be understood as deeply embedded in the values, ideas and discourses in the wider culture which the media reproduce as well as produce.” (Silverstone 2006)
5) “The problem with multiple images of distant suffering is not their multiplicity but their psychological and moral distance. Repetition just increases the sense of their remoteness from our lives… The message is get real, wise up and toughen up; the lesson is that nothing, nothing after all can be done with problems like these and people like these.” (Cohen 2001)
6) “Proper distance is the understanding of the more or less precise degree of proximity required in our mediated interrelationships if we are to create and sustain a sense of the Other sufficient not just for reciprocity but for a duty of care, obligation, responsibility and understanding… a relationship that is both close and far” (Silverstone 2006)
7) “The primary condition of existing media is already one of conditional hospitality. The news of the world invites the stranger onto page and screen. However the invitation is always conditional on good behavior; on the acceptance, by those who appear, of the editorial controls exercised by those constructing the texts. Even when such hospitality is extended to allow the voice of the Other to be heard, those editorial controls remain in place. They work to constrain those speaking either by marginalizing them in the schedule, or on the page, or by limiting the rights of access to the relatively safe or ordinary… The welcoming process is compromised by the edit, and by its exercise of symbolic power: you are entering the text, always, always on my terms.” (Silverstone 2006)
8) “We are all mediators, translators.” (Derrida 1995)
The paper should be three- to five- pages long, 1.5 or 2-spaced, 12pt font, on short bond paper. This is due October 9, Thursday, 12NN, to be dropped in my pigeonhole at the Department of Communication, 3F Social Sciences Building. This does not include the bibliography page. As this is an academic essay, you are required to cite at least five academic texts (feel free to use some of the quotes I used in my lectures) from books and journals in addition to examples that you might cite from pop culture artifacts (newspapers, websites, tv shows, etc.). Citations should follow the social science format of citation, e.g., “(Ong 2007: 47)”. As the message of the course is one about responsible practices of communication, I will be severe with cases of plagiarism, which breaks all ethical codes of communication.
Papers are to be marked for their a) depth in argumentation, b) breadth of knowledge about the field and related concepts to the article, c) ability to link ideas (discussed in class or in other classes, in the article or in other texts) with one another, d) clarity of argument, e) integration with everyday life, and f) creativity and originality. The key here is NOT to regurgitate the ideas discussed in class but to present your own argument about the topic at hand. In this light, you are given freedom to construct your paper as you see fit. You can, for instance, begin by presenting a real-life example or application of the key concept discussed in the article. Or you can narrate the debates within the field and then present your own stand.
1) “It is all about power, of course, in the end. The power the media have to set an agenda. The power they have to destroy one… The power to shift the balance between state and citizen, between country and country, between state, by the market, by the resistant or resisting audience, citizen, consumer… It is about reach. And it is about representation… It as about the power to listen and the power to speak and to be heard. The power to prompt and guide reflection and reflexivity. We study the media because we are concerned about their power: we fear it, we decry it, we adore it. And we want to harness that power for good rather than ill.” (Silverstone 1999)
2) “Communication has become central to reflections on democracy, love, romance, and our changing times. A great variety of thinkers have dealt with the tragedy, comedy, or absurdity of failed communication. The difficulty of communication across various social boundaries—gender, class, race, age, religion, nation, language—confronts us daily. But horizons of incommunicability loom beyond the merely human as well, in the vexing question of communication with animals, extraterrestrials, and smart machines. Communication is a registry of modern longings. The term evokes a utopia where nothing is understood, where hearts are open, and expression is uninhibited.” (Peters 1999)
3) “What is the epitome of love—the love that occurs between equals who are present to each other in body and soul? Or the love that leaps across the chasms?” (Peters 1999)
4) “Evil is a category of though which has emerged to try and account for the horrors of the world, horrors beyond understanding. Evil refers to actions and thoughts beyond reach, beyond imagination, beyond defence. Evil goes beyond crime, for crime has been imagined and framed in law… The supposed presence of evil has become a reason for not thinking… The presence of the discourse of evil in public culture has to be understood as deeply embedded in the values, ideas and discourses in the wider culture which the media reproduce as well as produce.” (Silverstone 2006)
5) “The problem with multiple images of distant suffering is not their multiplicity but their psychological and moral distance. Repetition just increases the sense of their remoteness from our lives… The message is get real, wise up and toughen up; the lesson is that nothing, nothing after all can be done with problems like these and people like these.” (Cohen 2001)
6) “Proper distance is the understanding of the more or less precise degree of proximity required in our mediated interrelationships if we are to create and sustain a sense of the Other sufficient not just for reciprocity but for a duty of care, obligation, responsibility and understanding… a relationship that is both close and far” (Silverstone 2006)
7) “The primary condition of existing media is already one of conditional hospitality. The news of the world invites the stranger onto page and screen. However the invitation is always conditional on good behavior; on the acceptance, by those who appear, of the editorial controls exercised by those constructing the texts. Even when such hospitality is extended to allow the voice of the Other to be heard, those editorial controls remain in place. They work to constrain those speaking either by marginalizing them in the schedule, or on the page, or by limiting the rights of access to the relatively safe or ordinary… The welcoming process is compromised by the edit, and by its exercise of symbolic power: you are entering the text, always, always on my terms.” (Silverstone 2006)
8) “We are all mediators, translators.” (Derrida 1995)
posted by Jonathan C. Ong @ 6:51 AM
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