Purpose:

The purpose of this task is to assess your understanding of conceptual vocabulary used in social media studies.

Task:

In class, you will receive a list of concepts we have covered to date in class lectures, and a class bibliography, organized by concept. For this task, you will be expected to create a document that engages with ONE concept from our class list. You will begin by defining that concept for a general reader, and illustrate that concept, using THREE images of your choosing. Each image should be given an explanatory caption that makes it clear how you see it relating to the concept you’ve chosen to explain and explore. One of these captions should contain a quote from ONE concept-appropriate class reading, accompanied by your thoughts on that quote, along with an explanation of how you see the quote connecting to the image you chose.

While looking at your document, the viewer should be taken on a journey that moves from an “easy” and obvious understanding of the concept you’ve chosen, to more complex engagements.  One example of a complex engagement would be a cross-cultural consideration of a concept (e.g. “here is an illustration what concept X looks like in a Chinese context.) Another way to illustrate complexity is via limit-case engagement (e.g. “ordinarily, this thing I’m showing wouldn’t be described using concept X, but perhaps it should be…”) Still another way to illustrate complexity might be through future trend engagement (e.g. “technological/economic/social changes may soon alter concept X so that it looks more like the image I show you here…”) etc.

To help you assemble materials for this project, you will be provided a template, which we will work on together during class.

Marking Guidelines

Projects will be scored in two categories, for  total of 50 points. 

Conceptual understanding and communication: 30 points

Questions we’ll ask when marking: Does the student seem to fully understand the concept they’ve chosen to engage for this project? Does the student seem to fully understand the quote they’ve chosen for this project? Do the words and images in this document clearly communicate this understanding to someone unfamiliar with social media theory?    

Rigor, sophistication and novelty of engagement (20 points) Questions we’ll ask when marking: Does the student go beyond preliminary or surface-level definitions in this project to touch on deeper understandings of their chosen concept? Do their illustrations progressively move the viewer toward an r appreciation of cross-cultural, limit-case, tech advancement, or other sorts of complexities mentioned earlier? Do the student’s captions keep complexity from moving into confusion? Does the student’s engagement with quoted material seem to merely “check a box” on this assignment, or does it add something interesting to the project?

Purpose:

The purpose of this task is to assess your capacity to practically engage with social media theory, by way of a social media-friendly format:  short video. 

Task For this task, you will be expected to create a video of no more than three minutes. In class, you will receive a template that asks you to designate:

(1) The position you wish to assume as video maker (e.g. performer; educator; reporter; manager; marketer; etc.); 

(2) The audience you wish to target with your video (e.g. children; coworkers in an office setting; Brazilian consumers under 30; comedy enthusiasts; etc.) 

(3) The concept your video will engage with from our class list. Here, you will be free to build on the conceptual work you began in A1, or you can shift your focus to a different concept. 

(4) The video genre you wish to work in (e.g. explainer; review; tutorial; compilation; advertisement; marketing pitch; story; reaction; tour; interview; etc.) Substantial time will be spent in tutorials viewing different video genres, so you have a better sense of how to identify a genre of interest to you, and “reverse engineering” genres, so you have a better sense of structural elements that tend to typify each genre. 

(5) The platform you be keeping in mind as you work on this video. When you think of people accessing your video, what platform springs to your mind? YouTube? Facebook? WeChat? WhatsApp? Spotify? Is your project meant to be viewed as a series of Instagram stories, Snap Chats or Tik Tok installments? Is it intended for a more circumscribed network of viewers, such as those sharing a private shared drive in a company, or school?

(6) Your shot sequence/storyboard Plan: this will be where you provide a short narrative about what you want to present to your intended audience, and how you plan to structure that presentation.

Video Submission Policy

Video Uploading: Video should be uploaded to your Google Drive account (all MQ students have one; we will access ours during tutorials.) It is also acceptable to upload video to your YouTube channel (we will be setting these up in class.) 

Video Template completion: Once you have uploaded your video, you can head to the A1 link on TurnitIn. There you will find brief Video Submission Template in Word format, which you need to complete and upload by the A1 submission deadline. In addition to the questions about creator, audience, genre, platform, concept, and plan discussed above, the template will have a space for you to provide a URL to access your video. It will also ask you to check a box attesting that you’ve added both Terri and Clementine’s email address to “locked” links, so we can access them for marking.

Marking Guidelines

Projects will be scored in three categories, for an overall total of 50 points:

* Clarity of intent: 20 points

Questions we’ll ask when marking: Even if it doesn’t explicitly referenced, while watching the video, do we have a clear sense of how its creator positions themselves? Do we have a clear sense of the video’s intended audience? Can we spot a logical connection between the content of this video and the concept the student claims to be engaging? Do we see a logical connection between all these things, and the video genre the student has chosen to use for this project?

* Pace and Communication (20 points)

Questions we’ll ask when marking: As we watch this video, does it seem to us likely that its intended audience will understand the message being transmitted? Do parts of this video seem to move too quickly for comprehension? Do parts feel too slow to keep audience interest? Does the arrangement of sequences show an internal logic? Does it seem likely that this student has screened the video to at least one or two viewers for feedback, before submitting it?

* Creativity, novelty, ingenuity of thought (10 points)

Questions we’ll ask when marking: Does the student go beyond surface-level engagement in this project to present something with depth of thought or expression? Does this video present an idea, an argument, an emotional engagement; a genre choice, or an aesthetic that could be considered fresh, novel, or otherwise creative?