Description: For this exercise, you are to write an essay (or make a video) that considers the question, “How do social media platforms deploy visuality to signal their ideological biases to users?” For this exercise, you should focus on ONE social media platform of your choosing, and ONE ideological bias of interest (e.g. safety, usefulness, popularity, friendship, a ‘good’ experience, etc. As we discussed in class, platform visuality involves what (or whom) seem to receive visual emphasis, as well as what (or whom) seems hidden, obscured, or overlooked.

The methodological strategy taken for this essay (or video) should be a “platform walk through.” Your walk through must include a clear objective (e.g. create a profile; create a background; change privacy settings; make a playlist; purchase an item; etc.) and clear metrics for success/failure (e.g. gather X many ‘likes’ in Y amount of time; make Y amount of purchase in W amount of time, etc.). As a researcher, your goal in a single walk-through is quite modest: you work through the steps required to accomplish one objective on one platform, gathering shots of each screen you encounter. Your walk-through is over once you reach your objective, or when the time you have designated for your walk-through ends.

As a media studies student, you need to do more for this assignment than perform a walk-through. You need use your semiotic and discourse analysis skills to make specific arguments about how you see visuality working in the service of the ideology that interests you on your chosen platform. Evidence for your argument should come from your walk-through screen shots, which you can feel free to supplement with visuals and text about the platform found elsewhere: on the platform’s main web site; on its download page on app stores; in tutorial videos that introduce the platform on sites like YouTube; in print or television advertisements for the platform; in press interviews where executives from the platform express the company’s “vision,” etc. This essay does not require citations beyond anything you’ve located online at web sites, in press materials, etc. However, if you find it useful to reference class readings regarding visuality or platforms, you are welcome to do so. You are also free to reference any scholarly material you have found useful for thinking about your ideological interests, such as book chapters, journal articles, entries in philosophy dictionaries, encyclopedia or handbook entries, etc.

In addition to displaying university-level writing, spelling, grammar and scholarly citation practices, students are expected to cite all materials accessed on web sites, phone apps, in press materials, etc. We will cover these practices in tutorials. This is a formative assessment. Feedback will include a grade out of 40, a qualitative rubric and comments from your marker.

Format

Your assignment can take one of two formats:

1. You can produce an illustrated essay that runs between 1800-2000 words.
2. You can produce a short video or animated slide show running between 2-3 minutes.

Submission procedures:

• If you have written an illustrated essay, submit a pdf doc via Turnitin.
• If you have created a video piece, you will be asked to complete a template that includes a URL where it can be viewed. Details will follow via iLearn.

Criteria: This assessment is worth 40 points. The essay (or video) should include the elements noted below. Further guidance will be given in tutorials.

Introduction: 10 points

1. A strong introduction that explains which social media platform and ideological concept you have chosen to investigate, and how you see these two things connecting at “first glance.” This introduction should include some sort of explanation for why you chose this platform and ideological concept for this assignment; a brief but clear description of your chosen platform for those unfamiliar with it; a carefully worded explanation of how you relate as a user to the ideological concept you’ve chosen to explore (e.g. the words, experiences, feelings or beliefs you personally associate with this concept); and a quick discussion of how your platform appears to engage (or not) with this concept. You should support this discussion using visual and textual evidence from platform logos, slogans, ads, press, “mission statements” etc.

Walk-through: 10 points

1. A readable discussion of how you came to construct the parameters of your walk-through. This should include a brief but clear explanation about why you choose your walk-through objective, and how established your metrics for success/failure. Your explanation should in some way touch on your ideological interest. In other words, you need to address the question, “Why would you choose to do X for your walk-through, if the ideology that interests you is Y?”  
2. A step-by-step platform walk-through that is illustrated where appropriate, using annotated screen grabs. Your walk-through needs to balance thoroughness (no steps left out) with focus (ensuring the reader understands which moments of the walk-through you found most valuable for your analysis.) There is a bit of an art to this, which we will discuss in class.
3.  A discussion that assesses your experiences trying to meet the objective of your platform walk-through. Using your own metrics, would you describe your walk-through results as successful, not successful, or somewhere in-between? If you were to re-do this expement, would you recommend changing anything the objective, the metrics, or anything else? Why or why not?

Analysis: 10 points

1. A discussion of your walk-through that details which material you found most interesting in terms of your ideological interests, and why. This discussion should be structured as a tentative argument (supported with evidence) about how you initially understood the platform’s position regarding the ideology that interests you (as explained in your introduction), and how you understand the platform’s position after your walk-through. This section is the “meat” of your essay, which means it should comprise between 25-30% of your total word count. You are expected to display your semiotic, discourse and performance skills and underscore throughout that visuality involves both what is seeable and emphasized, as well as what is obscured, hidden, omitted, etc. For instance: “Judging from the abundance of ‘new user’ pop-up help screens I encountered during my walk-through (see image), the platform’s designers seem committed to the notion of being ‘welcoming.’ Unfortunately, signs of welcome don’t seem to extend to the message boards. These appear to be dominated by in-jokes and user-generated memes (see image 2), and almost entirely absent of posts from self-admitted newcomers. When comparing this online dynamic to language about welcome I read on the platform’s official Mission Statement (found on their web site) I noticed….”  
2. A section that considers three questions: 1. From what you saw in your walk-through, what sort of users seem the most welcomed, assisted, and encouraged by this platform? 2. From what you saw in your walk-through, which sort of users seems overlooked, avoided, or ignored? 3. Would you say your walk-through observations about users match up with, or diverge from who the platform seems to be courting and avoiding in its branding, press and promotional materials? Note: When thinking about users, it can be useful to consider both bodies and affordances. For instance, users certainly have ages, genders, sexualities, races, disabilities and so forth. But it can be helpful to think about users as accessors of technologies. As you explore your platform, ask yourself: What sorts of devices and operating systems does this platform require for optimal and basic performance? What languages choices are offered and not? Which physical geographies exist where this platform might be blocked, monitored, or otherwise problematic to use? We can also think of platforms in the level of technical expertise they assume their users have and the degree to which they assume users can decode platform-specific social media norms without explanation (e.g. the unspoken “posting rules” of Instagram), etc. Who might be affected by all these issues, and why?  
3.  If you “accidentally” discovered something during this walk-through that doesn’t link to your original ideological interest but nonetheless interests or intrigues you, feel free to discuss it here.  

Conclusion & Further Research Avenues: 10 points

1. A section that assesses the utility of your original walk-through design. As an experiment meant to show something about ideology on this platform, would you say your walk-through design was useful, not useful, or somewhere in-between? What makes you say this?  
2. A section that assesses what you learned from your walk-through, and what questions remain. Regarding the ideological question that interests you, what did your walk-through help you learn about the platform? What questions remain in your mind?  
3. A section that discusses possible ways you might use comparative methods to explore your ideological interests further. This could include comparing walk-throughs of two users attempting the same objective; comparing walk-throughs of one user with two different objectives on the same platform, comparing walk-throughs of one user with the same objective on two different platforms, etc.

Grading Note:

Assessment standards in this unit align with the University's grade descriptors, available at: https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/strategy-planning-and-governance/university-policies-and-procedures/policies/assessment

Summary

This assessment has been designed to test your comfort level with the “theme, question, lens, method, presentation” approach to social media studies, which we will discuss at length in class. Using a traditional or creative format, you will be asked to compare two social media related events, phenomena, news developments, or user experiences. The research question, methodology and theoretical lenses for this project will be yours to choose, provided they reflect in some way on our class. The cases/stories/phenomena under comparison will also be yours to choose, with final approval from Terri. There is a bit of a trick to picking things that yield interesting results when compared, which is something we’ll be discussing at length in tutorials.

This essay requires substantive engagement with at least two concepts covered in scholarly readings assigned for this class. Sometimes students choose topics that require them to access concepts and/or texts not covered in class; these students are welcome to swap more appropriate concepts and/or texts into their work, provided they have secured Terri’s prior approval via email.  

Format

Your assignment can take one of two formats:

1.  You can produce an illustrated essay that runs between 2000-2500 words.
2. You can produce a short video or animated slide show running between 3-5 minutes.

Submission procedures:

• If you have written an illustrated essay, submit a pdf doc via Turnitin.
• If you have created a video piece, you will be asked to complete a template that includes a URL where it can be viewed. Details will follow via iLearn.

Marking Criteria: This assessment is worth 60 points.  Feedback will include a grade out of 60, a qualitative rubric and comments from your marker. In their writing, student are expected to adhere to university-level writing, spelling, grammar, and citation practices. At the end of the submission there must be Works Cited section, referencing all scholarly materials, as well as material accessed on web sites, phone apps, in press materials, etc. We will cover these citation practices in tutorials. The essay (or video) will be assessed according to the elements noted below. Further guidance will be given in tutorials.

Introduction (10 points)

1. A section that introduces the two cases/events/objects you will be comparing in this essay or video. This section should clearly and concisely answer the standard questions journalists discuss when recapping or summarizing an event: who, what, when, where, and how (with ‘why’ omitted, for reasons we will discuss in tutorial.)  
2. A section where you introduce the research question you wish to explore in this essay by comparing your cases/events/objects. Here, you should state your question; articulate how you see that question relating to two concepts covered in class; and give a brief layperson’s definition for each concept (you will give scholarly definitions later.)  
3. A section where you discuss why this question is of interest to you, and how it might be of interest to others (in industry, regulation, activism, politics, art, education, etc.)

Methodology (10 points)

1. A section where you detail your comparative methodology for this project (e.g. platform walk-through, semiotic analysis, discourse analysis performance analysis, etc.) This section should give us the who/what/when/where/how details of your methodological strategy, presented in such a way that they connect to your research question. In other words, we need you to justify WHY you chose the specific strategy you did.  

Comparative Analysis (30 points)

1. A section where you zero in one concept from class to discuss how your cases/objects are similar. Here, you move from a layperson’s understanding of a concept, to a scholar’s understanding. You begin by pointing to one passage from one scholarly text the concept you want to zero in on is defined, discussed, debated, or otherwise engaged by a scholar. Next, you discuss how both your cases/objects engage seem to be illustrating, embodying, performing or otherwise engaging with this concept in similar ways. Finally, discuss what you see as the significance of this similarity (i.e. answer the question, “Why should we care?”) Note: You need to be constructing this section as an argument, supported with semiotic, linguistic, performative or other evidence from your studies/objects. Your evidence will vary depending on your methods. E.g., you might have screen shot evidence in a walk-through, quotes in a discourse analysis, describe audience reaction to an event in a performance analysis, etc.  
2. A section where you zero in one concept from class to discuss how your cases/objects are dissimilar. Again, point to one passage from one scholarly text the concept you want to zero in on is defined, discussed, debated, or otherwise engaged by a scholar. Now, discuss how both your cases/objects engage seem to be illustrating, embodying, performing or otherwise engaging with this concept in dissimilar ways. Finally, discuss what you see as the significance of this dissimilarity. (i.e. answer the question, “Why should we care?”) Again, you need to be constructing this section as an argument, supported with semiotic, linguistic, performative or other evidence from your studies/objects.

• Special note: This section constitutes the “meat” of your paper, which means it should be at least  30% of your word count. If the most significant thing about your comparison relates to similarity, that argument should constitute the bulk of your writing, here. If the most significant thing about your comparison relates to dissimilarity, make that argument the bulk of your writing.  

Conclusion (10 points)

1. A section where you re-state your original research question, and provide a clear answer, supported by your research findings (aka the arguments you made earlier). If you wish, you can frame your answer as provisional, tentative or preliminary, requiring further exploration, etc.  
2.  You can end your essay section by revisiting and reassessing your  personal interest in your research question as stated in your Introduction. How have your findings altered, strengthened, complicated, challenged or otherwise impacted your interest in (or thoughts about) this question? Do you still think your findings might be of interest to the individuals, groups, or institutions you mentioned earlier?  
3. Given the rapid pace of social media dynamics, can you think of any changes on the horizon (social, political, legal, economic, technological, aesthetic)  that might cause you to write a very different essay tomorrow than the one you've written today? Possible changes to consider: legislative crackdowns on behaviors; technical innovations; market saturation of platform; social trends that render particular aesthetic practices "over"; democratization of behaviors once deemed as "elite," etc.

• Note: Assessment standards in this unit align with the University's grade descriptors, available at: https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/strategy-planning-and-governance/university-policies-and-procedures/policies/assessment