[SOLVED] Research Essay

Research Essay
Overview
Write a five page essay (12-point font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins) responding to
one of the prompts below. It will be evaluated on the basis of your argumentation, use of
supporting materials, and clarity and organization. Write as if for a general audience. You
will be expected to perform research by consulting appropriate sources (trade, popular,
academic publications, and/or other applicable material). In addition to these, you should
also draw upon readings and lecture. Rely on lecture, however, only for ideas not
discussed in the readings. Wikipedia and other general reference sources may be useful
as you initially look into the background of your topic, but they are not sufficient
resources from which to cite and build your argument.
Think of the essay—complete with an introduction, thesis, and conclusion—as a research
project. Include in-text citations and an alphabetized bibliography of all sources you cite
(including those from class). Use a recognizable scholarly format (MLA, APA, Chicago,
etc.). Remember that failure to properly cite ideas or exact wording from other texts
constitutes plagiarism.
Choose an essay prompt
Decoding Controversial Media: Apply Hall’s encoding/decoding model to a media text widely argued to be controversial. What is the media producers’ preferred meaning?
What is one popular negotiated or oppositional reading? Use mainstream reviews and criticism, news pieces, fan pages, and/or other sources to illustrate the decoding position. Ultimately, what does your research reveal about the balance of power between producers and audiences in determining meaning?
Genre Mutation: Choose a medium-specific genre or subgenre and trace how it has changed. Start off by defining your genre and its traditional codes and conventions before describing how these have mutated over time. What specific changes have influenced these transformations? Focus on two particular case studies from the same
genre. How do they represent your argument? Ultimately, what do your examples
illustrate about how genre must be understood?
Ideology in Reality TV: Choose a reality TV series and argue that it’s consciously constructed to deliver a hegemonic or counter-hegemonic message reinforcing or undermining the dominant ideology. How is this message demonstrated through its casting and narratives? (Also, location and/or editing, if applicable.) Ultimately, what does
your case study demonstrate about how reality TV can be simultaneously unscripted and
designed to spread a specific ideology?