Assignment Requirements
Formal footnotes aren’t required, but references to the texts (which are a good idea!) should include author and page number in parentheses.
Write a 4 page essay on the following topic.
1. In introducing his history of the media, Paul Starr talks about the “constitutive choices” that shape the development of a media system and affect how it serves the public. Explain what he means by this, and give two examples of what he sees as key constitutive choices in the formation of US media and their consequences. Siva Vaidhyanathan, discussing the newest developments in media history, argues that there are important problems we should worry about with the way the Internet is becoming organized. Drawing on his analysis of “Googlization,” and our other discussion of the development of the Internet, what constitutive choices do you think we currently face about this new form of communication?
Write 2 pages essays for both question 2 and 3
2. Are communication technologies creating a “global public sphere” that will unite all the world’s peoples and allow conversation among them? Many of the course materials make reference at least implicitly to that ideal, including the documentary Consuming Hunger, Sunder’s chapter on Hollywood and Bollywood, Hesmondalgh’s chapter on Internationalization and Globalization and Vaidhyanathan’s chapter on the Googlization of the World. Drawing on these materials, how would you characterize the “global public sphere” created by media? What kind of global conversations or cultural flows does it create?
3. Todd Gitlin uses the concept of “hegemony” in his discussion of media coverage of protest and social movements. Explain what he means by this concept. Then apply it to Vaidhyanathan’s discussion of Google. How does Google rule the Internet? What are the “hegemonic ideologies” that legitimize Google’s rule?
At last 4 quote or references for each questions
Q1 text :
Paul Starr “the creation of the media”
Siva Vaidhyanathan “the googlization of everything”
Q2 text:
Madhavi Sunder “from goods to a good life” Ch 6 bollywood.hollywood only
David Hesmondhalgh ” The cultural industries” Ch 8 internationalisation, globalisation and cultural imperialism only
Siva Vaidhyanathan “the googlization of everything”
Q3 Text:
Todd Gitlin “whole world is watching: mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left” Preface and the introduction only
Siva Vaidhyanathan “the googlization of everything”
so the “the googlization of everything” are needed in all three questions
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