Weeks 9 and 10 will be dedicated to the final assignment, a project undertaken in small groups. The goal will be to take what you have learned from class, and apply it to subject matter that can be chosen from the following topics:

• Social media influencers
• Advertising
• Astroturf
• A.I.
• Think tanks
• Groups also have the option to do a ‘spin journal’ (description)

Your projects will involve writing a paper that uses research to critically examine your chosen topic. You will want to narrow from for instance, ‘social media influencers’ to something more manageable, be it the self-help industry, nutrition, politics, health, technology, fashion, lifestyle, parenting, finance, etc. There are influencers that promote influencing, too. Or for instance if you choose astroturf, you could focus on the environment, energy, food, technology, public policy, education, etc. Think tanks also have a wide range, and some cover multiple topics while others are more specialized. What they all tend to have in common are funding sources they would prefer not to disclose (though it may be easy to figure out with influencers plugging product lines), less they risk exposing discrepancies between publicly-stated functions, and ‘latent’, de facto functions that a deeper examination of funders and board members (or in the case of influencers, companies and advertisers) might reveal. 

Students can do a project in groups of either 2 or 3. We will discuss this project as the term progresses and you all have been exposed to some of the concepts you may apply to your analyses.

As far as points, your group will produce a paper, no less than 7 pages and no more than 10, documenting methods (including division of labor among group members), research, conclusions (100), and a slide presentation (PPT or something like, 50), which will be part of our finals block on Thursday, March 19. Papers (excepting the ‘spin journal’ option) should include discussion of:

1. Category/subcategory (examples mentioned above)
2. Media (TV, streaming, podcast, YouTube, print, etc.)
3. Content/programming/bait, competition
4. Target audience(s)
5. Advertising
6. Impact
7. Visuals
8. Resources used to critically evaluate
9. What your group learned (about relationship between content providers, audience, media, advertising)
10. a minimum of 10 quality sources, cited both in the text of the paper and in a references section at the end (APA style is recommended, but if you wish to use another such as MLA, just let me know).

Each group member needs to participate in the presentation, which should be multi-media. PowerPoint or Prezi  isn’t necessary but you do need to use multiple forms of media in your presentation (video clips work well, obviously), as well as provide a one-page handout to students covering the essential points they need to know.

Your sources should be multimedia as well—at a minimum print and online sources, and with the prevalence of YouTube it would be surprising if you couldn’t find some video footage of some sort to show as well (carefully chosen from all the possibilities …). If your group wants to put together a web page of links to use as visual aids, I will help you put this together on the Web given sufficient lead time. You may want to use links, visuals, text, imagery. Radio (e.g., talk radio) is fair game, but here’s the key—focus on substance, not style. The media you use should not be a distraction to what you’re trying to convey—you wouldn’t want to get caught in the same trap as commercial news media infotainers now, would you?

150 possible points (100 for the paper; 50 for the presentation). 

Paper is due Tuesday, March 17th, the presentation will be from 10-noon on Thursday, March 19.