Fireside Chats

Final Project Assignment

Presentations (4/25, 4/27, 5/2, 5/4, 5/9) – 5 points
Monday May 9th – Final Project – 15 points
Students will be assigned a topic from the list provided below, which reflects historically
important examples from various media industries. The project requires students to apply a
‘circuit of culture’ approach (Consumption, Production, Representation, Identification, and
Regulation) by researching the topic extensively. The final project should take the form of
roughly a 5-6 pagesingle spaced paper, or a comparable web-based analysis (Tumblr, WordPress, etc).
As mentioned, the project needs to be extensively researched. Projects need to include at least
12 sources, 4 of which must be essays from peer reviewed journals, or books published by an
academic press.
Project Specifics:
1. The project should include an introduction that explains the ‘Circuit of Culture’ as a tool for
examining a cultural text.
2. The final structure of the completed assignment is flexible. You might decide to break up the
project into shorter essays/posts, or create a unified document that covers the entire project.
Creativity is encouraged, as is the inclusion of digital media.
3. Remember to use the circuit of culture as a guide for the project – make sure to research
and examine aspects of production, consumption, identification, representation, and
regulation associated with the decade and the medium (and how these are expressed in the
representation of your specific topic. The goal is to locate the topic in the decade it was
released. How where these texts produced, consumed, marketed, and regulated at the time
of their release and initial popularity? What sources can you find that discuss your topic
during that time?
4. Students are allowed to begin with wikipedia, but the goal of the assignment is not to
replicate the information on the site, but rather to examine the example through the lens of a
Circuit of Culture analysis.
5. Research and find appropriate resources. The web is a wonderful place (Lantern, http://
lantern.mediahist.org; Media History Digital Library, http://mediahistoryproject.org/
fanmagazines/). Our reference librarians are amazing.
6. Start working on this now. This isn’t the type of project you can complete at the last minute.
As detailed on the syllabus, there is a bibliography (with at least 10 sources) and an outline
for the project due on Monday April 4th.
Rubrics:
Outline and Complete Bibliography will be graded on the following:
Inclusion of at least 10 properly cited sources. (2)
Inclusion of a detailed outline that identifies the connection between your topic and the Circuit of
Culture. (2.5)
Inclusion of a statement that proposes a format for your final project. (.5)
Presentations will be graded on the following:
Does the content reflect a serious level of engagement with the topic? (2)
Is the presentation well organized? (2)
Does the presenter confidently deliver the information (basic presentation skills)? (1)
Final Project will be graded on the following:
Application of the circuit of culture to your topic (5 points)
Depth of research – Is the project well researched? (5 points)
Paper – Is the paper well written and organized/ Digital Project – Is the digital project well written
and organized – does it effectively utilize the platform and include audio/visual elements? (3
points)
Bibliography – does the project include a complete and properly cited bibliography? Does the
project consistently use proper in-text citations? (2 points)
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