Blog #10: Reflecting on Media Discourses

For this (last) blog assignment, you will submit to me a draft of your topic page, "Entertainment." At this point, your draft only needs to contain text...we will work on the design and visuals later. Click on this link for the actual writing prompt.

Remember the goal, at this stage, is to move from reflection (an example of a media type that has influenced some aspect of your identity formation -- the more specific the better) to analysis (which ideologies were projected through this example?). Make a connection to something we have discussed in class to support one of your claims.

Submission: instead of posting this entry to your blog, insert the text to your topic page on your final project website. Copy the url and send me a link via email by 5:00 pm Friday, 11/19/10.

Requirements: 500 words minimum, 2 outside sources (discussed and cited), one connection to materials from this course.

Just for fun...

In-Class Blog: Picturing "The Other"

Key West, FL 2010. Tarzan picks up trash along the beach and

scolds napping native for not recycling his water bottle.

Mystory = moving from interpretation to invention.

**see Picturing Texts p. 247

(1) INTERPRETATION

[Analysis]

Why did you take the photo?

What decisions did you make in composing it?

How did your experience, background knowledge, or assumptions shape

this photo?

[REFLECTION]

Try to imaging what kind of photograph the person in your picture might

take of you.

What caption would that person add to such a photograph?

What assumptions would "the other" make about you?

(2) INVENTION

How might this exercise change the way you take travel photographs,

how you represent others, or what you assume when you snap pictures

of other people?

Can you conceive of a different way (or method) of representing

others in photographs?

Blog Assignment #8: Irony/Photoshopping

We have discussed two different, but related, topics this week: images as irony and the ethics of digital manipulation. For your blog assignment this week, you can choose ONE of the two following prompts:

(1) Answer this question: If you were to analyze your own photo albums (or your parents'), which ironies could you locate (either in the way you collect them, the method you display them, or within the collection itself)? Written portion of this post MUST BE 500 words minimum.

(2) Choose one photograph of yourself and alter it digitally. Post the before and after images to your blog, then discuss how you altered it and why you altered certain aspects of the image. It might be useful to think about the discourses (media, family, school) that have informed you about how an image should look. Written portion of this post MUST BE 200 words minimum.

WebSiteAssignment