final exam
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COMM 1100 final exam
An exegesis is a critical explanation and interpretation of a text. For this take-home
exam, you will choose two quotes (listed below) and conduct an exegesis on each of
them.
The exam is designed for you to show off your knowledge and interpretation of required
course readings, so be sure to draw on an a
ay of required course readings in your an-
swers!
Required readings for this exam means the readings listed on the syllabus for October
29 - December 9 inclusive.
important!
-Follow APA formatting in your work. You can find out
more about APA formatting here.
-Word count: 1000 minimum-1150 words maximum.
-Submit your work as a Word file (.docx) or a PDF (.pdf).
No other formats will be accepted.
-Deadline: 11:59pm ET December XXXXXXXXXXThis
deadline is non-negotiable. Extensions will not
e granted. Your work cannot be resubmitted
for any reason once you have uploaded it to the
Canvas drop-box.
STEP #1 Choose one quote from the list below, and place it in the con-
text of the reading as a whole. What role does it play within
the reading — what specific idea and/or issue does it help us
focus on? Why is this idea and/or issue important for the read-
ing’s overall argument?
STEP #2 Discuss how this quote relates to other relevant required
eadings. How does this quote help us look more carefully at a
particular communication and media studies problem ad-
dressed in the other readings you have selected? What does it
add to the perspective(s) found in these other readings, and
why is this addition significant?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
COMM 1100: INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES—FALL 2020
DR. ANDREA BRAITHWAITE
https:
guides.li
ary.uoit.ca/citation
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tips and reminders:
-Review the ru
ic available on Canvas, to ensure you’re meeting all of the exam’s requirements.
-Present your ideas in full sentences and proper paragraphs. Accurately and completely reference each
source you site. Be familiar with Ontario Tech’s academic integrity policies and abide by them.
-The goal of this take-home exam is to engage directly with the required course readings from October 29
- December 9. All of these readings are listed on the syllabus. No external research is required, and you
will not receive any credit for any external research conducted or incorporated.
-Back your work up regularly, keep rough drafts as separate files, and give yourself extra time to upload
your file. Be prepared for technical issues. They do not constitute exceptional circumstances and will not
e considered as such if you do not meet the deadline.
-Neither myself nor our teaching assistants will review any version of your work before the deadline. This
is an exam, and you are solely responsible for the content of your submission.
-Deadline: Due 11:59pm ET December XXXXXXXXXXThis deadline is non-negotiable. Exten-
sions will not be granted. Your work cannot be resubmitted for any reason once you have
uploaded it to the Canvas drop-box.
quotes:
Cohn: “A lack of care and investment by tech companies towards users who are not white and
male allows racism and sexism to creep into search engines, social networks and other algorithmic
technologies.”
Gauntlett: “The effects model therefore performs the double deception of presuming (a) that the
media presents a singular and clear-cut ‘message’, and (b) that the proponents of the effects model
are in a position to identify what that message is.”
Ge
ner: “What is most likely to cultivate stable and common conceptions of reality is, therefore,
the overall pattern of programming to which total communities are regularly exposed over long
STEP #3 Come up with one research question we could ask by drawing
on this quote. Why is this research question worth investigat-
ing? How will it encourage us to think more critically about the
idea(s) and/or issue(s) you identified in steps #1 and #2?
STEP #4 Choose a second quote from the list below, and go through
steps #1 -#3 again for a second exegesis!
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
COMM 1100: INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES—FALL 2020
DR. ANDREA BRAITHWAITE
https:
academicintegrity.ontariotechu.ca/students/index.php
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periods of time. That is the pattern of settings, casting, social typing, actions, and related outcomes
that cuts across program types and viewing modes and defines the world of television.”
Greenfield (“Rise of the Machines”): “The picture we are left with is that of our su
oundings furi-
ously vacuuming up information, every square metre of seemingly banal pavement yielding so
much data about its uses and its users that nobody yet knows what to do with it all. And it is at this
scale of activity that the guiding ideology of the internet of things comes into clearest focus.”
Groen: “Artificial intelligence may have cracked the code on certain tasks that typically require
human smarts, but in order to learn, these algorithms need vast quantities of data that humans
have produced. They hoover up that information, rummage around in search of commonalities and
co
elations, and then offer a classification or prediction . . . based on the patterns they detect.”
Jenkins: “Ultimately, our media future could depend on the kind of uneasy truce that gets
o-
kered between commercial media and collective intelligence. Imagine a world where there are two
kinds of media power: one comes through media concentration, where any message gains authori-
ty simply by being
oadcast on network television; the other comes through collective intelli-
gence, where a message gains visibility only if it is deemed relevant to a loose network of diverse
publics.”
Pooley: “The stuff that we study—internet memes, for example, or self-learning algorithms—are
characterized by ceaseless churn. Even the categories we use, like ‘audience’ or ‘content' or ‘pro-
ducer,’ get washed away by the pace of change. There is nothing fixed or frozen to linger on; every-
thing we study is on the move, looping, dynamic, and messy.”
Spigel: “The smart home is really a kind of laboratory for figuring out the future in the context of
present-day transitions – including not simply technological changes, but also changes in the sexu-
al division of labour, new forms of global commerce, new household configurations and new con-
sumer demographics. In this regard, there is a kind of double (but not necessarily separate) vision
of the smart house.”
Storey: “A great deal of the difficulty arises from the absent other which always haunts any defini-
tion we might use. It is never enough to speak of popular culture; we have always to acknowledge
that with which it is being contrasted. And whichever of popular culture’s others we employ, mass
culture, high culture, working-class culture, folk culture, etc., it will ca
y into the definition of
popular culture a specific theoretical and political inflection.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
COMM 1100: INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES—FALL 2020
DR. ANDREA BRAITHWAITE
tips and reminders:
quotes:
https:
www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/06/internet-of-things-smart-home-smart-city https:
www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05
usiness/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.html https:
thewalrus.ca/how-we-made-ai-as-racist-and-sexist-as-humans/ https:
theconversation.com/googles-algorithms-discriminate-against-women-and-people-of-colour XXXXXXXXXXhttp:
eng1131adaptations.pbworks.com/f/Jenkins%2C%2BHenry%2B%2B-%2BThe%2BCultural%2BLogic%2Bof%2BMedia%2BConvergence.pdf https:
longreads.com/2017/06/13/a-sociology-of-the-smartphone/ https:
uniteyouthdublin.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/john_storey_cultural_theory_and_popular_culturebookzz-org.pdf https:
www.newframe.com/cancelling-the-apocalypse/ http:
davidgauntlett.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Ten-Things-Wrong-2006-version.pdf Key Concepts: Introduction to Communication Studies Massive Audience Active Audience Indirect Effects What is pop culture Hegemony Convergence culture Participatory culture Algorithms/Artificial Intelligence Big data Digital enclosure The internet of things