Anthropology 295: Anthropology of Media

The format of this course is participatory and hands-on seminar, and therefore carries with it certain opportunities and obligations. Although we will periodically have lectures, guests, and films the in-class portions of this course are organized primarily around interactive activities, discussion of the readings, and the broader themes raised by course materials. Therefore, it is essential that each of you comes to class prepared, which means having done the assigned readings before every class session and considered the issues you would like to contribute to discussion. Needless to say, attendance is mandatory at all course activities, and the only excused absences are for family or health emergencies (with proof).

You will be graded on the following:

Class attendance, participation, and collaborative note-taking: 15%
Blog Discussion: 20%
Media Artifact Installation: 10%
Media Technologies assignment: 30%
Take-Home Final: 25%

Collaborative Note-taking
We will post class notes on a wiki site. Each week, three people will be responsible for taking notes of lectures, discussion, comments, etc. from class. As individuals they will post the notes to the wiki site, and collaboratively edit the notes online. I will not grade the accuracy of the notes—it is up to the group to ensure their accuracy through the group editing process—but completing this assignment becomes an aspect of your overall class attendance grade.

Blog Discussion
At least once a week during the semester you must write on our course blog a brief posting that refers to/analyzes/responds to an issue raised in class and/or at least one of the readings we are doing in class. This posting does not have a maximum limit but it must be a minimum of 300 words. You will also be required to respond at least once every two weeks to a posting from a classmate. There is no minimum number of words for a response, but it must engage substantively with the submission to which it responds. Completion of this assignment constitutes 20% of your grade.

Feel free to post more thoughts and responses than I am asking for here. If you are clearly engaged with the issues in the blog and continually offering thoughtful perspectives throughout the semester, I will consider raising your final course grade by ½ grade.

I do not expect these to be polished essays and responses; they are “thought pieces,” meant to provoke you to think through issues in preparation for class discussion, and to extend our discussions beyond the classroom. But remember, these will be seen, reviewed, and responded to by the rest of the class, so think somewhat carefully about what you are going to write. I expect the highest standards of professional engagement and will not tolerate personal attacks or derogatory statements of any kind toward anyone in the class. When possible, I will also submit my own thoughts and responses on the blog.

The most effective submissions should 1) refer to the main ideas and arguments of relevant text(s) and/or comment(s), and 2) be followed by questions, commentary, assessments, analysis, protests, opinions, or any combination of these. You will not be graded in terms of their quality, only that you fulfill your obligation to post once a week and respond to someone else’s posting once every two weeks. The penalty of missing a post is that you will lose a whole grade of your blog discussion grade (i.e., miss one, drop from A to B for overall blog discussion grade; if you miss four, you get an F for that category). In other words, actually do them and you will receive full credit.

Media Artifact Installation
We will spend time throughout the semester critically analyzing the persuasive techniques of actual media products, including film, television, radio, advertising, etc. During the last week of the semester, you will have an opportunity to show the class a media artifact (from any source–magazine, internet, television, radio, etc.) and critically analyze it. You will then provide the artifact, or some kind of visual/audio representation of it, along with a short caption briefly offering your analysis. We will vote on the strongest and most interesting examples, and I will prepare an installation of the winners in display cases of the Anthro Department lounge.

Understanding Digital Media Technologies
This is a three-part, small group activity. Working in groups of three, you will identify an everyday cultural practice or typical social interaction at UVM and record and edit it, first as a 1-2 minute audio project and later as a 1-2 minute video project. After producing these media, your group will present its media projects to the rest of the class and discuss the similarities and differences between producing audio and visual projects, as well as the possibilities and limitations of each technology for representing cultural processes. The final component of the assignment is for you as an individual to write a 6-page reflection paper on the processes of producing these media. This three-part exercise (audio, visual, and reflective writing assignment) will continue over the course of several weeks, and will constitute 30% of your grade for the course. I will hand out a more substantial description of this assignment early in the semester.

Take-Home Final
This exam will require you to offer an anthropologically-informed analysis of a particular media-related situation. The technological format for your response is open: it can be written, visual, audio, etc. We will discuss details of this assignment late in the semester.

Please bring a copy of the following paper to class on Thursday 8/30:

A 2-page reflection on your childhood experience with media. How did you and your family use media when you were growing up? Which media--newspapers, books, radio, internet, television, music, etc.--were most important? Why were they important? How did you and your family use them? This is a reflective essay, written in the first person. It should be descriptive and detailed.

These instructions were emailed to you. In case you lose them, they're right here:

HOW TO USE THE COURSE BLOG:

Our blog uses a program called Movable Type, which is a common and relatively easy to use blogging software program.

You will be doing two things with the course blog, one is making original entries (once a week, minimum 300 words), and the other is responding to/making a comment on someone else's entry. These involve two different kinds of operations: one (the entry) requires you to go into the guts of the blog (and only we have access to it), while the other (comment) you can do on the blog that is viewable by anyone on the web (and anyone has access to making comments).

HOW TO POST A NEW ENTRY ON THE COURSE BLOG:

1. Go to http://lvivanco.blog.uvm.edu/mt

2. Log into Movable Type (type in your username and password which you gave me the other day. If you have problems let me know; I might have typed it in wrong if your writing sucked!).

3. Once logged in, click on link under "My Weblogs" called Anthropology 295: Anthropology of Media

4. On left side bar, under "Posting" click on "New Entry."

5. You will now see the form in which you will type your entry.

6. IMPORTANT: The FIRST time (and only first time) you visit this page, you must click on "customize the display of this page" link (at the bottom, under the form). When you click on that link, it will open a new box. In this new box, you will see the title "Editor Fields." Click on the "Custom" button, and then check the following boxes: Category, Keywords, Tags, Text Formatting, Accept Comments, and Accept Trackbacks. (Don’t worry about the "Action Bar".) Then click save button. You won't need to do this customization again.

7. You will now see a slightly modified form for your New Entry page than you initially saw. You can now begin filling in the different areas with your entry (title, body, keywords, etc.).

8. Once you finish filling out what you want to fill out, go to the pulldown that says "Category" to the right of where you typed the title of your entry. Pull it down and click on "Discussions" (this will ensure it goes to our discussion page).

9. Once you've designated the "Discussions" category, click save button at the bottom of the page. if you'd like to view your post on the blog, click on "View Site" button at the bottom of the column of the left side.

10. You're done! You can log out now.

11. If you'd like to edit your entry at any point, log back into Movable Type and click on the "Entries" link on the left-hand column, and then find your entry and click on it, which will open up the original form you filled out.

HOW TO COMMENT ON SOMEONE ELSE'S ENTRY:
1. You do not need to go into the guts of the blog to do this (as in, you don't need to log into Movable Type). When you are looking at the course blog (http://lvivanco.blog.uvm.edu/media-anth/), go to the "Discussions" Link on the right side under "Categories." There you will find all of our discussions. When you identify someone else's entry that you would like to comment on, just click on the "comment" link under the entry and fill out the form. It's as easy as that!