Midterm paper

For your midterm, I'd like you to write a paper/blog post of about 1000 words addressing the following prompt. Your paper/post will be due (which is to say, uploaded to the blog) before class on October 15.

Your paper/post should take the form of a well constructed essay. Please be sure that your thesis is clear and that your examples are well chosen. Please also be sure to employ a consistent citation format -- you need to include a bibliography (even for texts assigned in class) and clear in-text citations. (See here if you're unsure of a format to use.)

Prompt:

In class each day we have listed the questions authors ask and the points or arguments they make, as well as critiques we could make of their arguments. There is considerable thematic overlap from one author to the next in the questions they ask and the arguments they make. In this assignment, I'd like you to choose at least two authors and explore how they address a similar set of questions. (See below for examples.) On what points do they agree or disagree? What motivates them to take the stance that they take? In what ways are their approaches complementary -- that is, do they give us different insight into the "social implications of an information society"?

Finally, I'd like you to consider the critiques we have made of each author. Of the authors you have chosen, can we use the arguments of one to address or overcome the critiques we made of the other? In other words, does a synthesis of their arguments give us a better understanding of our object of study (whatever it is) than either of the individual authors' theories standing alone?

Examples:

my description of the value of genre in Technology/Form and MacDonald's take on formula and the "built-in reaction"

Habermas's notion of the "public sphere" and Jenkins's description of participatory media

Horkheimer and Adorno's conception of the "culture industries" and Jenkins's description of producers' evolving relationship with consumers

Grading criteria:

I will be taking into consideration:

* the quality of your argument
* the quality and quantity of your examples
* the quality of your expression (mechanics, grammar, essay organization)
* the quality and consistency of your citations