Research in digital media
Research in digital media
Order Plagiarism free Essay on Digital Media
This paper will propose a question that can only be answered through
research in both critical literature (drawn from the readings in the
course as well as your own research) and careful analysis of a digital
narrative project.
In other words, this paper will combine two skills that we have been
developing over the course of the semester. On the one hand, you will
perform the sort of argumentative analysis you’ve deployed in the
response papers, engaging with theories of digital media (from Rebecca
Solnit to Kenneth Goldsmith, e.g.).
Research in digital media
Order Plagiarism free Essay on Digital Media
On the other hand, these theories
will be grounded in an analysis of (at least) one work of digital
media—the skills you have brought to bear in your formal analysis
assignment along with the formal analyses we have been routinely
performing in our discussions of the works in class.
This will sound familiar to anyone who’s taken a college-level English
class before: you’re doing a close reading of a primary source (in that
case, a novel, in this case, a game, an interactive documentary, data
journalism, etc.) and then placing your close reading in a larger
theoretical context and supporting your arguments about your reading by
bringing in critical sources.
Research in digital media
Order Plagiarism free Essay on Digital Media
How do I start?
One idea is to start with a piece of media you’re interested in writing
about. Say you’re fascinated by the Minecraft phenomenon. Then think
about what aspects of Minecraft is most interesting to you—let’s say
you’re curious about the ways in which Minecraft’s open-source command
line format encourages kids to learn computer science. So then you start
to develop a central question along those lines. Then you need to
conduct research: go to the library’s website (or the library itself!)
and search academic databases for articles about Minecraft, about
Computer Science pedagogy, about open-source learning, etc. From these
elements, you can a persuasive paper that makes an argument about the
relationship between Minecraft, open-source, and learning (FOR EXAMPLE).
Research in digital media
Order Plagiarism free Essay on Digital Media
In addition to showing that you’ve done research and looked carefully at
the digital media example (in this example, Minecraft) itself, you need
to make your own intervention here: I want to know what YOU think.
Of course that’s just one approach. You could also do this in reverse,
and start with the critical/theoretical work. Let’s say you’re really
interested in Manovich’s ideas about the relationship between databases
and narrative form in the digital age. So then you look for examples of
digital media through which you can explore those questions.
When in doubt, most of the readings for this semester are great examples
of this assignment in action. Nearly all of the critical readings do
what I’m asking you to do here:
Research in digital media
Order Plagiarism free Essay on Digital Media
they make an original argument in the author’s own voice;
they perform a “close reading” of one (or more) work(s) of digital media;
they engage with the critical literature—citing other critics and
thinkers whose work informs their own (whether or not they agree with
those thinkers!).
Requirements:
—at least 1,250 words (5 pages), printed out, stapled, double-spaced,
12-pt font, 1-inch margins.
—at least two critical sources, one of them peer-reviewed (e.g. from a
peer reviewed academic journal. The other critical source can be
non-academic, e.g. something like Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making us
Stupid?”)
—close reading (e.g. formal analysis) of at least one work of digital media
—well organized and well written