Music Celebrity Research essay

below. It will be evaluated on the basis of your argumentation, fulfillment of the questions posed, use of
supporting materials, and clarity and organization. Write as if for a general audience. See the second
page for the grading criteria. You will be expected to perform research by consulting appropriate sources
(trade, popular, academic publications, and/or other applicable material). In addition to these, you may
also draw upon readings and lecture. Rely on lecture, however, only for ideas not discussed in the
readings. Wikipedia and other general reference sources may be useful as you initially look into the
background of your topic, but they are not sufficient resources from which to cite and build your argument.
Think of the essay—complete with an introduction, thesis, and conclusion—as a research project. Include
in-text citations and an alphabetized bibliography of all sources you cite (including those from class). Use
a recognizable scholarly format (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.). Remember that failure to properly cite ideas
or exact wording from other texts constitutes plagiarism, which is a major academic violation.
This essay accounts for 20% of your course grade. Any paper turned in after the beginning of class will
be penalized at the rate of 10% of the total assignment grade per day. You will submit TWO copies of
your paper: a hardcopy and a .doc or .pdf digital copy (via bSpace ? Assignments). Label your digital
submission’s file name “firstname_lastname_ms10essay1”

PROMPT (CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING):
Decoding Controversial Media
Apply Hall’s encoding/decoding model to a media text widely believed to be controversial. What is the
media producers’ preferred meaning? What is a popular negotiated or oppositional reading (or two)? Use
mainstream reviews and criticism, news articles and editorials, fan websites/pages, and/or other sources
to illustrate the decoding position(s). What does your research reveal about the balance of power
between producers and audiences in determining textual meaning?
Music Celebrity
What is the economic value of fostering celebrity within the music industry? Choose a music celebrity.
What is her or his current star text? How has this been shaped by promotion and publicity? Filter her or
him through our conceptualization of stars as phenomena of industry and of audience. Does one
interpretation work better than the other? In what ways does this celebrity’s star text differ from her or his
previous incarnations? Were there motivations behind this change?
Genre Mutation
Choose a medium-specific genre or subgenre and trace the ways in which it has changed throughout the
years. Start off by defining your genre and its basic/traditional codes and conventions before describing
how these have mutated over time. What specific changes have influenced these transformations? Focus
on two particular case studies from the same genre. How do they represent your argument? Have the
mutations you described impacted popular perception of the genre?

GRADING CRITERIA:
An “A” paper fulfills all the requirements of the assignment with exceptional quality. It will have consulted
numerous sources appropriate to the topic and will use evidence from that research to make thorough
and well-reasoned arguments. The essay will be free of spelling and grammatical errors and be organized
in a way that allows claims to build on one another. Most importantly, it goes beyond the essentials of the
assignment in its insight and originality, displaying effective and precise thought and composition.
A “B” paper fulfills all the requirements of the assignment with good quality. It will respond to every part
of the prompt, adequately consulting several appropriate sources. The essay will be reasonably free of
spelling or grammar mistakes, and all the requirements on the prompt will be met. The essay will convey
an argument and be well executed on the whole, but it might be improved by more specific details and
examples, a wider variety of sources, better organization, or greater argumentative nuance.
A “C” paper fulfills some to most of the requirements of the assignment with fair quality. It will adequately
describe the topic, but fall short of using the research to forward a clear argument. Sources consulted will
be relevant, but may be sparse and/or unreliable. The paper may provide a good deal of interesting
information, but may lack the organization needed to provide purpose and direction. It may also fail to
address parts of the prompt, and it may contain significant spelling, grammatical, or factual errors.
A “D” paper does not fulfill most of the requirements of the assignment. The writing is generally poor,
with little clarity, precision, organization, or interest. It may also suffer from significant issues of grammar
and spelling. Too few sources will have been consulted, and obvious avenues of research will have been
ignored. The essay may lack an organizational structure, with citations and/or bibliographies missing or
incomplete.