Term Project: Communication Resource Curation

Due Nov 24 (11:45 pm)

Communication technology has produced an unprecedented glut of information. A search of most subjects produces an unorganized mass of information that may be worth little more than not having pursued the search in the first place. Companies increasingly filter information for customers—Netflix tells you what movies it thinks you will enjoy, Amazon only shows you a handful of its products, and Google guesses what you are really looking for based on your location, your past searches, and other proprietary information about you.

Sorting and selection by algorithm—as practiced by corporations, government agencies, and others—is a form of content curation. Curation refers to collecting, organizing, and displaying related content. Although automated curation is invaluable, there is a role for thoughtful expert curation as well. For an overview of the importance and nature of content curation, here is a link to a blog post by Beth Kanter, an expert in the use of social marketing strategies for non-profit organizations: http://www.bethkanter.org/content-curation-101/ (链接到外部网站。)

Many online resources are available both to help develop communication skills and to disseminate information about communication research. Your assignment is to curate a collection of at least 8 high-quality resources relevant to one of the following topical areas drawn from this term’s lecture topics, both collecting and organizing links to these resources and insightfully outlining each resource’s particular contributions to communication research and to your topic.

To do so, follow these steps:

1. Download the CMN10V Term Project Template. Link to template

Use the template as is to fill in your assignment information.

2. Select your Focused Topic from one of the provided General Topics

You must choose to work on a sub-set of one of the following general topic areas to narrow the scope your project. As you’re collecting resources, try to find a sub-topic topic where your resources can cover all aspects of the topic.

Topics for Fall, 2019

• Computer-Mediated Communication and Health
• Media and Stereotypes
• News and Framing

***Note: Your sub-topic must discuss (and naturally will discuss) both concepts listed in the general topic. If you were to select Computer-Mediated Communication and Health, this means that your project should discuss Computer-Mediated Communication AND its relation to Health. If you were to select Media and Stereotypes, you should discuss Media AND Stereotypes. If you were to select News and Framing, you must discuss News with its relation to Framing. You cannot simply discuss Computer-Mediated Communication, Media, or News.

Whatever your subtopic may be, it must focus on communication and communication research.

3. Collect links to 8 resources that inform all aspects of the specific topic.

Your resources must consist of 8 resources focused on communication and communication research. The resources must be:

Accessible to a broad audience. They should not be difficult-to-use things like original research articles published in academic journals or sources that are paywalled.

Credible and high-quality. They should be from sources whose information are broadly respected and trusted (e.g., from reputable news outlets, study reports produced by reputable outlets like the Pew Research Center, etc.).

Varied across authors and formats. You must use diverse types of resources (e.g., videos, Wiki entries, blog posts, online databases), and they must have diverse sources (i.e., not all produced by the same entity or published or listed on the same site). For example, you could use online databases, youtube videos, online databases, etc. from all different writers, speakers, or organizations. You wouldn’t, for example, want 5 videos from CNN.

So a project on the influence of News, for example, might contain a link to a YouTube video, produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation, of How News Became Trivialized, a series that combined expert opinion and communication research findings to explain how substantive current events reporting has become displaced by stories about relatively inconsequential developments.

(Links to an external site.) (链接到外部网站。)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqeBcvHhA9M (链接到外部网站。)

A project on health communication might contain a link to the NIH’s publication titled Patient-centered communication in cancer care: http://appliedresearch.cancer.gov/areas/pcc/commun… (链接到外部网站。)

4. For each resource, write a short statement outlining the connection between the resource with both your chosen topic area AND communication research.

Each source link must be accompanied by a statement of no more than 150 words. We will stop reading after 150 words, so DON’T GO OVER.

When discussing the importance of each of your resources, the statement will be graded holistically on your ability to:

(1) briefly summarize the content and main argument of the source

The summary should also include a description to identify the type of source (e.g., video, blog, etc.) and who published it (e.g., in your source title as “News article: CNN discusses….” or in your discussion as “This resource, which is a news article from CNN…”).

(2) clearly outline its relevant contribution to your topic area

When outlining the relevance of your source to the topic area, consider the unique contribution/angle of that source compared to other sources.

(3) discuss the source in terms of its relevance to topic-related course concepts.

How does your source directly connect to theories, models, or concepts discussed in course materials?

To ensure a high grade on this project, when discussing each source, emphasis should be placed on encompassing all three of the grading criteria in your concise source description.

For example, for a course topic on online news and political polarization through different media outlets (selected from a different general sub-topic), a sample statement might include the following:

Link: http://journalism.uoregon.edu/news/six-ways-media-influences-elections/ (链接到外部网站。)

Statement: In an article from the University of Oregon, the author explores six way media influences elections: certain topics journalists cover, shifting away from straight news, the rise of partisan media sources, and the echo chamber effect from social media. The author makes the claim that major media outlets attract political audiences, which they do since they switch from just news, to news with a twist, either leaning left or right, which increases polarization among citizens.

The article contributes to my topic area by explaining that because several media outlets have partisan focus, an echo chamber and curated feeds online, they all lead to polarization since there is enormous amounts of filtration and concentration of viewpoints in media. In relation to course concepts, it relates heavily to agenda setting since the news outlets are deciding what is important to show and therefore skews angles of perception.

Late policy: Do not submit your term project late. Any project submitted after the deadline but before 48 hours has passed will be penalized by 50% of the score it would otherwise have received. Any project submitted more than 48 hours after the deadline will receive a zero.