Sociology Assignment – UK
▪ Your commentary must include the following:
1. Power in and around media – LO2(500 words):
Discuss and debate the issues of power and inequalities in and around media. Suggestions about what may be included: Think about media ownership and the implications in society why does media ownership matter? think about Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and the implication of media power he commands think about how media industries are overwhelmingly dominated by a few powerful companies and its implication; the hypodermic syringe model The Frankfurt School etc
– Herman and Chomsky’s book, Manufacturing Consent (1998) where they argued the extent of corporate control over communications
ADD SMALL CONCLUSION
2. Contemporary social issues with digital and social media
You can demonstrate your understanding of LO1:by discussing the key debates and theories around the character content role and impact of media in contemporary societies.
Suggestions about what may be included:
– Think about the impact of media in society (positive and negative)
– Good to balance the points for positive and negative
-Some theories -Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment
-Long-term cultivation effects theory (Gerbner et al.,1977)
-Functionalist model – sees mass communications content as a resource that emerges to fulfil individual needs or goals so enabling society to function more effectively
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3.A reflection on your own media use based on your media diary
▪ A reflection on your own media use based on your media diary (LO3 Apply social science skills of analysis to various mediated areas of social life relevant to student’s degree programme =) over the semester in relation to the themes discussed on this course (you may use the first person where appropriate).
▪ Suggestion about how you might approach this question:
▪ Media Diary
Sociology Assignment – UK
–During this module please keep a media diary whereby you reflect on your own media use. You can log every time or highlight key events when you come into contact with a form of media print visual sound or digital. I have made a template below which you can use as an example to help you with your media diary. Also state the period the diary covers For e.g., media diary from Sept 1 2021 – Nov. 30, 2021). See example in the next FIGURE
Student could show a diary of their media use as above.
Time spent on each platform daily could help to show usage
Then followed by critical analysis of the extracts (data) from the diary
Importantly, is relating the media use experience to some theories in your analysis
Note from the Module leader on the personal reflection: The expectation here is that the students relate their own experience to the theories themes covered on the module there fore this is not just asking students to re-write their diaries but to take extracts from their diaries to explore how the themes covered relate to real world issues they’ve experienced. It is key that the students use some of the theories/concepts/themes from the module
for some analysis. Obviously the word count doesn’t allow for a great deal of depth. The media diaries should have ideally been tied to the weekly academic content which should help students to pick out relevant material for their assessment.
