In this assignment, you will bring together all of the skills we have been building in this course to compose a 5-page, argument-driven textual analysis of two media texts that belong to the same genre. In this essay, you will analyze how (and what) ideological meaning is created in these texts, through their use of two specific genre conventions. Your paper should be organized around an argument-driven thesis and deploy specific, close textual evidence to support your readings of these media texts. You will support your readings with three scholarly sources, one of which is provided to you below. The goal is to use your comparative analysis to reveal underlying subtleties or complexities of meaning created by the repetition of visual and thematic tropes specific to that genre.
As we have been learning in our genre unit, Thomas Schatz argues that genres are “ritualistic narrative systems” that explore ideological conflicts and work as problem-solving formulas. What cultural problem or anxiety is addressed in your chosen media texts? What do these texts tell us about how that anxiety is felt or resolved in each text’s respective cultural context? Do they expose, reinforce, or critique a collective value or ideological conflict? Explore these questions by examining how these texts convey meaning through two genre conventions (such as a specific character archetype, point in narrative/plot structure, setting, piece of iconography, prop, theme, specific elements of camerawork or sound, etc.).
Building on skills developed in the shot analysis, your analysis should draw on specific textual evidence to support your readings of these texts. Demonstrate how these genre conventions convey meaning through formal elements and techniques in a specific scene to support your argument. Do not provide plot summaries. Instead, focus on an individual scene, sequence, episode (in the case of television), or story mission (in the case of video games) in your media text. If you’re choosing a character archetype, for example, focus on one specific action or behavior rather than a broad analysis of that character.
You will also need to use three scholarly sources (one provided below, two from your own research) to support your argument.
Formatting:
5 pages long (not including the optional title page or mandatory works cited page)
Double-spaced, 12-pt. Times New Roman font, 1” margins, name/date/class header or title page
Craft a title that draws the reader’s attention and previews your topic/argument.
Cite your genre’s required scholarly source above as well as two additional peer-reviewed journal articles (10+ pg.) or chapters from academic books that engage the genre you’ve selected as the focus of your paper.
Scholarly sources are those that are either a.) double blind peer reviewed, or b.) published by an academic press. Utilize the resources on the UT ( university of Texas at Austin) library website: https://www.lib.utexas.edu/, and please reach out to your instructor or TA if you have questions about the suitability of a source.
Include consistent in-text citations & full works cited page (in MLA or Chicago style) when quoting or summarizing your research materials — and don’t forget to cite your media texts as well.
Plagiarized assignments will fail.
Advice on Argumentation and Approach:
Your thesis should be provable, specific, and go deeper than a surface level reading of the genre and texts. When crafting a thesis, some questions you should ask yourself include: What are you trying to argue? What parts (specific scenes, elements of mise-en-scène, etc.) of the texts you’ve selected best support your argument?
There is no set rule for the number of paragraphs in your essay, nor for the number of sentences in each paragraph. However, there must be a unifying idea within each paragraph and this idea should be identified in the paragraph’s topic sentence. Give your reader a roadmap, and be attentive to transitioning between paragraphs and ideas.
Keep your tone objective and scholarly: this is not about whether you personally (dis)liked the texts you’re writing about, or found them to be “good” or “bad” examples of the genre you’ve selected. This is about uncovering and analyzing meaning in these media texts. Assertions need to be backed up by evidence and analysis.
Presume that your reader has some vague familiarity with the media objects you’re analyzing, and your job is to get them to see the texts in a new way or consider particular elements in greater depth (in other words, don’t waste time with plot synopsis, focus on analysis).
Before turning in your paper, PROOFREAD YOUR WORK. Better yet, swap papers with a classmate to ensure that your ideas are coming across clearly and there aren’t any errors with citations or spelling/grammar.
Required text is attatched in files