Part One: Apply the four big takeaways from class. There are four big “takeaways
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Part One: Apply the four big takeaways from class.
There are four big “takeaways” from this class, four things that I hope each of you have come to understand about technology, media, and culture.1. Technological Determinism vs. Cultural Determinism.
2. Technology ≠ Progress. Technology = Change in Power.
3. Communication is the study of Community
4. Media -> Internet -> Social Media -> Specific Platforms
Your job for Part One of this final is to take each of these four principals and find an example from something we watched this semester and apply this principal. (You can use a Black Mirror episode, The Circle, or one of the documentaries we watched.) Your example should be specific, not the episode or documentary in general, but a specific part of the piece. Name the example, and then explain how it applies. Your answer need only be a few paragraphs long. (See the end of this assignment for an example.) Make sure though that you find a separate example for each of the four takeaways. You can use an episode or film for two separate answers, but no more.
(@300 words for each of the four principals, @1200 words total).Watch
1.”White Christmas.” Season 2. Episode 4.
2.Watch “Black Museum” This is Season 4, Episode 6 of Black Mirror.
Part Two: Write Your Own Episode
Purpose your own Black Mirror episode. This is going to require some thinking and creativity. Here is how I purpose you go about it. Each Black Mirror episode takes one feature of of technology, imagines “what if we took this to the extreme, and placed it in a future that is only slightly different from ours.” So think about an aspect of MEDIAthat you think is great, or that you struggle with, and think thru what the distopic possibilities for that piece of media are.
In your answer:
1. Describe the episode, outline its setting and plot. You do not need to be incredibly detailed, but do give us a summary. Pretend the episode exists and that you are writing a summary for someone who can’t watch it. Being detailed about a few specific aspects of the world can really help express your vision, like what are the small details that make this episode work (for example in Entire History of You how the TSA works by playing back surveillance camera).
2. Outline what you as an imaginary director would want the audience to take away from this episode. What is the message?
(800-900 words)
Sample Answer for Part One
Sample for one of the part one answers (note: you shouldn’t use this one).
3. Communication is the study of Community
In the Black Mirror episode, “15 Million Merits,” the primary means of communicating that the characters have is thru screens. This isn’t to say that characters cannot talk to each other, they do have conversations and direct interactions, but the vast majority of the day is spent interacting with screens. The primary means of communicating is via screens. From the moment they wake up, Bing wakes up to a virtual screen of a rooster crowing and sunrise not the actual sunrise, to every aspect of their day, the characters are surrounded by screens. This shows how the community is primarily structured around “virtual” interactions and “entertainment” via screens. Characters have very few real possessions, indeed they are often banned, but instead have virtual ones, that exist only on screens. This shows how the means of communicating (the media environment) ends up shaping the community as a whole (focus on virtual representation and entertainment over material ones). Indeed because the whole community is oriented towards a screen based, entertainment communication platform, it is hard to imagine anything else in the world. All communication is virtual, screen based, entertainment oriented, and thus the whole community is oriented around this function, from video games on bikes, to virtual avatars at events (no real attendance), to every performance being turned from authentic (Bing’s monologue) into entertainment (he gets hired to deliver these monologues). There is no serious communication, everything is just entertainment.
