1. Choose EITHER a series of five (5) or more newspaper articles OR a film OR a television program OR a book that considers a single issue of relevance to modern society in detail. Demonstrate how our understanding of this issue is socially constructed via the use of dominant ideologies and discourses, and the maintenance of dominant hegemonies, found in this text.
(For instance, you could use the film / documentary 'Farenheit 9/11' to consider how this text constructs a particular understanding of the issue of the Bush family's relationship with the Bin Ladens; or how it constructs a particular understanding of the issue of the way in which the 'War on Terror' relies on very specific class and race relations for its success and popularity in the USA; or you could use a series of newspaper articles portraying Redfern and the indigenous population who reside there to consider the way in which the issue of race is constructed in Australian society.)
NB: This question is NOT asking for a review of the chosen subject matter. It requires an analysis of the chosen subject matter demonstrating your understanding of the given concepts.
2. Undertake a semiotic analysis of a print advertisement, CD cover, book jacket, postcard, OR poster. What is the overt message signified by your media product? What signifiers does the media product use to connote this message? Are there any alternative possible messages connoted? What might be some of the negotiated or oppositional readings of the item? Please include the media product with your essay.
NB: This question is NOT asking for a description of the chosen item but requires an in depth analysis of the item following the rules of semiotic analysis provided in the lecture notes and textbook.
3. Using a piece of fiction (for example a book, film, piece of fan fiction, graphic novel etc) of your choosing discuss how the type of narrative used works to tell the story. (For instance, consider the impact of first, second or third person narration on the ways we come to understand the story; consider the ways in which characterisation
occurs and whether another character in the narrative is responsible for that characterisation, and so on.) What meanings can be drawn from the narrative structure itself? Consider how both narrative form and genre operate to reproduce various ideologies and transmute them through the text.