For your final paper, you have the opportunity to choose a millennial media text or phenomenon and explore it in full. This could range across a wide set of topics. Here is a general list to provide a sense of scope:

• an ideological analysis of a film or TV series and its reception
• a consideration of branding of a TV network as millennial
• examination of a website, blog network, or some other social network that you see as resonating with the class preoccupations
• consideration of how a particular cultural concern (for example, religion or sexuality) plays out in a particular cultural context or set of interrelated media texts
• examination a contemporary “millennial” practice of media authorship and audience engagement–for example, videoblogging, or live-tweeting of television

You will propose, research, and write a 15 page essay on the subject of your choosing.

This essay must draw on three readings from class, and four additional secondary sources (which you will have summarized and responded to in your annotated bibliography.) This essay must also involve some form of primary research, be it the analysis of network advertising, a web site or set of sites, or the reception of a film or television program.

You may build on the topic you began research on for your group presentation, or you may write on any topic of your choosing, provided I approve the proposal. You must incorporate feedback from the final submitted draft into your final paper.

Submit your proposal here

Submit your draft here

Submit your final essay here