Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Minority profile writing assignment

Hello everyone in my MCOM 101 class.

Over the next few days, we’ll be focusing on chapter 9 “Digital Media: Widening the Web.”

But for this blog post, I want to share with you guidelines for a writing assignment that will be due at the start of our class on Wednesday, April 13. I will be going over these guidelines in class but here they are in writing just in case…

You will be researching and writing a Minority Profile.

This assignment is consistent with the language in our syllabus that: “The course emphasizes that the most effective mass media entities express diversity of thought and opinion through their workforces and their messages…”

Our course syllabus also notes: “Some assignments in MCOM 101 will focus on the connection between mass media messages and racial or ethnic minorities. A sampling of writing or presentation assignments will focus on diversity and global awareness—embracing the broadest possible range of people and perspectives.”

You might recall that recently we noted in class that the mass media (especially the movie industry, but not limited to movies) has come under fire for lacking racial and ethnic diversity. Newspapers, magazines and television have also been recently criticized for NOT reflecting the diversity and composition of the American population. Television, for example, has been attacked by some for not having a sufficient number of African-Americans or Latinos as main characters for entertainment (or news anchors or on-air reporters for news progams).

In general, these same critics condemn many branches of the mass media of communications in the U.S. for falling short of reaching out to non-whites (or to the non-mainstream segment of the American population) in a meaningful way.

So all this is the background for this assignment—which you will be working on for the next few days.

(Incidentally, WE WILL NOT MEET AS A CLASS ON FRIDAY, APRIL 8. USE THIS TIME WISELY TO WORK ON YOUR MINORITY PROFILE).

Deadline: Due at the start of our class on Wednesday, April 13.

Length: 2-3 pages, typed, double-spaced, 14-point font size for type.

What you will do: You will be writing a minority profile. Select and interview a person who is a minority on campus.

What do we mean by a minority? He or she could be a member of an ethnic minority; racial minority; religious minority; sexual preference/lifestyle minority; person with a disability (mental or physical)…
Be sure to include in your minority profile whom you interviewed and what qualifies him/her as a member of a minority group. 

Need to weave your interviewee's full name, age, and hometown and home state/country into your writing assignment.  (If a student, include his/her year in school and major and hometown and state.)  If not a student, include full name, age, and hometown and home state/country and his/her occupation. YOU MUST HAVE A NAME FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT. If a minority will not give you his/her name, then find one who will.

Focus in your interview on these questions:
What’s your opinion of how minorities (such as yourself or others) are portrayed in the mass media? Explain.
Related to #1, what do you think of the criticism by some people that the mass media of communication has NOT done a very good job of reflecting the composition and diversity of the American population?
Have you ever been covered in a news or feature story by the mass media (newspaper, magazine, TV, radio…?) If so, were you covered accurately and adequately? Was your experience good or bad? Explain.
What advice would you give media professionals on how better to portray or cover minorites?
Do you ever think of yourself or fellow members of your minority as being unfairly stereotyped? Explain.
How do you prefer to be addressed in normal, everyday life? Have you ever experienced insensitivity or prejudice because you are a minority? Explain.
In addition, for purposes of this assignment, describe briefly what it was like for you to interview your selected minority person. Positive experience? Negative? Was the interviewee cooperative? Did anything he/she said surprise you?

TIP: ENGAGE your interviewee in a conversation.  Avoid asking questions that can be answered simply with yes or no. Put him/her at ease. Get the person to talk about the assigned subject.

What I'll take into account when I evaluate your minority profile assignment:

A. How well your interview-based minority profile writing assignment compares with those of your fellow students in terms of quality (Does it catch and hold my attention? Did you follow the guidelines for the interview? Address all the above questions? Did you seem to get him/her to open up with you about the assigned topic?)

B. How much attention and care you paid to mechanics--spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure and graph structure (short graphs are best). Get all gremlins out of your writing before submitting your assignment into me.

OPTIONAL: Do you really want to go the extra mile and enhance your minority profile writing assignment? Create a 1-2-minute video of your profiled minority (maybe featuring him or her answering a few of those above questions.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE PICTURE QUALITY AND SOUND QUALITY. PLUS, READ CLOSELY MY ACCOMPANYING BLOG POST ON TIPS FOR SHOOTING VIDEO. IF WE PLAY YOUR VIDEO IN CLASS, WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO SEE AND HEAR IT!

Post your video to YouTube and email me the link by 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 12, and I’ll take a look/listen. BE SURE, BEFORE YOU EMAIL THE VIDEO TO ME, THAT YOU TEST IT OUT FIRST AND THAT THE SOUND AND VISUAL QUALITY ARE GOOD. ALSO BE SURE, BEFORE EMAILING THE LINK TO ME, THAT OTHERS (NOT JUST YOURSELF) CAN OPEN AND HEAR/SEE YOUR VIDEO.

The video is NOT a required component of this minority profile writing assignment. Nor does it replaced the required minority profile writing assignment. But if you want to impress the old blogster (and perhaps boost your grade on this assigment just a tad) go for it!

Larry Timbs



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