Aims:

• to develop your skills in analysing texts within contexts (c.f. Week 2 tutorial exercise)

• to help you understand the role of media in framing world events, including deciding what

‘counts’ as an event, and the discursive tools they use in doing so

• to train you to present clear analysis in a concise form

The exercise

Choose a topic from the ‘micro issue’ list above, and analyse its treatment by five different

international and/or foreign media sources accessible in English (including translations from

other languages) and accessible electronically via the Web. You can choose to analyse written

or audiovisual media but the AV media must be web-accessible and short. You are limited to one

publication from an Australian source and one publication from a US or British source

Sources

You should ensure the five sources are reasonably contemporaenous, and diverse in terms of type

and origin: they should not all come from similar networks or the same country. They can include:

• an international media agency or transnational news network report (e.g. Reuters, AP, AFP,

AAP, CNN, Al-Jazeera, France 24, BBC World);

• a major public national or local media source;

• a major privately-run national or local media source;

• an independent media report or opinion piece or blog (e.g. Indymedia, Crikey, Huffington

Post);

• an NGO news or opinion/blog source;

• institutional reports, commentaries or blogs (i.e. government report, international institution

report);

• a social media source—excluding gossip and other trivia: the source must contain news or

news commentary and be long enough to provide a basis for analysis.

You must attach printouts of your five written sources to your report; for AV sources you must

provide a weblink and the source should not be longer than five minutes in duration.

You should not use secondary sources for this exercise, which is a report rather than an academic

essay, but must scrupulously reference all your primary sources (weblinks, dates and so on). You

may refer to media other than your five principal sources for the purpose of comparison or to

demonstrate a point, but they will not be your main area of focus. When directly citing any media

published in a language other than English, you must translate all cited passages into English and

provide the original language in a footnote or appendix.

Analysis

You should keep in mind the questions asked for your Week 2 tutorial exercise. Your goal is

to report on what is framed as newsworthy in relation to your topic, and by whom (and where). In

completing this task, you should discuss:

• what different types of information and commentary are put forward by the different sources:

do different media foreground different aspects? what is left out? is the information supplied

verifiable?

• the language used (style, vocabulary, emotive or otherwise, rhetorical devices used, and so

on)

• interaction between language and (audio)visuals: webpage layout, photographs and so on,

images shown in AV documents.

Style

This is a short report, not an essay (but is a precursor to your essay, which will be on a related

topic). How you structure the report is up to you, but the use of subheadings (either thematic or by

source) could be helpful. You should compare the different sources clearly and your conclusion

should provide a brief critique of the media framing of your chosen topic: is there a glut or a paucityof information? what biases or lacunae are in evidence?

Assessment criteria : media report

FAIL: Work demonstrates insufficient engagement with the topic and situation, responses do not

reflect the subject, are unclear or confused, and do not reveal adequate understanding of the

topic or the nature and style of the exercise.

PASS: Work demonstrates engagement with the topic and situation, is clear and coherent and in a

writing style appropriate to the task, refers clearly to sources, shows some understanding of

the type of media used and the issues canvassed.

CREDIT: Work demonstrates engagement with the topic and situation, is well structured, written in

good English style and proofread for errors, with good referencing and appropriate citations of

sources, demonstrates some depth of reflection on the framing of content and the language

used in the media analysed, shows understanding of the type of media used and the issues

canvassed.

DISTINCTION: Work demonstrates creative engagement with the topic and situation, is very well

structured and very well written with good referencing, citations of sources are used to good

effect, demonstrates depth of reflection on the framing of content and the language used in the

media analysed, shows very good understanding of the type of media used and the issues

canvassed.

HIGH DISTINCTION: Work demonstrates creative engagement with the topic and situation, is very

well-structured and elegantly written with impeccable referencing and citations used to

excellent effect, demonstrates careful consideration of the framing of content and the language

used in the media analysed, shows an excellent understanding of the type of media used and

the issues canvassed.