Assignment: Public Digital Media Project
The following is an assignment sheet for a Public Digital Media Project. While it was prepared for an English course on Digital Media Studies, the assignment and its rubric might be applied for digital projects in other humanities fields.
Overview
You will create a digital media piece, published on a public-facing digital platform, that presents an original argument about a work of digital media, related technology, or fiction work relevant to the course’s topics.
That argument will be supported by reasoning, research, and your close examination of the text's words, visual appearance, interface, or other characteristics.
Research will more than likely inform the piece's argument through
historical context,
critical theory and literary and cultural studies methodologies, and/or
current scholarship on your object or related objects in relevant academic fields.
This is the equivalent of a literary studies close reading and research essay, but rather than limiting our options to literally written texts and stories, options include other works related to digital media, such as software applications, hardware devices, platforms, websites, or fictional depictions of the same.
This project is meant to occasion practice in the public and digital humanities. To simulate the actual conditions and stakes of public facing work, links to completed projects will be distributed to the college's students and faculty via a brief email newsletter during or shortly after final exams.*
*Because simulating these stakes is foundational to the exercise, public circulation of projects is "Opt Out" rather than "Opt In." Opting out is not impossible, but I do want to include a bit of necessary friction here. If you have a significant concern regarding making your work available to the college in this way, please email me with three dates and times when you can meet prior to the last day of class.
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is for you to practice
analyzing digital media by leveraging close reading and critical thinking skills
researching relevant topics and incorporating what you have learned into your piece and its arguments
learning about forms of digital media through practical application
digital humanities and public humanities skills through communicating scholarly knowledge to a public non-expert audience
Deliverable
A text entry or file that includes the following:
Your name as you would like it to appear with your piece
The title of your piece
A link to where your piece can be found on a public-facing digital platform
Scope
A successful project will be roughly equivalent to a 2,000-word scholarly research essay project in terms of intellectual labor, craft work, and time spent. As discussed when we met individually, appropriate length will vary depending on media, genre, and complexity.
Evaluation
The piece should be an analysis, informed by research, and delivered on a public-facing digital platform. Submissions that fall outside this genre will earn a grade of F. That grade can be replaced by meeting with me, discussing changes, and resubmitting (after which the final grade would take the place of the F).
If you'd like to take a non-argumentative tack with this piece (e.g. a creative writing direction), I am open to discussing that with you and we can come up with appropriate criteria together. However, this must be done well in advance of the due date.
Because this is the last project, do keep in touch along the way and ask any questions you might have. You do not want to be in a position in which we are trying to work something like this out amidst your other final projects and exams.
Your project will be evaluated according to the grading rubric linked here.
Resources
Examples of Public-Facing Digital Platforms
This is just a sampling—just about any online location one could access without a password will do. But the idea here is that this would conceivably be something someone would see and share online. Like, a link to a Word essay in OneDrive is not going to cut it.
Tools
Humanities Research Center podcast studio (contact me if you would like to schedule this)