University of Toronto Scarborough Department of Arts, Culture & Media MDSB25H3 Political Economy of Media Fall, 2018 – Dr. David B. Nieborg Assignment 2 – Data collection & the trade press – 25% Due date:
• Friday October 26 2018, 3pm, upload to Q. Formatting:
• Assignment length is 750 words (excluding references). You will get a 2% penalty if you go over the word limit, assignments that are more than 1000 words will not be graded.
• Please use the assignment template (see Q). You will get a 2% penalty if you do not use the template.
• You can use any accepted academic reference style listed on the UTSC CTL website: http://utsc.utoronto.ca/twc/academic-style.
Grading rubric:
• This assignment will be graded following the rubric available on Q.
Handing it in: • Please upload a PDF version of your assignment to Q before the deadline. • Note that assignments that do not follow these requirements are either returned
(and thus considered late until revised) or void. • Late penalty is 2% per 24 hours, late assignments may be marked at the end of
the course. Scope and goal: For assignment 1 you were asked to familiarize yourself with institutional analysis to analyze a company’s structure. In this assignment you are asked to also analyze a specific company, but use different source material. Thus, this assignment will familiarize you with a different research approach. Assignment 1 was all about financial analysis to research a company, this assignment is focused on using material from business journalists who write about companies. In his article “Making Implicit Methods Explicit: Trade Press Analysis in the Political Economy of Communication” political economist Thomas Corrigan argues that political economists rarely make their methodologies (i.e. how they do research) explicit. He points to several sources where to get data from, for example: “documentary sources, such as corporate reports, congressional testimony, and legal decisions” (2018: 2752). More importantly, he suggests that political economists use the “trade press” as a source to substantiate claims about the political economy of the cultural industries. He notes that there are two ways to do trade press analysis: 1) burrowing down, or “paying attention to business practices and industry conditions”,
which is very similar to assignment 1, and 2) listening in, or analyzing “statements or discourses about those practices and conditions” (Corrigan, 2018: 2757). In this assignment you are asked to also “listen in”. It is highly recommended that you read Corrigan’s article. Then, pick a company in the media industries. This can be the same company as assignment 1, but you can also pick a different media company. Non-media or communication companies, such as car brands (Lamborghini) or fashion labels (Gucci) are not eligible for this assignment. If you are unsure whether your choice of company is acceptable, please ask about this in class or during office hours (and not via email) before writing the assignment. Your assignment must contain the following elements:
1) Company introduction o Briefly introduce the company you want to discuss and analyze.
Explain why you think the company is relevant, particularly in relation Corrigan’s article as well as political economic thought and themes discussed in class. Try to use class readings to explain your choice.
2) Source collection & analysis o Collect at least 3 relevant trade press articles about your company.
Make sure you pick a trade press outlet, not a mainstream media outlet.
§ Tip: See Corrigan (2018) page 2755 what is meant by the trade press (“trade publications, journals, or magazines, the specialized business press, business-to-business (B2B) media, or simply “the trades.”). The intended audience are media workers and executives, not the general public. Examples include Broadcasting & Cable (television), Columbia Journalism Review, Advertising Age (advertising and marketing), Current (public media), Quill (journalism), Digiday, TechCrunch, Recode, gamesindustry.biz, and VentureBeat. Please feel free to pick other trade press sources.
o Briefly analyze your source material by trying to “listen in”. That is, what do these sources say about your company’s “business practices and industry conditions”. Are they positive or negative? Do they tell you anything about political economic issues that have been discussed in class? What did you learn from these sources about your company?
3) Evaluating your sources
o Conclude your analysis by evaluating your sources. Corrigan offers four evaluation criteria: “authenticity, credibility, representativeness, and meaning” (2018: 2758-2764). Briefly discuss at least two of these criteria by applying them to your sources.
Some tips & tricks: • The UTL has an instructive guide that should help you with your writing:
http://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/. Follow this guide to properly format your sources: http://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/using-sources/documentation/.
• If you are unsure about the scholarly nature of a source, please follow this handy UTL guide: http://guides.library.utoronto.ca/c.php?g=251905&p=1675735. Or this guide specific to UTSC Journalism & New Media students: http://guides.library.utoronto.ca/UTSC-journalism-new-media. Please be very careful with search engines like Google (Scholar) or encyclopaedias like Wikipedia. They can be useful tools to find material, but should not be used as primary (or even secondary) sources.
Assignment 2 – checklist ☐ Use the assignment template (incl. cover sheet with name on assignment) ☐ Assignment formatted as a PDF & uploaded to Q ☐ Ensure all parts (as outlined above) are covered ☐ Spellcheck assignment ☐ Assignment proofread by a friend/colleague/peer/parent/partner ☐ 750 word limit
