Media Studies 200: Intro to Media Studies
Intended for 70 undergraduate students
Spring 2025 at the University of Victoria
lək̓ʷəŋən and WSÁNEĆ territories
M and Th, 10 - 11:20am | 1.5 units | prereq: AWR
Taught by Jentery Sayers (he / him) | jentery@uvic.ca
Office hours: M and Th, 12-1pm, in CLE D331
Teaching assistant (marking): Maya Linsley (she / any)
Worksheet 3 covers the first half of material from Module 3: Approaches. Your response is due via Brightspace by Monday, March 17th, at 10am.
The worksheet is open-book, meaning you are allowed to use handouts, the course website, my slides, your notes, recordings of class sessions, the library, and the internet to address the prompts.
Please cite your source material.
Please download the worksheet (DOCX format) to complete it in a word processor such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or Pages for Mac.
This open-book worksheet contains five prompts. You should respond to four of them. If you respond to all five, then I will mark the first four.
Each response is worth 25 points for a total of 100 points.
Some prompts ask you to create media. Please attach your audio, image, or video files to your response in Brightspace. Do not use YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Google Drive, or any other non-Brightspace platform to submit files.
Prompt 1. Select a social media trend that appeared in the news between 2020 and 2025. Now, find some content that represents it best. Copy the URL for that content and paste it into your response. That way, I can access it.
Use no more than 350 words, including terminology from the “Effects” handout and “Media” and “Communication modules, to: 1) describe the trend’s approach to media and communication, 2) explain how people, including journalists, treated the trend as a direct effect, minimal effect, and third-person effect, 3) use an effects theory (see pages 3 and 4 of the “Effects” handout) to interpret the trend and its significance, and 4) share what you learned about media effects from this exercise.
Your trend should be specific. For instance, TikTok is a platform, and short-form content is a format, but devious licks was a trend. Do not select any trends we discussed in class. You are, however, welcome to select a trend that was part of a moral panic.
Prompt 2. Select a public service broadcaster or independent media group that interests you. It can be active in any format or area (news, music, fashion, books, games, comics, television, streaming, etc.). Then use no more than 350 words, including terminology from the “Ownership” handout and “Communication” and “Media” modules, to: 1) explain what the public service broadcaster or independent media group offers you socially, culturally, and aesthetically that commercial content does not, 2) mention who or what funds it, and 3) share what you learned about media ownership from this exercise. Be sure to include the name of the broadcaster or group. You’re welcome to share a URL for it, too.
Public service broadcasters include the CBC and BBC. Independent media groups include publishers, broadcasters, studios, labels, and venues such as APTN, IndigiNews, KO_OP, Extremely OK Games, The Narwhal, The Tyee, Mint Records, Trans Trenderz, Arsenal Pulp Press, and Fernwood Publishing. Commercial publishers, broadcasters, studios, labels, and venues include Global News, CTV, Fox, Disney, Sony, Paramount, Penguin Random House, EMI Records, Warner Music Group, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft.
Prompt 3. Select an app you’re familiar with and then use 350 words, including terminology from the “Culture” handout and “Communication” and “Media” modules, to: 1) identify a community who is active on the app, 2) explain how the app’s design addresses, supports, and appeals to that community, 3) describe the habits of belief, perception, and performance you associate with the community’s activity on the app, and 4) share what you learned about media habits and culture from this exercise. Feel free to include videos or screen caps of the app to support your writing but do not share any private posts or content.
You can be a member of the community you’re examining; however, membership is not an expectation of this prompt. Feel free to focus on a website instead of an app if you wish.
Prompt 4. Select a local business and imagine a new media campaign for it. Now, create three of the following media for the campaign: image, audio, text, video, and interface. Attach these three media to your response and then use 350 words, including terminology from the “Aesthetics” handout and “Media” and “Communication” modules, to: 1) identify the local business and include a URL for it, 2) describe your media campaign’s aesthetic and its approach to composition, interaction, and experience, 3) identify the campaign’s intended audience and explain why your campaign’s aesthetic would resonate with them and the local business, and 4) share what you learned about media aesthetics from this exercise.
Examples of aesthetics include, but are certainly not limited to, “punk,” “goth,” “minimalist,” “maximalist,” “realist,” and “speculative.” You’re welcome to use languages other than English in your media campaign.
Prompt 5. Imagine you work for a game company. Your boss asks you to make a puzzle for a cooperative mystery game that people could play at home or in escape rooms. The puzzle should be set in a crime scene, and its solution should also solve the crime (“whodunnit”). Players will assume the role of amateur sleuths. You should use images and text (audio and video are optional) to produce however many clues you wish according to three constraints: 1) your clues should include an icon, an index, and a symbol, 2) at least two clues should be “true,” and 3) at least one clue should be a “red herring.”
Now, use 350 words, including terminology from the “Meaning” handout and “Media” and “Communication” modules, to: 1) describe the puzzle, crime scene, and your clues, 2) identify your icon, index, and symbol, 3) share the solution to your puzzle and the crime, 4) explain what you anticipate players would do to decode the clues and solve the crime, and 5) share what you learned about semiotics from this exercise. Be sure to attach all the media for your clues to your response. That way, I can access them.
A true clue helps players solve a puzzle. A red herring misleads or distracts them from solving the puzzle. You are welcome to add any other elements you wish as long as you include all the elements above. You are also welcome to collaborate with one or two other people in class on this one. If you do collaborate, then please include the names of your collaborators in your response. Each of you will get the same mark, and your responses should be more or less identical.
I will use the following rubric, based on UVic’s official grading system, to assess your responses.
1 point will be deducted for every 25 words over the prescribed word count.
10 points will be deducted from the overall mark if no references are included at the end of the worksheet (see “Citing Your Sources”).
5 points will be deducted from the overall mark if the references at the end of the worksheet are not formatted according to an established citation style (see “Citing Your Sources”).
The total of these points (0-100) will constitute 20% of your final mark in this course.
You do not need to meet the word count in each response to earn a high mark.
I recommend using prose (paragraphs) rather than point form in your responses. Prose is more synthetic and will allow you to make connections.
You should also avoid repetition within responses and across them. I do not, for instance, recommend writing about the same topic or theme in every response (e.g., four responses about video games, TikTok, or a particular fandom).
Please do not forget to cite any material from which you draw ideas or examples. This includes course handouts. You are welcome to use your preferred citation style (MLA, Chicago, or APA, e.g.).
Please submit a DOCX, ODT, PAGES, or PDF file containing your answers and references along with any media files you were prompted to attach or embed.
A response to Worksheet 3 is due by 10am on Monday, March 17th, but there is a 24-hour grace period. I will deduct five points for every business day I receive Worksheet 3 after 10am on Tuesday, March 18th. I will close the submission portal for Worksheet 3 at 10am on Monday, March 31st, and cannot accept any submissions after the portal is closed. I will not accept any submissions by email.