🏫 Media Studies 200: Intro to Media Studies
🎓 Intended for 60 undergraduate students
📆 Spring 2026 at the University of Victoria
🪑 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, 11:45am-12:45pm, in CLE D331
âś… Teaching assistant (marking): Maya Wei Yan Linsley (she | any)
Worksheet 1 covers “The Content Industry” and all material from Module 1: Communication. Your response is due via Brightspace by Thursday, January 29th 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, including any media you discuss in your responses.
You should download the worksheet (DOCX format) and complete it in a word processor such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or Pages for Mac.
Note that this webpage contains information (including information about how we’ll assess your responses) that does not appear in the downloadable worksheet. We thus recommend reading this entire page before you start the assignment.
This open-book worksheet contains five prompts. You should respond to four of them. If you respond to all five, then we 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. Identify a self-employed content creator who has been harassed and faces or has faced toxic behaviours online. Now, find some content (such as a video, image, or podcast episode) they produced and copy the URL for it. Then use no more than 425 words, including terminology from the “Content Industry” handout and any handout in Module 1: Communication, to explain how the content creator 1) protects themselves online and 2) addresses or anticipates toxic behaviours. As part of your response, please be sure to include 1) a description of the content, 2) the name of the platform where the content was published, 3) some attention data (such as the number of likes, views, and comments) for the content, 4) how the content creator monetizes and moderates content, 5) how the platform generates revenue from the content, and 6) what you learned about the labour and economy of the content industry from this exercise. Note: you should not select a content creator’s entire channel, profile, or website. You should instead select a specific instance of content published by a content creator of your choice. Please include the content’s URL or the content itself somewhere in your response. That way, we can access it.
Prompt 2. Find an article published by a reputable website that contains an image of two or more people communicating. (Avoid stock images, including AI-generated ones.) Now, copy the URL for the article and then write alt text for that image of two or more people communicating. Next, use no more than 425 words, including terminology from the “Acts of Communication” and “Senses of Communication” handouts, to explain the critical decisions you made while using alt text to 1) describe the image’s visual and nonverbal elements for someone else to hear and 2) account for where on the page the image appears in the article. Please be sure to include the following in your response: 1) the article’s URL and 2) your alt text in quotation marks to distinguish it from the rest of your response.
There is no encoding standard that restricts the length of alt text, but alt text should be succinct. For this exercise, we recommend fewer than 275 characters, which won’t count toward your word limit.
Prompt 3. Spend a few minutes listening to CFUV 101.9 FM and perusing their website. Then create 30-60 seconds of audio to communicate roughly the same message twice: first to a friend at UVic via a hypothetical voice message or memo (one-to-one) and second to all UVic students via a hypothetical CFUV radio transmission (one-to-many) that would air during an actual CFUV show. Next, use no more than 425 words, including terminology from the “Acts of Communication,” “Means of Communication,” and “Levels of Communication” handouts, to explain 1) the obvious differences between the two communications, 2) the subtle differences between the two communications, and 3) what you learned about context, media, and communication from this exercise. Don’t forget to attach your audio file so we can access it. As part of your written response, we recommend identifying the actual CFUV show you had in mind while creating your hypothetical radio transmission.
Prompt 4. Select an advertisement from the 21st century that you interpreted against the grain and then save it, record it, or copy the URL for it. Next, use no more than 425 words, including terminology from the “Forms of Communication” and “Models of Communication” handouts and any other handout in Module 1: Communication, to explain 1) the advertisement’s intended message, 2) a context in which the message was encoded, 3) a context in which you decoded it, 4) your negotiated or opposing interpretation of it, 5) the kind of feedback you provided in response to it, 6) the form of communication you used to provide that feedback, and 7) what you learned about media, communication, and meaning-making from this exercise. Don’t forget to attach or embed the advertisement so we can access it. We recommend selecting “deep cuts” for this response: that is, advertisements that don’t appear at the top of search results for “controversial ads” or the like. That way, you’re less likely to repeat what many other people already said about advertising and popular ads from the 21st century.
Prompt 5. Use 30-90 seconds of video or audio to either record or depict two types of noise you’ve encountered in your everyday communications with other people. (Six types of noise are described in the “Examples” section of the “Noise and Miscommunication” handout.) Then use no more than 425 words, including terminology from the “Noise and Miscommunication” handout and any other handout in Module 1: Communication, to share 1) the two types of noise you identified, 2) descriptions of the two noises, 3) how you personally experience each noise, 4) what each noise tells us about what people normally want or expect from communication, and 5) what you learned about noise and the desire for “perfect communication” from this exercise. Don’t forget to attach your audio or video file so we can access it.
We will use the following criteria to guide our assessment of your responses.
The degree to which they:
We will use the following rubric, based on UVic’s official grading system, to assess your responses.
The total of these points (0-100) will constitute 20% of your final mark in this course.
12 points will be deducted from the overall mark if no references are included at the end of the worksheet (see “Citing Your Sources”).
8 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”).
5 points will be deducted for every source that’s used in a response but is not included in the references section at the end of the worksheet (see “Citing Your Sources”).
5 points will be deducted for every fabricated source used in the worksheet (see “Citing Your Sources”).
We encourage you to cite the course handouts but do not expect you to do so unless you quote or paraphrase them. See “Cite this Handout” at the end of every handout.
1 point will be deducted for every 25 words over the prescribed word count.
You do not need to meet the word count in each response to earn a high mark.
We recommend using prose (paragraphs) rather than point form in your responses. Prose is more synthetic and will allow you to make connections.
We also recommend writing your responses from the first-person perspective. That point of view makes it easier for you to explain your decisions and share what you learned from each exercise.
You should avoid repetition within responses and across them. We do not recommend writing about the same topic or theme in every response (e.g., four responses about video games, TikTok, or a particular fandom).
We do not recommend relying on generative AI or other AI tools to respond to this assignment. AI-generated responses tend to be generic, and they lack self-reflection, which is a key element of every prompt in this worksheet. AI results can also be biased and incorrect. It is your responsibility to ensure that the information you use from AI is accurate. You should also pay attention to the privacy of your data. Many AI tools will incorporate and use any content (including copyrighted materials, original work, and personal information) you upload, paste, or share with them. In short, relying on AI could create more work for you in the end, and it tends to hinder or “deskill” the learning process.
All sources, including AI tools, must be properly cited. (Language for this policy was drawn from language used at the University of Washington.)
Please do not forget to cite any material from which you draw ideas or examples. This includes course handouts but also any AI tools if you decide to use them. 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 1 is due by 10am on Thursday, January 29th, but there is a 24-hour grace period. We will deduct five points for every business day we receive Worksheet 1 after 10am on Friday, January 30th. We will close the submission portal for Worksheet 1 at 10am on Thursday, February 12th, and cannot accept any submissions after the portal is closed.
We will not accept any submissions by email. Thanks for understanding.