Deadline: September 28, 2022, 11:59pm (submit via the Assignments folder on Quercus)
Weight: 10% of final grade
Format/Length: 3-4 pages double spaced, MLA citation style
The purpose of this assignment is to utilize selected course readings to deconstruct a visual media image. You can select ONE image from a magazine, newspaper, or social media channel for analysis. Utilizing the course reading(s) below to assist, you will analyze the construction of meaning and the signifying practices embedded within the image. Course readings that you will incorporate as a reference to assist your media image analysis must include one of the following:
Hutchinson, Elizabeth. “Visual.” Keywords for American Cultural Studies. https://keywords.nyupress.org/american-cultural-studies/essay/visual/
Littler, Jo. “Normcore Plutocrats in Gold Elevators: Reading the Trump Tower Photographs.” Cultural Politics 15, no. 1 (3019): 15-28.
Sturken, Marita and Lisa Cartwright. “Images, Power, and Politics.” In Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pgs. 10-44.
This assignment is NOT ABOUT HOW EFFECTIVE THE IMAGE IS. Rather, it is about what the image communicates. Questions to think about when beginning your media image analysis include, but are not limited to:
What cultural meanings does the image depend upon?
How does the image interpolate viewers into its message?
What message is connotated in the image?
What message is denotated in the image?
What signs (signified/signifier) are evident in the image?
What knowledge is required to understand the message of the image?
What social practices are communicated by the image?
What myths are reproduced by the image?
What meaning is communicated by the image?
Who is this image intended to resonate with?
Who is included in the imagined audience of the image?
What does this image communicate about race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, age?
