Analytical Essay("Reading Digital Culture")

Assigned: Tuesday, September 12
Due: Tuesday, December 17

Write an eight-to-twelve-page essay in which you do a detailed analysis of one Web site which answers the three questions that appear below. These three questions are ongoing concerns in readings from the Trend collection on digital culture. In dealing with each question, you should:

a. answer the question by doing a "close reading" of the site, describing and discussing the specific choices of design, writing and content made by the site's creators (in aesthetic or usability terms, e.g., Nielsen),

b. then, step back to answer the question further by citing, quoting and discussing an article from the Trend collection that provides a critical language and a "lens" through which to critique the site's social/cultural/political implications. By "stepping back," you're looking at the site's social context, consequences or significance not just in itself, but as a larger example of the phenomenon of the Web and digital culture. As much as possible, support the critique with the specific examples of content- and site-design you detail.

Here are the questions you should consider in your discussion of the site:

Question 1: the body vs. virtuality

Where and how does this site refer to (or invoke a sense of) the body, bodily existence, bodily identity (age, gender, race, class, physical or economic "place" in the world), a connection to nature, the concerns of bodily or economic beings and the material commodities they need?
How does the site realize the hopes and/or critiques of one or two writers in the Trend collection concerning issues of the body and virtuality? (Some relevant critics concerning the body and virtuality include Morse, Castells, Heim, Jackson, Levy, Turkle, etc.)
For instance, does this site represent an enhanced integration or coordination of the bodily and virtual selves--to "enrich the real" (Turkle 249)--or does it represent a "rupture of our previous relationship to time and space" and a displacement of "life" (Jackson 349)?

Question 2: traditional vs. virtual community/identity

Where and how does this site invoke and "normalize" a particular sense of community, social identity(ies), affiliation, belonging, social interaction (actual, virtual, simulated or implied), "public space" (Poster 263), democracy, subcultures, traditional roles and authorities, etc.?
How does it realize the hopes and/or critiques of one or two writers in the Trend collection concerning community and identity? (Some suggested writers: Turkle, Rheingold, Heim, Levy.)
For instance, in what ways does this site either reinforce or subvert traditional identities, social authority and power relationships? Who is included and excluded ("normalized" into or out of the picture)?

Question 3: information vs. experience

Where and how does this site present its content not just as static, neutral "information" (lists, paragraphs), but as an experience, a "knowledge space" (Levy 255), a metaphorical space or world, an imaginative "performance" (Laurel), or as a value-added gateway to the "metatext" or "docuverse" of the Web?
How does it realize the hopes and/or critiques of one or two writers in the Trend collection concerning the Web as a knowledge space? (Some suggested texts: Laural, Jackson, Heim.)
For example, in what ways does this site represent a "New Aesthetic" (Jackson) or a disintegration of aesthetic and intellectual values?

Format:

Begin your essay by introducing your topic and stating a "thesis"--that is, one conclusion (not three conclusions!) that synthesizes your thinking about the significance of the Web site as an example of the phenomenon of the Web, Web design and digital culture. You might want to include in your introductory paragraph the name of a critic from the Trend book whom you depended on in the essay, and perhaps even a provocative quotation to hook the reader. Do not mention the assignment or the three questions. (Suggestion: write this after you finish the body of the essay.)
Explore the first question in a section labeled "1" without repeating the questions or making reference to the assignment.
Explore the second question in a section labeled "2" without repeating the questions or making reference to the assignment.
Explore the third question in a section labeled "3" without repeating the questions or making reference to the assignment.
End the essay by briefly recalling the thesis or conclusion you presented in the introduction and adding something extra (a "kicker"), perhaps an example, detail, quotation or observation that's interesting, funny, or thought provoking which you didn't include in the essay so far, but which suggestions a further implication of your analysis, or that illustrates or crystallizes your overall point.

Quotations, Citations and Documentation

Be very scrupulous about putting quotes around other writers' words and crediting the quotations with in-text citations. Failing to do so, even accidentally or ignorantly, is plagiarism, and is grounds for failure of the paper and the class. If you paraphrase an author, be sure to use your own words and sentence structures.

Be sure to cite the authors and page numbers parenthetically in the text--at the end of the sentence where the quotation appears--and document the source in a "Works Cited" page at the end of the essay using MLA format.

There is no self commentary required for the paper.

Resources

Purdue University Online Writing Center's Guide to MLA Citation and Documentation.