Assignment: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is for students to
1) identify and learn about a subtopic in American Popular Culture that is of interest to them;
2) become familiar with the online library resources; and
3) to develop some information literacy skills.
Students will develop an Annotated Bibliography based on a topic in American Popular Culture that is of interest to them. A minimum of 5 peer-reviewed sources and 5 popular and/or open-web sources will need to be used in the bibliography. **An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance and quality of the sources cited.**
The completed assignment will include:
1) List the topic in American Popular Culture that you chose to investigate for this assignment. (e.g. symbolic interactionism, doing gender, socialization over life course, mental illness, prejudice, etc.)
2) List of search terms you used in your searches (e.g. sport, sociology, "popular culture")
3) Annotated entries for a minimum of 5 peer-reviewed articles and 5 popular and/or open-web sources (see below for what should be included in each entry)
Each source entry should include the following:
1) APA-formatted full reference for the source
2) Brief description of the source
3) Evaluation of where the source came from - i.e. peer-reviewed journal, blog, website, etc.
4) Brief discussion of how the source is relevant to your topic of interest
5) Brief discussion of the source's strengths and weaknesses
Assignment meets the following course objectives:
- Compare and contrast culture, popular, high culture, elite culture, mass culture, low culture, subculture and counterculture.
- Describe examples of the different types of norms operative in popular culture, and how these are related to the process of social control.
- Identify the research methods used to create knowledge about popular culture.
- Apply key cultural theories and analytical dimensions for examining popular culture.
- Explain how various elements of popular culture inform or reflect our attitudes, behavior, and society and why the popular culture becomes popular.
- Illustrate diversity in popular culture and concepts of multiculturalism, ethnocentrism, and cultural relativism with reference to key stratifying factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, region and sexuality.
- Analyze culture within individual, social, historical, political, economic, and global contexts.
- Describe the cultural and social significance of popular culture in shaping the larger contemporary American society.
- Examine the roles of print media, art, music, radio, television, motion picture, the Internet, sports, fashion, and technology in the development of American popular culture.