Assignment

For this assignment, you will need to read and engage with Chapter 6, 8 or 9 of Christian Fuch's Social Media: A Critical Introduction.

In these chapters, Fuch's analyzes Google, Twitter and Wikileaks respectively.

After reading the chapters, select ONE of the organizations and identify an issue that he covers in the chapter and use that as the focus of this assignment. For example, in the Google chapter he focuses on Google's working conditions (amongst others), and in the Twitter chapter the effectiveness of Twitter's role in the public sphere.

After selecting the organization and topic, search online for videos, documents, press releases, news articles blogs etc. that do one of two things.

1. Focuses on the ways in which these organizations choose to self-present. What sort of image does each organization construct of itself? What does the organization choose to highlight? The articles you select here should either come directly from the organization or should represent writing that perhaps is drawing from interviews or other settings where the organization has made a direct statement on its stance. Hint: A good place to start here is with the organization's own website. You should select at least 3 artifacts.

2. The next set of artifacts (videos, documents, articles, etc) should take a critical stance on the same issue. These will generally come from external sources. A library search might be helpful here. Again select at least 3 artifacts.

Once you have your artifacts, you will write a 4-5 page paper that evaluates the arguments made from both perspectives and culminates with your own stance.

What I am looking for here is the ability to synthesize the argument of others and to make your own argument after critical engagement with others' perspective. It should be very evident in your paper that you have read the chapter, and that you have done some additional research.

As always, you will be graded on the following criteria

1. Evidence that the reading has been incorporated into your argument
2. The sophistication of your argument
3. Language and grammar.