Representing the City: Assignment #2
Geography 2400S
Summary
Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological or value perspective. This assignment is designed to get you thinking about how cities are portrayed in the media, which bears significantly on how they are viewed by the public.
10% of final grade
due to cuLearn by 10am: May 29th
Length: 800 words
Assignment Instructions:
Identify an urban issue in a major world city and at least 5 news media articles that deal with this issue (*no blog posts, personal websites or wikipedia – aim for major news media sources).
In the first section, provide a brief descriptive profile of the city, and a brief summary of the issue.
In the next section, critically assess how the urban issue and the city are being portrayed. Some things to think about: Whose voices are being represented and whose ignored? Do the articles differ in perspective (and why?) What representation of the issue and city strike you as convincing? What do you question? What might the consequences of this representation have on the future of this issue/of the city?
Use quotations (very brief) and evidence to justify your claims and provide a clear bibliography of your sources.
Evaluation
Description of the Problem……………………………………………….…………………… /3
Analysis and Quality of Sources..…………………………………………………………..… /5
Writing, grammar and following assignment guidelines……………………………………/2
Total…………………………………………………………………………………… /10
Order Notes