5-Page Research Paper

CCT109H5F Contemporary Communication Technologies – Fall 2023

Paper Goal

Your 5-page paper will demonstrate your mastery of and ability to apply course concepts and material to one of five essay prompts.

The assignment is broken into two parts.

First, you use your outlining skills to develop a response to your selected essay question. Following this first submission, you will receive actionable feedback from your TA explaining how to strengthen your   outline.

Second, you will use this feedback to revise the outline and expand it into a well-written and well- argued 5-page paper.

Following submission, you will receive feedback on the final 5-page paper for CCT109. The paper and feedback will then become the foundation of the final project for CCT110 during the Winter term.

Paper Topic, Length, and Source Requirements

You must select a paper topic from one of the five prompts available below. You cannot come up with your own topic. Any paper that does not respond to one of the provided essay prompts will receive a   mark of 0.

Your paper must by 5 pages in length. The shortest acceptable word length is 1250, and the longest acceptable word length is 1750. The word and page count does not include the cover page or your   reference list.

Your 5-page paper must include at least 4 scholarly sources from the bibliography which follows each of the essay prompts. Scholarly sources are peer-reviewed journals and academic books (what we have

been reading primarily in this course!). All these sources are available throughlibrary.utm.utoronto.ca. If you use scholarly sources not on this list, it is your responsibility to determine if they are a good fit for

your paper, peer-reviewed, and soundly researched.

If you are bringing in any other sources or examples (like a TikTok, social media post, news story,

television episode, etc.) to support the arguments you are making in your 5-page paper, these must be cited with both in-text citations and an entry in your reference list. Failure to do so is a breach of

Academic Integrity.

Purdue Owl is a great resource for how to do in-text APA citations for a wide range of sources:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_t ext_citations_the_basics.html

Paper Topic Options

Question #1 - Surveillance, Privacy, and Convenience .

Surveillance in our everyday communication technologies – ranging from smart phones, to websites, to the Internet of Things – may or may not be understood as a “cultural necessity.” Discuss the trade-offs  between surveillance and privacy for two different communities. How do the benefits or pitfalls of this  trade-off play out for these communities? Who can access privacy and who cannot? Why? Using

evidence, your paper should take a position on whether the surveillance/privacy trade-off services or disservices your chosen communities.

Bibliography

.    Andrejevic, M. & Volcic, Z. (2021). Pandemic Lessons: Total Surveillance and the Post-Truth Society. The Political Economy of Communication 9(1), 4-21.

.     Hargittai, E. & Marwick, A. E. (2016). ‘What can I really do?’: Explaining the privacy paradox with online apathy. International Journal of Communication 10, 3737-3757.

.     Lyon, D., Bennett, C., Steeves, V. M., Haggerty, K. D. (2014). Transparent lives: surveillance in Canada. Athabasca University Press.

.     Marwick, A. E. (2012). The public domain: Social surveillance in everyday life. Surveillance & Society, 9(4), 378-393.

.     Nissenbaum, H. (2004). Privacy as contextual integrity. Washington Law Review, 79(1), 119-139.

Question # 2 – Digital Media and Work

From gig labour on Uber to branded content on TikTok, digital media platforms have transformed the

nature of work in contemporary culture. Select a profession and analyze how digital media platforms

have transformed the nature of work performed over the past decade. How have these platforms

changed forms of income and compensation; the day-to-day schedule of work; and job security? How do these platforms generate value for themselves and their users? Use evidence to discuss how platforms     have changed opportunities and labour conditions for the profession you selected.

Bibliography

.    Abidin, C. (2021). Mapping Internet celebrity on TikTok: Exploring attention economies and visibility labours. Cultural Science, 12(1), 77-103.

.     Caplan, R. & Gillespie, T. (2020). Tiered governance and demonetization: The shifting terms of labor and compensation in the platform economy. Social Media + Society, 6(2), 1-13.

.     Cohen, N. S. (2015). From pink slips to pink slime: Transforming media labor in a digital age. The Communication Review, 18(2), 98-122.

.     Duffy, B. E. (2015). The romance of work: Gender and aspirational labour in the digital culture industries. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(4), 441-457.

.     Ens, N. & Márton, A. (2021). ‘Sure I saw sales, but it consumed me’ from resilience to erosion in the digital hustle economy. New Media & Society, 1-20.

.    Terranova, T. (2000). Free labor: Producing culture for the digital economy. Social Text, 18(2), 33- 58.

Question # 3 – Algorithms and Knowledge

Various industries are increasingly relying on algorithms, machine learning, and artificial intelligence for quick information retrieval and decision making. What do scholars mean when they discuss the social     impact of human judgement being replaced by these forms of machinic judgement? How do algorithms digitally mediate public knowledge, online discourse, and decision making? Have algorithmic processes  improved or worsened how ordinary people access knowledge and information? Discuss your position   and provide evidence to support your conclusion.

Bibliography

.     Bucher, T. (2012). Want to be on the top? Algorithmic power and the threat of invisibility on Facebook. New Media & Society, 14(7), 1164– 1180.

.     Crawford, K. (2016). Can an algorithm be agonistic? Ten scenes from life in calculated publics. Science, Technology & Human Values, 41(1), 77-92.

.     Gillespie, T. (2014). The relevance of algorithms. In T. Gillespie, P. J. Boczkowski, K. A. Foot (Eds.), Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society (167-194). MIT Press.

.     Masuhara, D.M. (2017). Artificial intelligence and adjudication: some perspectives. Amicus Curriae, 111, 2-15.

.    Savolainen, L. (2022). The shadow banning controversy: perceived governance and algorithmic folklore. Media, Culture & Society, 1-19.

Question #4 – Publics, Platforms, and Visibility

The arrival of Web 2.0 in the early aughts brought with it the promise of an open, interactive, and egalitarian Internet. Still, the question remains: how do these novel digital platforms shape or challenge the notion of the public as a structural concept? Do social media networks allow for new public(s) to emerge? Do outlying ideas, groups, issues, or voices gain greater public visibility through social media platforms? Or are hegemonic power relations merely reproduced? Drawing upon one contemporary  example, discuss, analyze, and support your position.

Bibliography

.     Hautea, S., Parks, P., Takahashi, B., & Zeng, J. (2021). Showing they care (or don't): Affective publics and ambivalent climate activism on TikTok. Social Media + Society, 7(2), 1-14.

.    Jackson, S. J. & Foucault Welles, B. (2016). #Hijacking #myNYPD: Social media dissent and

networked counterpublics. Journal of Communication, 65(6), 932-952.

.     Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press.

.    Shirky, C. (2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign Affairs, 28-41.

.    Singh, R. (2018). Platform feminism: Protest and the politics of spatial organization. Ada: A

Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 14(1).

https://adanewmedia.org/2018/11/issue14-singh/

Question # 5 – Social  Media and  Identity

From early broadcast television commercials to modern social media profiles, mass media and its various infrastructures have been critical influencers of how we construct and perform our identities in everyday life. How do big data and the attention economy create ideas about “selfhood” and identity in today’s digital culture? What is authenticity, and how is the concept used to judge and determine an individual’s influence on social media platforms? Discuss the practice of identity construction in digital culture using  supporting scholarship and examples.

Bibliography

.    Abidin, C. (2021). Mapping Internet celebrity on TikTok: Exploring attention economies and visibility labours. Cultural Science, 12(1), 77-103.

.    Arriagada, A. & Bishop, S. (2021). Between commerciality and authenticity: The imaginary of     social media influencers in the platform economy. Communication, Culture and Critique, 14(4), 568-586.

.     Hearn, A. (2017). Verified: Self-presentation, identity management, and selfhood in the age of big data. Popular Communication, 15(2), 62-77.

.     Khamis, S., Ang, L., & Welling, R. (2017). Self-branding, “micro-celebrity” and the rise of social media influencers. Celebrity Studies, 8(2), 191–208.

.     Marwick, A. E. (2015). Instafame : Luxury selfies in the attention economy. Public Culture, 27(1), 137– 160.

5-Page Paper - Part 1

Guide

1.    Read each of the five questions listed above and select the one you find most interesting.

2.    Each question includes a bibliography of five articles. Using the skills developed in the reverse outline assignment, please read the five articles. While you read, pay attention to argument,

evidence, and analysis the authors provide. Feel free to follow the sources that each author

used. You can find much of their evidence via the University of Toronto Library’s Online Search (library.utoronto.ca)

3.    Return to your selected prompt. Based on the reading you’ve completed, begin to draft your

response to the prompt. Remember, there is no “right” or “wrong” response to these prompts. Your position simply needs to backed up by evidence.