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Essays on Media Analysis

What makes a good media analysis essay topic.

When embarking on the quest to find the perfect topic for a media analysis essay, it is crucial to select one that not only captivates but also provides ample opportunities for analysis. Here are some innovative recommendations to fuel your brainstorming process and aid in the selection of an outstanding essay topic:

Brainstorm: Begin by jotting down all the media-related subjects that pique your interest. Explore various forms of media, including television, movies, social media, news articles, and advertising campaigns.

Research potential topics: Once you have a list of potential topics, conduct preliminary research to ensure that there is enough information available to support your analysis. Seek out recent and relevant sources that offer diverse perspectives.

Choose a specific angle: Narrow down your topic by selecting a specific aspect or angle to analyze. Instead of analyzing generic "television shows," for example, you could focus on the portrayal of gender roles in reality TV programs.

Consider significance: Evaluate the significance of your chosen topic. Does it address a current issue or prevalent challenge in society? Opt for subjects that have broader implications and can generate meaningful discussions.

Uniqueness: Strive for a topic that stands out from the ordinary. Avoid overdone subjects and aim for creativity and originality. Look for unique angles or lesser-known media artifacts to analyze.

Personal interest: Lastly, choose a topic that genuinely interests you. A personal interest in the subject matter will make the writing process more enjoyable and result in a more engaging essay.

Remember, a good media analysis essay topic should be specific, relevant, unique, and align with your personal interests. Now, let's embark on an exploration of the best media analysis essay topics that meet these criteria.

The Best Media Analysis Essay Topics

The Influential Role of Social Media in Shaping Body Image Perception Among Teenagers

Analyzing the Portrayal of Mental Health in Popular TV Shows

The Impact of Media on Political Opinion Formation during Election Campaigns

Examining the Representation of Race and Ethnicity in Hollywood Movies

The Power of Advertising: Its Influence on Consumer Behavior and Purchasing Decisions

Provocative Questions to Guide Your Media Analysis

To delve deeper into these media analysis essay topics, ponder these ten thought-provoking questions:

How does social media contribute to the objectification of women?

In what ways does mainstream media perpetuate racial stereotypes?

How does the portrayal of violence in video games affect children's behavior?

To what extent do advertising campaigns exploit insecurities to sell products?

How does political bias influence news reporting in mainstream media?

Inspiring Prompts for Your Media Analysis Essay

Here are five imaginative essay prompts to ignite your creativity in the realm of media analysis:

Analyze the use of symbolism in a specific music video of your choice and examine its impact on the audience's interpretation.

Discuss how a particular news outlet's coverage of a recent event demonstrates media bias and explore its potential consequences.

Examine the marketing strategies employed in a successful viral advertising campaign and assess their effects on brand recognition and consumer behavior.

Compare and contrast the representation of technology and its impact on society in two science fiction films.

Critically analyze the portrayal of marginalized communities in a specific TV series and its influence on societal perceptions.

Frequently Asked Questions about Writing a Media Analysis Essay

Q: How should I structure a media analysis essay?

A: A media analysis essay typically follows an introduction, body paragraphs analyzing different aspects, and a conclusion. Ensure that each paragraph focuses on a specific argument or analysis point.

Q: Can I incorporate personal opinions in a media analysis essay?

A: While media analysis essays should strive for objectivity, you can include your interpretation and analysis of the media artifacts. However, always support your claims with evidence and examples.

Q: How can I find relevant sources for my media analysis essay?

A: Utilize academic databases, reputable news outlets, scholarly articles, books, and credible online sources to gather relevant information and support your analysis.

Q: Should I include a thesis statement in my media analysis essay?

A: Yes, a clear and concise thesis statement is essential in a media analysis essay. It should convey your main argument or analysis focus.

Q: Can I analyze media artifacts from different time periods in one essay?

A: It is generally recommended to focus on a specific time period or media artifact in each essay. This approach allows for a more in-depth analysis and prevents the essay from becoming overly broad.

Navigating The Media Landscape: a Response Paper

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Media analysis refers to the systematic examination and interpretation of media content, including various forms of media such as print, broadcast, and digital media. It involves critically analyzing and evaluating the messages, themes, and techniques employed in media to understand their impact on individuals, society, and culture.

Media analysis aims to uncover underlying meanings, implicit messages, and societal implications within media texts. It involves studying elements such as narrative structures, visual aesthetics, language use, cultural representations, and ideological biases present in media productions. Through media analysis, researchers and scholars aim to gain insights into the construction of meaning, power dynamics, and social influences propagated by media. It helps uncover patterns, trends, and dominant discourses within media representations, shedding light on how media shapes public opinion, influences perceptions, and reflects societal values. By examining media content critically, media analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of media in shaping narratives, influencing public discourse, and impacting social, cultural, and political dynamics.

Media Texts: Analysis of news articles, television shows, films, advertisements, social media posts, and websites. Representation: Analysis of the representation of individuals, groups, events, and ideas in media. It examines how different social, cultural, and political identities are portrayed and the impact of these representations on shaping perceptions, stereotypes, and biases. Audience Reception: This involves examining audience responses, interpretations, and the influence of media on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Media Institutions: It examines the ownership structures, industry practices, and policies that shape media content and its dissemination. Media Effects: This involves studying the influence of media on public opinion, social behavior, cultural values, and political processes.

Content Analysis, Semiotic Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Audience Research, Comparative Analysis, Historical Analysis, Critical Cultural Analysis.

The topic of media analysis holds significant importance when writing an essay due to several reasons. Firstly, media plays a pervasive role in modern society, shaping our perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Analyzing media allows us to examine its influence and understand how it constructs narratives and shapes public opinion. Secondly, media analysis helps in critically evaluating the accuracy, credibility, and biases present in media content. By examining the techniques, messages, and underlying ideologies, we can uncover hidden agendas or misrepresentations. This analysis contributes to a more informed and nuanced understanding of media's impact. Furthermore, media analysis enables us to explore the social, cultural, and political implications of media representations. It allows for an examination of power dynamics, social inequalities, and the perpetuation of stereotypes. By scrutinizing media, we can uncover hidden meanings and challenge dominant narratives. Lastly, media analysis promotes media literacy and critical thinking skills. It equips us with the tools to navigate the complex media landscape, distinguishing between reliable information and misinformation. By engaging in media analysis, we become active participants in the media discourse, fostering a more informed and empowered society.

1. Anstead, N., & O'Loughlin, B. (2015). Social media analysis and public opinion: The 2010 UK general election. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 20(2), 204-220. (https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/20/2/204/4067564) 2. Ravaja, N. (2004). Contributions of psychophysiology to media research: Review and recommendations. Media Psychology, 6(2), 193-235. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s1532785xmep0602_4) 3. Stieglitz, S., & Dang-Xuan, L. (2013). Social media and political communication: a social media analytics framework. Social network analysis and mining, 3, 1277-1291. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13278-012-0079-3) 4. Filo, K., Lock, D., & Karg, A. (2015). Sport and social media research: A review. Sport management review, 18(2), 166-181. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1441352314000904) 5. McQuail, D. (1985). Sociology of mass communication. Annual Review of Sociology, 11(1), 93-111. (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.so.11.080185.000521) 6. Lockyer, S., & Pickering, M. (2008). You must be joking: The sociological critique of humour and comic media. Sociology Compass, 2(3), 808-820. (https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00108.x) 7. Arsenault, A., & Castells, M. (2008). Switching power: Rupert Murdoch and the global business of media politics: A sociological analysis. International Sociology, 23(4), 488-513. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0268580908090725 )

Relevant topics

Social Media
Effects of Social Media
Discourse Community
American Identity
Sex, Gender and Sexuality
Cultural Appropriation
Social Justice
Sociological Imagination

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Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Implementation
Posters & Presentations

Multimodal Essays

Interactive Works
Rubric Language
Sample Rubrics
Student Resources
Nifty Tools

Multimodal essays of all different forms can deliver an emotive argument by using images, time, sound, rhythm, etc… to activate a conceptual and intuitive connection with an audience. This type of project involves an awareness of how storytelling can illicit affective responses, and students will have to work through their materials in a way that delivers information to activate these dimensions. Usually a multimodal essay is a very creative endeavor as students work through material to make a smooth or purposefully broken narrative delivery, and it is a highly active way for students to arrange, compile and perform curriculum.

A multimodal essay can exist in many forms, from still image compositions to audio casts to video narratives or even animations. Below are a few ideas that can be achieved through digital media, but the project should also incorporate a storyboard component to help students develop the work and alleviate too much post-editing. Please be cautious of expectations for this project as it can be quite time consuming, so you may want to keep it quite specific, and on the short side!

Photographic and especially video editing programs need computing power because they are editing large data images. Below are some low cost or free options you can recommend to your students, as well as professional programs available for student to use on UBC computers.

Projects Ideas

A photo essay is a visual display of a topic or of information through images captured by camera. These depictions are accompanied by text to provide the audience with a context, or a point of view, that might not be clear in the picture(s). The purpose of a photo essay is to offer the development of a particular topic with a clear objective in mind – to denounce, inform, criticize, explain etc.

Have students pursue research on a particular subject, space or person by taking a series of original photo documents . Have them photograph change in people or geographical locales, significant moments or everyday events, objects or materials, behind the scenes or different perspectives of the same subject, etc… After exploring the topic visually, students can then connect it to ideas, insights and revelations that activate class concepts, and visually order and align the photographs with written descriptive text, guiding the viewer through the results of their exploration.
Have students create, refine and depict a particular archive formula to provide them with boundaries and strategies to create an archive either sourced or made from images or videos within the parameters decided upon to guide them. For example, a student might organize the first 100 image results of a google search resulting from the words “romantic couple”, from here they will find archive categories for their results that they will then display. For example, categories they could define and create can be; age of the subjects, sexuality, ethnicity, depicted intimacy gestures, etc.. They would then display this archive in a moving chronology or still image layout.
Stephan Rousseau: Riding the Tube Photo Essay
Steven Shearer: Photocollage "Slumber"
Ed Ruscha: Twentysix Gasoline Stations

Useful Links

Photo narratives: Defining picture stories, essays and packages

A video essay is a multimodal piece that attempts to present, support or develop a thesis or proposition about a specific topic and can use narrative and story development in the making of a work. It usually combines audio and visual modes, may include text, and is rendered through a written plan. The piece narrates a story, explanation or analysis using multimedia formats to immerse the viewer into a particular reading and effect.

Create a work that uses a voice-over dialogue over film and/or still images. For example, students can study a specific area in the city by filming it, collecting archival images, and writing and sound recording a written analysis of the area. Another idea is to have students complete a structural analysis of a particular film, to uncover hidden meaning or sub textual emphasis by analyzing a collection of scenes from a film or television show and observe how a film’s story takes shape. Students would edit the footage and render the information tied together through their voice-over analysis.
Documentarian Ken Burns used this technique extensively; the Ken Burns effect is a moving video where the lens travels across still images (photographs, graphics, charts, maps, etc…) with moving, zooming and panning effects, focusing in on specific areas of the image. The technique works best when accompanied by an audio narrative which can be used to describe areas in focus, and other translations of what is visually projected. For example, you might animate a still graphic with a moving lens and focus area, and have the audio narrative describe what the graph relays, and conclusions as to what this might mean. An Art Historian might use it to navigate a painting with audio narration of a formal analysis, or a creative writing class may want to pair sound and still image to examine illustrations for a storybook.
A more experimental form of film can explore other practices of meaning making that differ from the traditional avenues. It attempts to diverge from mainstream productions by disrupting conventional narrative forms; particularly, it breaks and plays with the idea of time-space continuum, and can collage effects into a visually stimulating moment wherein the process of making creatively informs the content it is critiquing. An experimental video work may also recut sources through conceptual analysis, bringing out another reading.
Viewing Between the Lines: Hong Sang-soo’s The Day He Arrives film analysis
"The Making of Migrant Mother" on Dorothea Lange
"How Black Lives Matter in The Wire" by Jason Mittel
Edgar Wright “How to do Visual Comedy”
Chris Marker "La Jetee" Ken Burns Effect
Looking at paintings video from the Khan Academy
Julien & Simon Dara "The Ordinary"
Miguel Maldonado, Reel
What is a video essay?
The Video Essay as Art: 11 Ways to Make a Video Essay
Experimental filmmaking for dummies P1
MOMA: Experimentation in film
Avant-garde film theory
“Teaching While Learning: What I Learned When I Asked My Students to Make Video Essays”
“The Video Essay: The Future of Academic Film and Television Criticism?”

Explainer Video

Usually shorter in duration, a video explainer describes an idea in a simple and appealing fashion. It attempts to answer basic what, when, where, how or why questions. There are different formats in which they can be developed: live action, animated or whiteboard simulation.

Have students create a 2 to 3-minute video (it can also be longer, but it is meant to be short in nature) to explain an idea succinctly and poignantly, but also in an entertaining fashion. The piece should attempt to answer basic what, when, where, how or why questions.
Test student comprehension of literature, a theory, historical event, etc.. by asking them to make a video trailer for the moment. Have a very brief time limit so that they deliver the progression of the idea as succinctly and poignantly as possible, while also building up a reason/purpose to why it is important and intriguing to know, just as a trailer does.
Could underwater farms help fight climate change? Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Megan Davis
TedEd: How does the stock market work?
Why is the Solar System Flat?
Art historical analysis of Goya’s Third of May
Wonder Book trailer
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On trailer
Vyond: What is an explainer Video with examples
5 Best explainer videos & how to make your own
Lakehead University Explaining Explainer Videos

A podcast can be a single or set of audio episodes or chapters that concentrate in a specific topic. The development of the topics can be provided by one person or a group of people, and at times, guests might appear in an episode in interview form. Audio techniques such as sound effects and mood music can help deliver ideas.

Producing an episode podcast can allow students a way to collaborate and express an idea on a certain subject, and to craft and verbally unfold an argument from written language on paper to dynamic sound and narrative. Students can include other voices via sound bites and interviews, and narrate the piece via a sound track and sound effects. Episodes on a particular subject of your class can gather together into a class series you can host online.
Ask students to step into someone else’s shoes, consider another position or frame of reference, and perform in that mode via a developed podcast. For example, you might ask students to take an example from class and become the person in the example, this can include historical figures or a medical subject, etc… From here, students can enact and express their point of view and perspective on an issue, giving enough information to develop the character, time period, social and/or political situation. This can include background sounds and effects, soundtracks, and narrative of different voices, interviews
FutureThinkers: Podcast about evolving technologies, society and consciousness
The Conversation: In Depth out Loud
Science History: Distillations
Allusionist: A Podcast about Language by Helen Zaltzman
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
BBC Podcasts
Carnegie Melon: Podcasting Handout
A beginner's guide to academic podcasting
7 things you should know about podcasting handout
Vanderbilt University Podcasting Resources

Experiential Learning Process Video

A video presentation in experiential learning classes can make space for student reflections about their processes particular to their experiences and partnerships. It seeks to analyze and convey the experience students have when provided with practical experience of a hands-on opportunity to solve a problem in the real world. While making the work, students can reflect and work through their experience by visually demonstrating:

Challenges they faced and how they overcame them
How the solutions they provided might differ or be similar to the ones presented in the class literature
The changes in preconceived notions they had prior to the project (e.g., biases with the community they were working or the topic, how to solve of a problem of the sort)
The new skills they developed while doing the project
How the skills or knowledge gained might be helpful in their future, be it professional or personal

"I think writing a report would have limited our creative vision in the storytelling aspect of our final report, and easily less effective because readers would only be left to imagine what kind of things were accomplished throughout the process."

Student Reflection

To target more overlooked or invisible facets of experiential learning, the aim of the video is to reflect, not to report. Hence, it would be ideal for both students and teachers to focus on the reflection of the experiences they underwent more than reporting the process in itself. Resources to help with creating an experiential learning multimodal project is available in our Implementation section on Scaffolded Curriculum as well as in the following example of student work from the class.

Example from Dr. Richard Arias Hernandez, Winter 2019 INFO 250 class
Another example from Dr. Richard Arias Hernandez, Winter 2019 INFO 250 class
Centre for Community Engaged Learning, Faculty Curriculum Resources

Some recommended programs:

Camtasia *
VideoScribe *
Apple iMovie
Audacity for audio

* UBC obtained a license for faculty, staff and student use free of charge. Download here.

Renderforest

Available on UBC Computers

UBC has many professional programs available on library computers and digital labs from Adobe Creative Cloud for Photoshop and InDesign (photo editing and layout) and Premiere (video editing) as well as Final Cut Pro .

Warning: These programs can be expensive for a student to purchase on their own.

Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Covering World News, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

At the newsstand, on our smartphones and while watching the evening news, we learn about faraway people and places from the journalists, stringers and correspondents who work for news agencies and other media outlets around the globe. Global news is everywhere — from the front page news read by a New Yorker on Madison Avenue to the government radio station broadcasting in Pyongyang.

However, it would be a mistake to consider this a completely new phenomenon or to overstate its pervasiveness. Many people tend to think that global news is both a recent phenomenon and one that we can credit to advances in technology. If we think of 'news' in terms of newspaper articles or television reporting, then news is only as old as the technologies of press and video, and dates back to the first newsletters that circulated in Europe in the 17th century.

But in reality, humans have shared information about current affairs within and across borders for thousands of years, starting with the news networks of the ancient Phoenicians. The historical record also describes merchants sharing political news along ancient trade routes, minstrels and other traveling artists whose fictional performances also carried information about social change, and criers in medieval town squares.

If news is not a product of modern technologies, it's nevertheless true that technological change has had a dramatic impact on how news is made and consumed: where once we had printed newsletters distributed twice a day, now we have Twitter feeds refreshed twice a minute, and carrying information from an ever-widening array of sources. We live, as media critics like Marshall McLuhan have argued, in a global village.

The trouble with this vision of 'global news' is that it's not nearly as complete as we imagine it to be. According to the World Bank, of the world's seven billion people, only 80% have access to electricity (or the gadgets like computer and televisions that depend on it), 75% have access to mobile phones, and a meager 35% to the Internet. Most people on the planet aren't connected to what we think of as the 'global media' at all. As Global Voices founder Ethan Zuckerman points out in his TED Talk, "There are parts of the world that are very, very well connected, [but] the world isn't even close to flat. It's extremely lumpy."

Just as critically, the content that makes up the 'global media' is still heavily focused on a few key centers of power. In her TED Talk, Public Radio International's Alisa Miller shares a powerful map of the news consumed by American audiences in 2008: most of it focused on the U.S., and to a lesser extent, on countries with which the U.S. has military ties. Ethan Zuckerman points out that this lack of global coverage is pervasive, whether it's at elite news outlets like The New York Times or on crowdsourced digital information platforms like Wikipedia.

Moreover, Zuckerman argues, it's not just about the stories that get made — it's about what stories we choose to listen to. Thirty years ago, Benedict Anderson made waves when he argued that political structures (like states) depend upon a set of shared values, the 'imagined community,' and that the media plays a key role in creating those values. Zuckerman, however, argues that in today's world the disconnect between what we imagine to be our community, and the community we actually live in, is a major source of global media inequality. We connect to the Internet, with its technological capacity to link up the whole world, and imagine that we live in a global village. But in practice, we spend most of our time reading news shared by our Facebook friends, whose lives and interests are close to our own. Zuckerman calls this 'imagined cosmopolitanism.'

Compounding the problem, the stories we do attend to can be heavily distorted, reducing whole countries or societies to a single stereotype or image. As author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains in her TED Talk about the 'single story,' when all the tales we hear about a country follow the same pattern, we begin to imagine that this pattern is all there is know. The 'single story' can affect all of us, rich and poor: Adichie talks of her own misconceptions about Nigeria's rural poor, of her surprise at encountering the diversity of life in Mexico, and of her college roommate's reductive vision of Africa as poor and underdeveloped. The difference, she argues, is that there are simply more stories out there about powerful countries than about less powerful ones, and that makes it harder for us to reduce those societies to 'single stories' in our minds.

What can we do?

First, we can tell different stories about the places that are prone to reduction. In her TED Talk, Yemeni newspaper editor Nadia Al-Sakkaf takes us to the Yemen she lives in — where terrorism and political upheaval are real problems, but far from the whole picture. Moreover, in her account, each image can tell many stories. A woman with a veiled face can represent the role of fundamentalist Islam in Yemeni society, but she argues that a look behind the veil shows us that many of these women are holding down jobs and earning income, and in so doing, changing their role within their own families and in Yemeni society more broadly.

Second, we can find ways to invest in journalism. As Alisa Miller argues, a major obstacle to a truly global news media is the cost of production, of keeping bureaus in every country and paying for journalists to produce deep, investigative stories. The great paradox of media economics in the digital age is that the Internet makes it possible for us to consume more content, but falling advertising revenues means that each piece of content must cost a little less to produce. That pushes news outlets, even wealthy ones, in the direction of gossip and regurgitated press releases that can be produced by a reporter who hasn't left her desk.

One way to break this cycle, Ethan Zuckerman argues, is to make small and targeted investments in local journalists in the developing world. He describes a blogger training program in Madagascar that became a newsroom overnight when world media outlets needed verified content from a country undergoing revolution. He highlights the critical work of professional curators like Amira Al Hussaini at Global Voices or Andy Carvin at the Associated Press.

At the heart of these recommendations is a shift in the way we understand the mission of journalists — or rather, a return to an old way of thinking about news.

Right up until the early 20th century, all journalists were assumed to be opinion writers. Reporters went places to report, made up their own minds about a topic, and wrote an account that included not only facts, but an argument for what position readers at home should take and what political actions might follow. George Orwell's colorful and opinionated essays from South East Asia, for example, were published as reportage.

Then the Cold War started, and in the democratic West, journalists began to strive for objective impartiality, to distinguish their work from the obvious, state-sponsored propaganda of the Soviet bloc. Many critics at the time questioned whether 'true' objectivity was possible, but no major western news organization disputed that it was the ideal.

Today, we're seeing a return to the older understanding of journalism, towards an acceptance that even independent reporting carries a viewpoint, shaped by the people who produce it. Moreover, contemporary journalists are increasingly coming to see this viewpoint as a strength rather than as a weakness, and using social media to be more transparent to readers about the values they bring to stories. New York University's Jay Rosen, for example, has argued powerfully that the 'view from nowhere' advocated by 20th century western reporters is dangerous because it can lead journalists to treat 'both sides' of a story equally even when one side is telling objective falsehoods or committing crimes.

Many of the speakers in Covering World News describe their journalism — whether it is Global Voices or the Yemen Times — as having an explicit moral and political mission to change our perceptions of under-covered regions of the world.

But no speaker is more passionate on this subject than TED speaker and photojournalist James Nachtwey, who credits the activist context of the 1960s for inspiring him to enter journalism, using photography to "channel anger" into a force for social change. Nachtwey's work has brought him, at times, into partnership with non-profit aid organizations, an alliance that is increasingly common in today's media world but would surely not have fit within the 'objective' media of a half-century ago. Nachtwey sees himself as a 'witness' whose place in the story is not to be invisible, but to channel his own humane outrage at war or social deprivation in order to drive social and political change: in one case, a story he produced prompted the creation of a non-profit organization to collect donations from readers.

This kind of work is a form of 'bridge building,' a theme that emerges in many of our talks. For while there may not be one 'global media' that includes all communities equally and reaches all parts of the globe, there are many individuals whose skills and backgrounds enable them to go between the connected and less connected pockets of the world, bridging gaps and contributing to mutual understanding. That, perhaps, is the way forward for international journalism.

Let's begin our study with Public Radio International CEO Alisa Miller, an ardent advocate for a global perspective in news programming. In her TEDTalk "The news about the news," Miller shares some eye-opening statistics about the quantity and quality of recent foreign reporting by American mainstream media organizations.

Alisa Miller

How the news distorts our worldview, relevant talks.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The danger of a single story.

James Nachtwey

My wish: let my photographs bear witness.

Nadia Al-Sakkaf

See yemen through my eyes.

Ethan Zuckerman

Listening to global voices.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Introduction

This book is an open educational resource designed to introduce basic principles of media production that students can easily use to craft a new type of research project: the digital media essay. Digital media essays (DME) may be any of the following:

short documentary videos
radio shows
interactive websites
video games
augmented or virtual reality applications

But, let’s cut to the chase. As a student, you’re busy enough already. Why take the time to learn how to produce digital media essays when there’s nothing wrong with writing an essay anyway? This is a fair argument BUT we think that precisely because you are busy, the work you do at school should be worth your time and effort.

More and more often, students are conducting first-of-its-kind research . And you may not know this, but the research project you’re working on right now might be interesting – or even important – to people OUTSIDE of your class. For example, there are over 200 community foundations in Canada that work on a not-for-profit basis to address and solve challenges faced by local communities across the country. Research that you’re doing may contribute to the knowledge base these foundations are building. So, how can you get your work out there – how can you communicate your own research with those who don’t sit in class with you?

As you probably know, a common way to approach a research report is to put together a scholarly, written presentation of the facts you discovered while doing your research, with the structure and style of these reports reflecting the expectations of the academic audience that is supposedly meant to read the report. These reports typically are not organized around a narrative, nor designed to be meaningful or impactful for members of the public or the communities who may have participated in the research.

Rather than try to offer ways to improve a research report, this textbook will teach you how to design a multimedia project centred on the “creative treatment of actuality,” a highly influential idea coined by documentary filmmaker, John Grierson (1933). Put simply, “a documentary is a creative treatment of actuality, not a faithful transcription of it,” such that “documentaries marshal evidence but then use it to construct their own perspective or argument about the world, their own poetic or rhetorical response to the world”; that is, they transform “evidence into something more than dry facts” (Nichols, 2001, p. 38).

Because of the appeal of narrative-based media, Larsson (2017) notes that “storytelling in general, and digital storytelling in particular, is a powerful way to communicate science outside academia and to create an impact” (p. 169).

Accordingly, this textbook will show you how to produce a DME that uses narrative structure to communicate research in ways that are meaningful to you and your course instructor, and impactful for the general public and community members.

Why a DME? Well, while producing a written report or paper may be a useful way of learning to communicate information to other scholars via academic journals, it does not necessarily provide a way to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to disseminate the results of research to the public in other formats such as audio or video. This is an unfortunate gap, since research should ideally be known to the public and not just to academics. Therefore this textbook will guide you in producing, recording, editing, and publishing a digital media essay about scholarly research.

This textbook also aims to be accessible and also promote accessibility. Although it might seem that accessible design might not be relevant for most people, the U.S. General Services Administration notes that “everyone experiences some form of disability.” There are multiple types of disabilities (permanent, temporary, and situational), and most people, if not everyone, experience at least one of them:

Example: Permanent hearing loss due to illness
Example: Temporary hearing loss due to exposure to loud noise
Example: An inability to hear a video due to being in a noisy environment

As Copeland and McGregor note in their Guide to Academic Podcasting , “Accessibility is essential for some, helpful for all.” Implementing principles of accessibility increases the usability of multimedia content for people with and without disabilities, enabling it to be disseminated to a wider and more diverse audience.

This textbook is accessible in the following ways:

It provides tutorials that are accessible for screen reader users
It describes a number of ways to make digital media essays accessible to all
It encourages students to approach research that can be made useful to populations that typically have limited or restricted access to participating in research

In this guide you will find sections on the recording and editing process and on publishing platforms. We also discuss principles of public engagement that university researchers are increasingly being encouraged to consider, as well as a model of community collaboration that enables stakeholders invested in social science and humanities issues to participate in creation and sharing of their own knowledge. While you may not incorporate all of these ideas into your research project, they are presented here to paint a larger picture of what DMEs can do.

In summary, our goal in this guide is to make the time and effort you spend on course-based research worth it by showing you how (and why) you might want to create a digital media essay for your next class project. What follows are short tutorials for producing a digital media essay (specifically, short documentary videos and podcasts) that document your research practices and make your work shareable and accessible to a wider audience – stakeholders outside of your classroom. Our goal is to help you meaningfully engage with partners who might benefit from your research.

The Digital Media Essay for Research Communication is based on our experience as members of the Communication Collaborative . The Collaborative formed a bridge between Memorial University and stakeholders in stuttering and communication disorders communities to tackle stigmatized communication differences in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. This guide is the result of discussions with and encouragement by those members. Together we have learned (and still learning!) to produce a weekly podcast series, Some Stutter, Luh! , and two short documentary films, “Getting the Words Out” and “A Short Film About Discommunication”. We gratefully acknowledge these fine folks and recognize financial support from the Office of Public Engagement, The Smallwood Foundation, and the University Student Summer Internship Program at Memorial University.

This guide is freely available under a Creative Commons license. It is subject to revision by the authors to provide current and up to date content when needed. If you spot content that is out of date or links that no longer work, or to report any other concerns please send an email to [email protected] . We hope you enjoy this guide and would love to hear about your own experiences with digital media essay production.

Sources cited

Copeland, Stacey and McGregor, Hannah. (2021). A Guide to Academic Podcasting. Books . 2. https://scholars.wlu.ca/books/2

Grierson, J. (1933). The documentary producer. Cinema Quarterly , 2(1), 7-9.

Nichols, B. (2017). Introduction to documentary. Indiana University Press.

U.S. General Services Administration. (2019, December 4). An introduction to accessibility. Digital.gov. https://digital.gov/resources/introduction-accessibility/

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ESSAY SAUCE

FOR STUDENTS : ALL THE INGREDIENTS OF A GOOD ESSAY

Essay: Multimedia

Essay details and download:.

Subject area(s): Media essays
Reading time: 9 minutes
Price: Free download
Published: 28 November 2015*
File format: Text
Words: 2,500 (approx)
Number of pages: 10 (approx)

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Multimedia project provides a more creative path through development and production. The process includes phases like planning, design, development, prototyping, testing, and delivery. An insight of social development and future of multimedia is given. It provides information on multimedia such as disabilities, techniques, uses and structure.

It shows how virtual reality integrates the sense of touch with video and audio media to immerse an individual into a virtual world. These days video games include bio feedback. A shock or vibration is given to the game player when he or she crashes or gets killed in the game. Other media technologies include transmission via the internet from one individual to another. VOIP technology has also been discussed.

It also provides information on the recent development in multimedia, the amount of multimedia data available to users has increased. Multimedia is becoming biggest big data. Video is an example of multimedia data as it contains several kinds of data that includes text, image, meta-data, visual and audio. It also discusses the support being provided to multimedia by operating systems.

INTRODUCTION

Definition: Multimedia refers to the presentation of material or content using a combination of different content forms i.e., verbal and visual forms (both words and pictures).

Objective: The objective of this research is to study the use and development of multimedia. It also includes the structure, techniques, disabilities, and support of multimedia.

Multimedia includes a combination of audio, text, still images, video, animation or inter activity content forms. These messages can be described in terms of the delivery media (computer screen & amplified speaker) , sensory modalities ( visual & auditory) and presentation mode (words and pictures).The process of multimedia learning can be viewed as information acquisition in which multimedia messages are information delivery vehicles or as knowledge construction in which these messages are aids to sense making.

Multimedia devices are electronic media devices used to experience and store multimedia content, record, play and display or access by information content processing devices such as electronic and computerized devices. However, it can also be a part of live performance.

When used as a noun, multimedia refers to a technology for presenting material in both visual and verbal form. Moreover, it can be used as multimedia document (multimedia learning and multimedia message) when used as an adjective,

HISTORY OF MULTIMEDIA

The term multimedia was coined by singer and artist Bob Goldstein to promote the July 1966 opening of his “LightWorks at L’Oursin” show at Southampton. However, Goldstein was perhaps aware of Dick Higgins, an American artist, who had two years previously discussed a new approach to art-making which he called ‘inter-media’. Two years later, in 1968, the term ‘multimedia’ was re-appropriated to describe the work of David Sawyer, a political consultant (the husband of Iris Sawyer’one of Goldstein’s producers at L’Oursin).

The word has taken on different meanings in the intervening forty years. In the late 1970s, the term referred to presentations consisting of multi-projector slide shows. Though, by the 1990s, ‘multimedia’ took on its current meaning. It is an interactive multimedia when you allow the user to control what and when these elements are delivered. However, the interactive multimedia gets developed into hypermedia when you provide a structure of linked elements with which the user can navigate.’

In the 1990s, in 1995, Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache, the German language society, decided to recognize the word’s significance by awarding it the title of ‘Word of the Year’. Its explanation was summed up by the institute by stating “Multimedia has become a central word in the wonderful new media world” Some computers which were marketed in the 1990s were called “multimedia” computers because they comprised of a CD-ROM drive, which allowed the users to deliver video, picture, and audio data of several hundred megabytes.

TYPES OF MULTIMEDIA

The difference is in the interactivity because if the user can control the content’s access and order then it is a non-linear structure.

Multimedia presentations can be live or recorded. The difference that can be noticed is live multimedia presentation may allow interactivity via interaction with the presenter or performer while a recorded presentation may allow interactivity via a navigation system.

Linear active content progresses often without any navigational control for the viewer such as a cinema presentation. It is the information presented in a sequence of events in a specific order in a straight pathway,. Behaviourist or traditional teachers prefer this method of presenting information. E.g: Movie.

NON-LINEAR:

Non-linear uses interactivity to control progress as with a video game or self-paced computer based training. E.g: Hypermedia.

ELEMENTS OF MULTIMEDIA

Alphanumeric characters are used to present information in text form. Words appear in titles, menus, and narrative or content.

Hardware And Software Requirements:

Optical Character Recognizers (OCR)
Text Editors
Text Searching
Text Importing & Exporting

Computer graphics deal with the generation representation, display of pictures and manipulation with the aid of a computer. It is a more powerful way to illustrate the information.

1. Generative Graphics:

It is extensively used in drawings and illustrations in the form of 2-D and 3-D pictures. It is created for mathematical representation of simple objects.

The pictures and photographs composed of a collection of pixels.

Painting or Drawing Software
Screen Capture Software

Computer audio deals with the synthesizing, recording and playback of audio with the aid of computer.

Hardware And Software Requirement:

Output Device
Audio File Importing
Recording and Playback Capability
Voice Recognition Software

Computer video deals with the recording and display of a sequence of images at a reasonable speed to create impression of movement. For jerk free motion, 25-30 frames have to be displayed per second.

Video Editors
Video Monitor
Video Board
Input Device like Video Camera

Animation deals with generating, sequencing and display of a set of images to create an effect of visual motion. Simple form of animation includes visual effects such as wipes, fades, zooms, and dissolves. Television video builds 30 entire frames each second while movies are shot at a shutter rate of 24 frames per second.

DESIGN OF MULTIMEDIA DATABASE

Multimedia design requires both creative as well as technical skills to integrate two or more types of media.

USE OF MULTIMEDIA

In industries:.

In the industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to shareholders, co-workers, and superiors. Multimedia is also helpful for providing employee training, selling products and advertising all over the world via virtually unlimited web-based technology.

IN EDUCATION:

It includes learning packages and simulation of lab experiments. Aspects of course curriculum which can’t be explained through simple text and images could be presented through video clips, animation, audio annotations, 3D modelling, etc., to understand better.

IN ENGINEERING:

It is extensively used to design mechanical, electrical, electronic, and architectural parts by the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) applications. They enable engineers to zoom on to critical parts, try out various combinations before deciding on the final product implementation. Software engineers may use it in computer simulations for anything from entertainment to training such as military or industrial training.

IN DAILY LIFE:

At home, a wide range of games and reference products such as encyclopaedias and cookbooks are put to use.
At office, presentations and training are essential.
At school, students learn mathematics, science, and new languages via interactive software programs.
In shopping malls where kiosks, interactive computer terminals, help us to design greeting cards or to find out where specific stores are located.

IN MEDICINE:

Doctors can be trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can simulate how the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria and then develop techniques to prevent it.

IN JOURNALISM:

Newspaper companies all over embrace the new phenomenon by implementing its practices in their work. The New York Times, USA Today, etc are setting their positions in the newspaper industry in a globalized world.

News reporting is not limited to few media pieces. It engages global audiences and tells stories, which develops new communication techniques for both media producers and consumers. Multimedia reporters usually drive around a community with their cameras, audio and video recorders, and wifi-equipped laptops.

IN ENTERTAINMENT:

Special effects in movies and animations use multimedia features. Video games and multimedia games are a popular pastime and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online. There are multimedia artists who blend techniques using different media. Peter Greenaway is melding Cinema with Opera and all sorts of digital media

IN RESEARCH (SCIENTIFIC AND MATHEMATICAL):

Multimedia is mainly used for modelling and simulation in mathematical and scientific research. A scientist can look at a molecular model of a particular substance and manipulate it to arrive at a new substance.

DISABILITIES

Migraine Headaches, Mental Health Issues and Chronic Diseases
Physical, Sensory, Cognitive or Developmental Disabilities

VISION IMPAIRMENT:

People with vision impairments typically use a screen reader that basically reads the content on the screen. The user typically uses the keyboard to select headings and hyperlinks.

Provide specific content pages for blind users that primarily use audio output and keyboard input for communicating with the user. A large font text and large picture narration can be provided for people with low vision.

COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT:

People with cognitive impairments might experience problems when accessing Web sites with large amounts of content and complicated navigation models.

Provide simplified content pages for people with cognitive impairments.

MOTOR IMPAIRMENT:

There exist techniques in modern operating systems for people with motor impairments to slow down the mouse, use speech input, adjust the colors of the interface for people with color vision deficiencies.

We propose that Web browser plug-ins also support configuring the color adjustment of the multimedia presentation. We also propose that Web site owners provide narration of all audiovisual multimedia for people that are deaf or hard of hearing.’

STORAGE, SHARING AND ACCESSING MULTIMEDIA

The physical medium used for storing multimedia objects should be able to meet synchronization requirements of multimedia application both in terms of storage capacity and bounds on retrieval time. Multimedia objects require very large amounts of storage space.

The multimedia storage devices include the hard disc, magnetic tape, video cassette recorder (VCR), CD-ROM, and digital video disk (DVD).

SHARING AND ACCESSING:

Multimedia can be shared directly to social networking sites via status updates, photo albums and video uploads or publish to website first with blog post and then broadcast to social networking sites.

Distinct applications exist for taking photos or video shots, playing media, sharing the media files and showing the current context of each user.’

MULTIMEDIA RETRIEVAL SYSTEM

Content based retrieval is an important research area. It is a challenging problem since multimedia data needs detailed interpretation from pixel values. It deals with systems that manage and facilitate searching for multimedia documents such as images, videos, audio clips and slides based on content.

USE OF MULTIMEDIA FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Multimedia is used to enrich our communication or presentation skills. Multimedia technology is used for 3D cinema applications and mobile 3DTV environments. Animation is also used in creating special effects, titling films, or in web entertainment programs.

They act as a portal for entertainment and communication for today’s youth and have grown exponentially in recent years. When taught in authentic situations using a variety of formats, students learn and generalize social skills best. Multimedia also complements activities such as role playing, observing peer behaviour, and conducting social skills autopsies.

Social media site is considered as any web site that allows social interaction to make new friends, share information and pictures, and exchange ideas. Such sites include social networking sites; gaming sites and virtual worlds such as Minecraft, Club Penguin, Maze-war, Sims, etc; video sites such as YouTube; and blogs.

It also offers adolescents benefits for self, community, and the world, including:

opportunities for community engagement through raising money for charity and volunteering for local events.
enhancement of individual and collective creativity through development and sharing of artistic and musical endeavours.
growth of ideas from the creation of blogs, podcasts, gaming sites, etc.

Computer programs help students to recognize emotions and facial expressions; and develop conversational skills and socialization. Other programs develop cognitive skills; allowing students to explore decision making and social interactions in a variety of situation or to develop interactive skills.

People with cognitive disabilities can master social skills when they are engaged in social skills instruction that includes a description of the social behaviours, modelling of the behaviours, verbal practice in naming the behaviours, practice in the social behaviours and individual feedback.

VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL

Voice over IP ( VoIP ) is a methodology for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. Now, methods of delivering voice or other multimedia services over IP are available on smartphones.

Multimedia telephony, the new global service standard for VoIP with multimedia support, provides a foundation for products that can offer fixed-mobile convergence of services, networks and devices. The service combines the quality, interoperability, reliability, efficiency and renowned supplementary services of traditional telephony.

SUPPORT FOR MULTIMEDIA IN OPERATING SYSTEMS

The requirements placed on a multimedia operating system are demanding and often conflicting. After understanding multimedia characteristics and multimedia system requirements, a new operating system for multimedia files and applications is presented called ‘Optimal Multimedia Operating System’. Multithreading, parallel processing, multiprogramming, dedicated memory for frame buffers, graphics co-processors at hardware level are desirable traits in multimedia OS.

MULTIMEDIA LOCALIZATION

Multimedia localization services include:-

Transcription of the original master
Translation
Voice recording and subtitling
Video production
Art and graphics localization
Animation localization
Cultural assessment of multimedia content
Multimedia quality assurance

Multimedia conveys content clearly, stimulates discussion and enhances the learning process thereby improving retention. People remember only 20% of what they see, 30% of what they hear. When they see and hear it, they remember 50%. If some interaction is included, they remember 80% of it. In the field of education, multimedia is being used extensively especially for online courses and training. Creative and technical skills are required for the integration of two or more media. The most challenging problem is content based retrieval.

Apart from education, it is widely used in entertainment, journalism, engineering, various industries, etc. In daily life, we use it at home for games and other modes of entertainment, offices for presentations and training, etc. Since there are disabilities related to multimedia, various solutions are being offered to those who are impaired. For e.g. A blind person using a CD-ROM-based encyclopaedia on a computer equipped with synthetic speech output. Multimedia plays a great role in social development. Even the people with cognitive disabilities can socialize by improving their interactive skills through computer based programs. Moreover, it is becoming the biggest big data as the most valuable source for insights and information. Everything will be based on media in the future world.

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Role of Multimedia in Education

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