Armbruster
WRIT 2072
Spring 2006

Assignment 5: Media Representation Analysis

As we have been discussing, your next two writing assignments (a letter to a Congressional representative and an e-mail issue campaign) will involve an issue at the national level.   In preparation for these writing assignments, this assignment asks you to 1) choose your issue, 2) research it in the media (newspapers, newsmagazines, Web sources, etc.), and 3) analyze the media representations of those issues.

Due: Tuesday, April 11th .

1) Choose an issue that affects people across the nation and that is currently in the news.

2) Find three sources that discuss the issue.   Try to come up with sources that vary in type (newspaper, magazine, Web site) and political slant (liberal, centrist, conservative).   Especially when selecting a Web source, please use the criteria we've already covered to find a reputable source and understand its perspective and agenda.

3) Briefly summarize and analyze your sources using the criteria in "Media Views of an Issue" (use the analyses of the articles on campaign finance reform in The Economist and The Nation as your models).   Spend about 1-2 pages on each source, and end by comparing all three sources to each other.   Don't forget to provide a works cited at the end that gives complete information for each source (you may use MLA or APA style).

Note:   Because this assignment is such an important foundation for the writing assignments in this unit, it will receive a letter grade rather than a grade of pass/fail (as exercises do).