Instructors: This mass communication theory annotated bibliography assignment is to be used with the U.N. paper as the final project.

For this assignment, due at the end of Week 3, you will investigate a mass communication theory related to the media freedom question that you will be investigating for your final researched argument paper in this course, and create an annotated bibliography.

The topic of your final paper for this class is:

DEFEND or REFUTE: the United Nations should develop, implement and enforce world standards for media freedom (formerly referred to as freedom of speech and press). 

In addressing your argument, explain the presumed legal basis of these controls. Does the United Nations have legal authority to regulate global media? You also should ascertain whether there are global “free speech” standards. 

To learn about annotated bibliographies, consult UMUC’s tutorial. 

Then, familiarize yourself with some of the mass comm field’s theories by

• taking a look at the four major areas of mass communication research on pages 255-265 in The Handbook of Communication Science; 
• reviewing this list of major communication theories; and 
• reading the explanations of those theories that piqued your interest in the Encyclopedia of Communication Theory.

Some of the key theories and their researchers are:

•         Media and society theories: Information/Innovation Diffusion Theory (Rogers), Agenda-setting (Shaw, (McCombs), Framing, Priming, Media System Dependency, Knowledge Gap, Symbolic Convergence, and Media Intrusion Theory. 
•         Audience theories: Uses and Gratifications (Herzog), Reception Analysis, Phenomenistic/Reinforcement Theory (Klapper), Consistency Theory, Gender (Goffman), Information Processing Theory, Two-step Flow Theory (Lazarsfeld, Hovland), Narcotizing Dysfunction, and Spiral of Silence. 
•         Media and culture (meaning-making) theories: Pragmaticism, Hegemony, Social Semiotics, Symbolic Interactionism (Mead), Social Constructionism, Cultivation Analysis, Mean World Index (Ball-Rokeach, Gerbner), Cultural Imperialism (Gans, Schiller), Media Bias (Bagdikian, Innis). 
•         Mass society theories: Magic Bullet (Hypodermic Needle) Theory, Elite Pluralism (Innis), Propaganda (Lippmann, Lasswell, Bernays, Ellul), Commodification (Gans). 

Once you have completed your preparations for this task, please follow these steps carefully. You may need to right-click and open the links in a new window or tab:

1. Go to the COMM 302 resources at http://libguides.umuc.edu/comm302 and use the listed resources to review the theory(ies) that interest you.

2. Then click on Scholarly Journals Only to explore the peer-reviewed journals for research on the mass communication theor(ies) or theorists that you selected from the list. (Alternatively, you can access the library through the link under Resources in the blue navbar above, which will take you to the OneSearch page where you can use the Advanced Research or Databases by Title (A-Z) functions to conduct your exploration.) 

Then,

3. Narrow your investigation to the mass communication theor(ies) that you think are the most relevant to the topic you must debate in your final researched paper: world standards for media freedom (formerly referred to as freedom of speech and press).  Expect this step to take time. You will need to experiment with board and narrow search terms to find what you need. For example: “social democratic theory” and “media freedom.”

4. Select three articles about those mass communication theor(ies) that you think are related to the paper’s topic from among the peer-reviewed, scholarly journals in the UMUC databases using the library’s OneSearch feature.

5. Think through and list at least three reasons why you think that mass communication theor(ies) is relevant to discussion of media freedoms. You will need to talk about these reasons in your written assignment.

You are now ready to write your assignment. It must conform to APA manuscript style, so make sure it follows this general format. You can find a sample APA-style annotated bibliography here.

6. Begin your assignment by listing the theor(ies) that you used to find the three articles that you’re annotating.

7. List the database(s) you used for your search.

8. List the topics or keywords you used in that search.

Then,

9. Before you write the individual annotations for your assignment, write an introduction of at least 250-300 words in which you explain the three reasons that you believe the mass communication theor(ies) you selected is/are relevant to our final project’s topic. What did you learn?

10. List three research questions you will pursue to continue investigating the topic for your final paper.

After you have presented your introduction in your written assignment, you will present your annotated bibliography:  

11. Write at least 150-250 words (excluding direct quotes from the source) about each article that you selected for this assignment. This “annotation” (review) should explain what the article is about  and how its content relates to our final project topic.

12. Add at least one direct quote to your annotations from each article you reviewed. That quote should be relevant to the reasons you think the theory is appropriate for a discussion about world media freedoms. It must be accompanied by an in-text citation that includes the page or paragraph number where the quote can be found in its source document.

13. Include a complete American Psychological Association-style reference for each article that you annotate (review). Use APA-style in-text citations for summarized, quoted and paraphrased material.  

14. Edit your work to ensure not only vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics appropriate to the business setting, but also to ensure that your annotations are in your own words; revise as may be necessary. All students in this class will be assumed to have completed UMUC’s academic integrity tutorial. To refresh your memory on how to avoid plagiarism, you might also review this handout in the Instructor Policies area of the course’s Syllabus module or this PowerPoint.

15. Your instructor also may require you to submit your assignment to Turnitin.com through the link under the Resources tab in our LEO classroom. If so, your instructor will provide you with the course ID and password that you will need to login. 

Here is an example of “A” work from a student’s annotated bibliography for a previous assignment in this class:

Quayle, M. (July 2010). The method of the medium is in motion.  A Review of                            General Semantics, 67(3): 300-310.

In this exploratory writing, Matt Quayle makes a strong defense on behalf of the utility of mass media content. Quayle argues that the  legacy media still  have the potential to influence public discourse amid competition from social media. His argument refuse Neal Postman’s contention in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1984) that broadcast news “is a format for entertainment, not for education, reflection, or catharsis” (p. 87-88). Quayle focuses on a news story aired by CNBC on March 9, 2009 to make his case that the news media still can enlighten and broaden the knowledge base of a society. On that day, CNBC’s morning show “Squawk Box” aired a three-hour interview with renown business investor and financial guru Warren Buffet. In general, the subject matter was the national economy. The show, which also featured real-time feedback from the audience through the use of the Internet, not only generated a significant increase in viewership, it allowed for more than a dozen viewers to ask questions and receive responses from Mr. Buffet.  Additionally, for more than two weeks, it generated a total of nine hundred or more printed news stories and caused the President of the United States in an interview to respond to content presented in the program. This and other examples presented by Quayle begs the question — if such a subject-matter of serious socio-economic consequences could be addressed on television with a subject-matter expert, is it not evidence that not all television or mass media outlets only good for entertainment. Can they not be used to support elevated exchanges? While Quayle did not design a research-based experiment, he does provide anecdotal evidence that contextualized, meaningful information can be conveyed through these mediums. From it, he concludes: “The evolution of communications is rapidly increasing and the methods that programmers use are starting to expand and change outside the field of common thought. As the industry fragments at a faster and faster pace, fewer of the pre-observed characteristics, techniques, and attributes of that medium” (p. 308). This article supports the underlying proposition of the thesis that a technology-based epistemology might not only be possible, but required.

For another student sample of an annotated bibliography for a similar assignment, see the attachment to this post or click here. Please submit yours as a Word .doc or .docx or .rtf attachment to Assignments online in our LEO classroom by 11:59 p.m. ET Sunday, Week 3.