CMS Spring 2007
7-Day
Take Home Examination (10/4 – 17/4)
Your
paper may not exceed 20 pages at 2400 characters per page.
The number of characters in the paper must be
listed on the paper’s cover sheet.
Failure to list this will result in the paper not being read. Use a consistent, comprehensible
documentation style throughout the paper. All quotations, sources and
borrowed
ideas must be cited.
Please
answer one, two or
three
of the following questions in an essay style format. Indicate clearly
in your
paper which question(s) you are addressing.
- Discuss
everyday
life as an object of cultural studies. What is the importance of
studying the mundane, trivial or quotidian? Illustrate your claims with
an exemplary analysis of an everyday phenomenon (such as queuing) or
object (such as a bus shelter).
- Discuss the
force
of subculture theory as a tool for explaining otherness and belonging.
Illustrate your points with an analysis of a specific subcultural
practice.
- How do
Baudrillard's analysis of interior design and Stigel's analysis of the
role of television in modern life function as analyses of our
"surrounding worlds" (Umwelten)? What kind of
analysis do they represent: cultural, historical, political
economic, or a mix of the three?
- What kind
of
models does the "New Cultural History" provide for cultural analysis?
- Analyze
one or two TV commercials of your own choice. Your analysis should
consider issues such as gender
representation, commodity aesthetics,
subgenres and narratology.
- How does the use of
life style segment surveys in the design of TV commercials or magazine
advertisements influence their form and content? Analyze one or more
commercials or advertisements with special focus on this question.
- Analyze
a website of your own choice. What
special approaches should be used when analyzing the new media and the
Internet?
- Based
on analyses of one or more media texts
of your own choice discuss the relationship between intertextual
quotations and narrative flow.
- How
do paratexts influence the
audience’s reception of a hypotext? Your answer to this question must
include analyses of one or more media texts, including their paratexts.
- How
has the Web 2.0 concept
changed the Internet? Analyse one or more websites that are placed
firmly within the Web 2.0 concept.
- Discuss how the analysis of
contemporary media audiences needs to take into account the diversity
and proliferation of new media, such as the Internet, in our lives.
- In what ways can new media facilitate as well as
hinder
innovative democratic forms of media participation? You may wish to
consider LINUX/FLOSS or peer-to-peer file sharing, or new social
software such as Wikipedia.
- Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of
using
McCloud's typology of comics and panel closure for analysing graphic
novels and adult comics. Use examples of comics to illustrate your
answer.
- Analyse
Spiegelman's 'Maus' and its representation of
national identity, race and ethnicity. You might wish to compare 'Maus'
with Spiegelman's 'The Shadow of No Towers'.