LEAP 1: Analyze Media Using Critical Questions

Document and analyze the work of any digital author to deconstruct and analyze the choices they make. You will create a screencast analysis video that gives insight on this individual’s work by applying the critical questions and key concepts of digital and media literacy. Your purpose is to demonstrate your ability to use critical questions to analyze a media message.

A Suggested Work Process

SELECT A DIGITAL AUTHOR WHOSE WORK YOU WILL ANALYZE. For this assignment, you may choose to focus on digital authors who create and share their work on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. But you may also choose other types of creative people who can be conceptualized as digital authors, including podcasters, musicians, video game creators, filmmakers, TV producers, and advertising and marketing professionals. The choice is up to you. Because the choice of a digital author and a particular work product (or digital artifact) will shape the content of what you discuss in your screencast, choose something that’s interesting and important to you, considering the potential social, cultural, political and economic implications of the type of creative expression you’re analyzing.

SELECT A PARTICULAR WORK TO ANALYZE. It’s a good idea to review several examples of the creative individual’s work as you decide which specific work to examine in detail. You will be deconstructing and analyzing the choices they make.

DEVELOP KEY IDEAS AND WRITE THE VOICE-OVER NARRATION. Suggested approach:

• Use key concepts and critical questions of the Media Literacy Smartphone, shown at the top of this page.
• Apply at least one relevant concept from the course textbook, Media Literacy in Action.
• Gather new information from quality sources help you understand your author and the media text you’re analyzing.
• Be concise: Make sure your word count does not exceed 450 words maximum (3 minutes) — this is number of words you can use
• A strong thesis statement will help you create a screencast with the maximum impact on the audience
• As you develop your work, get feedback from people to make sure your work accomplishes its purpose.

SELECT IMAGES/VIDEO TO ACCOMPANY YOUR NARRATION. A screencast is a video that includes a voiceover plus images from your computer screen. You will make many choices of how to use images for your project. You will probably use a mixture of still and moving images that you gather to illustrate ideas about the creative individual whose work you are exploring.

REHEARSE AND PRODUCE YOUR SCREENCAST. Screencasting is a simple but powerful creative video production tool. Watch a 3-minute video video tutorial that demonstrates the basics of how to use Screencast-o-Matic.It takes some practice to make a good screencast, so you should plan on making a practice screencast to experiment with what’s possible. You may want to rehearse the timing and sequence of the spoken script as you combine it with video and other images. (You can use any screencast production tool to create your screencast.)

UPLOAD YOUR COMPLETED VIDEO. Use your URI account to access your URI YouTube account and upload your video there. Choose to set privacy settings to “public” or “unlisted” — this is your choice.

CREATE YOUR WORK. Compose a blog post with your screencast video and a short (500 word) essay that briefly describes your creative process, including the struggles and the breakthroughs you experienced.

PUBLISH YOUR WORK TO THE CLASS BLOG.

1. First, create a free Medium account. Create your first blog post that includes both your video and your short essay.
2. Then, put your Medium account name on this list of writers for our COM 250 class publication. After you do this, Renee will add you as a writer and you will be able to submit your work to the class publication.
3. Next, submit your published blog for submission in the COM 250 class publication.

Follow these simple instructions to submit your work to the class publication.

😎 Pro-Tip: After you complete your LEAP 1 draft and post it to your Medium page, add a feature image to increase the appeal of the page. Please add 5 tags to increase findability, including COM250.

Click Here To Visit Our Class Blog

Our Class Blog

Criteria for Evaluation

100 POINTS

1. Your screencast video has a strong thesis statement and documents and analyzes the work of a digital author by deconstructing and analyzing the many choices they make. Your screencast analysis video gives insight by applying the critical questions and key concepts of media literacy. Your work clearly demonstrates that you can use critical questions to analyze a media message. (40 points)
2. You have composed a blog post to accompany your screencast that describes your creative production process and reflects upon the choices you made and the challenges you encountered. (20 points)
3. Your screencast and blog are professional and polished with concise, clear writing and engaging use of images. Your work is produced under deadline pressure and meeting length expectations. (20 points)
4. Your screencast creates an “aha” experience that leads the viewer to see the media you have analyzed in a fresh, new way. (2o points)

DUE: Sunday, February 11

POINTS will be deducted for late work.