Psychology 303: Person in Society

Paper 1: Media awareness paper

This paper is an opportunity to reflect on an often unacknowledged influence in our lives - that of electronic and print media. Much of our information about world events, our values, sense of self, and images that shape our beliefs about life are derived from television, radio, newspapers, magazines, the internet, and other forms of mass media. This assignment invites you to reflect on these influences in three parts:

1) Where do you get your news about world, national, and local events? Television news shows, the radio, newspapers, word of mouth, some other source, nowhere? Commercial or noncommercial sources? Can you identify the values behind the sources you tend to rely on? Reflect on how your sources of information influence your views of current events.

2) The media can also influence us more broadly. Our values, what we strive for, our images of ourselves as women and men, our standards of beauty, our images of people of our own race and culture, and those of other races and cultures, and our worldviews are all potentially influenced by media images. Reflect on how your exposure to media, especially television, has influenced you in one or more of these ways.

3) As a way to become more conscious of the role of media in your life, consciously change some aspect of your engagement with media for one week. Choose one of the following:

a) Alter your choice of news sources. If you don’t usually pay attention to the news, do so, daily, for a week. Consider turning to an alternative source for the week, such as KPFA (94.1 FM). Report on how the new source of information influenced you.

b) As another option, if you are a regular TV watcher, do a “TV fast” for the week and report on the experience.

Keep in mind the following guidelines in writing your paper:

1) Write clearly about your own personal experience. One purpose of this paper is for you to reflect deeply about your own experience.

2) Connect your personal experience to the social context, in this case the media system.

3) Organize your thoughts in a meaningful way. While it can often be helpful to start a paper by writing down your thoughts in the order they occur to you, it is important for the final draft of the paper to be deliberate in how you organize the paper. I have found outlining to be an extremely useful process.

4) I would prefer to see you explore a few ideas in depth rather than trying to cover too much in a superficial way.

Grades will be based on:

1) Inclusion of both personal experience and reflection.

2) Depth and originality of thought. (The more you are learning new things as you reflect and write, the better. Please do not just report on what you already know and think).

3) Clarity and organization of writing (including spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc.)

Paper is due October 9.