Final Research Project: Tracing Techno-Cultural Change

In this assignment you will explore some aspect of techno-cultural change. Your goal is to research, analyze, produce, and synthesize several interesting artifacts into a multimodal exploration for your reader that challenges their conception of something, causes them to wonder, and provokes them towards some action. To do so you will combine audio, video, web design and print to create a 10-15 page multimodal equivalent—thinking not only about what your topic is but also about how it is displayed. Ideally, you will choose a research topic that will benefit you in your future career: How has tech changed publishing, education, music, exercise, comedy, religion, etc. But your research question should be more complex than just how has tech changed x, y, or z. Choose a specific sub-topic within those broad headings, i.e., instead of asking how has technology changed education you might consider: how has tech changed collaboration between teachers; how have online for profit universities (like Phoenix) changed higher ed; how have technologies in class changed how students engage with a course. Your project also must be something you can do some primary research on—i.e., you must be able to interview someone who has experience with/is somehow expert on a topic. Tips

§ Don't automatically assume that change is bad. § You don't necessarily need or want a proposal for change. Your goal is to analyzing

culture as it is—not solving a problem or assuming that something is a problem. § Make sure you are open to the positive and negative aspects of your topic.

General Project Requirements 1. Your topic must be about technological change—how some “new” technology has changed

some pre-existing culture: how has tech changed love, music, gender, class, race, psychology, etc. § Your topic must be exigent—you must make clear to your reader why this topic is

important to study now by illustrating some problem or gap in research before you begin your analysis proper.

2. You must engage with three primary research sources—this must include interviews with members of the community you are analyzing as well as observations/textual analysis of the literacy artifacts (texts) that this community produces. § This analysis must be systematized in some way; i.e., you draw similarities and trends

from your analyses, which attempt to answer some kind of research question. § You must justify who and what you analyzed in terms of your research question—you

can’t just pick random people and things. § You create or use others’ key terms in order to describe the trends you see.

3. You must perform some secondary research—specifically, you must use 8 sources somewhere in your essay. At least 5 of them must be “academic texts”—from journals or books about your topic. The other three can come from blogs, newspapers, YouTube, etc. All of these sources should be used to either set the stage for analysis or to analyze your primary research.

4. You must use two of the big media we’ve used (Photoshop, Audition, Premiere, Web Design) in class.

5. You must meet with me at least once (ideally, twice) about your topic. 6. You will showcase your research at the end of the semester.

Examples

§ See many of our multimodal readings, including: Hollow, Radiolab, RSA Animate § See the academic journal Kairos: http://kairos.technorhetoric.net § See the undergraduate journal the Jump: http://jump.dwrl.utexas.edu/issues

Secondary Goals Though the primary goal of this research project is to learn how to research and produce multimodal texts, you might think about this project as a way to highlight your skills for a future employer in a job portfolio, win one the Department of English’s undergraduate awards (http://cas.ou.edu/english-awards-and-funding), and/or presenting at undergraduate research day.