Note: Please read all the directions for the writing assignment. In just the first month of our COM 107 class this Spring, a number of major events are scheduled to take place: the Grammy awards, Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primaries, and the 50th Super Bowl. These are opportunities we ought not ignore. We can use them to examine how new and old media — legacy, digital, and social — shape a single event differently. 4 Your assignment is to select ONE of these four events and examine how various media outlets cover it the day after. You will need to plan ahead and start thinking about your paper assignment now so that you can pay attention to media coverage leading up to the event, as the lead-up will likely inform the introductory paragraph of your paper. On the day of your event you should plan to watch the television coverage and follow social media buzz during it. This will inform your analysis. Then you should monitor the coverage of, and information flow about, that event as it appears in a variety of media and platforms, on the day after. Clearly you cannot monitor everything in all media being published and broadcast, even about a single event. So to simplify your analysis, you should choose one outlet from each of the following five types:    a general interest (legacy) news source such as The New York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, or NPR    an industry specific news source such as Sports Illustrated for the Super Bowl, Politico for politics, or Entertainment Tonight for the Grammys    an industry owned source such as the Twitter feed of the NFL, Grammys, or Republican National Convention    an international news source (anything produced outside the US)    a niche media outlet that is created for and by a marginalized group (LGBTQ, Hispanic, Black, women’s media) Your sample MUST include examples of all five types listed above so that you can compare and contrast how different media outlets, with different audiences and missions, frame stories differently. Again, you should plan ahead by selecting your media outlets even before your event happens. For example, if you choose the Iowa caucuses, you might choose to monitor New York Times coverage; Politico coverage; the RNC’s website, the Guardian, and theroot.com. Or you might choose, instead, the coverage on the Chicago Tribune’s website, politifact.com, the DNC’s Twitter feed, Le Monde, and latinomagazine.com. If you are covering the Grammys you might choose the LA Times, Variety, @theGRAMMYs on Twitter, the BBC, msmagazine.com. That should provide you with a diversified sample of media content about which to make some judgments. If you have any question about the sample of media you have chosen, see us and clear the sample. Once you have all your data in front of you, analyze it. Think about it. Figure out what lessons you can learn from it. In writing the paper, below are examples of the kinds of questions you might choose to answer. These are not exclusive.

1. Note: Please read all the directions for the writing assignment.
In just the first month of our COM 107 class this Spring, a
number of major events are scheduled to take place: the
Grammy awards, Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primaries, and
the 50th Super Bowl. These are opportunities we ought not
ignore. We can use them to examine how new and old media
—
legacy, digital, and social
—
shape a single event differently.
4
Your assignment is to select ONE of these four events and
examine how various media outlets cover it the day after. You
will need to plan ahead and start thinking about your paper
assignment now so that you can pay attention to media coverage
leading up to the event, as the lead-up will likely inform the
introductory paragraph of your paper.
On the day of your event you should plan to watch the
television coverage and follow social media buzz during it. This
will inform your analysis. Then you should monitor the
coverage of, and information flow about, that event as it
appears in a variety of media and platforms, on the day after.
Clearly you cannot monitor everything in all media being
published and broadcast, even about a single event. So to
simplify your analysis, you should choose one outlet from each
of the following five types:
a general interest (legacy) news source such as The New York
Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, or NPR
an industry specific news source such as Sports Illustrated for
the Super Bowl, Politico for politics, or Entertainment Tonight
for the Grammys
an industry owned source such as the Twitter feed of the NFL,

2. Grammys, or Republican National Convention
an international news source (anything produced outside the
US)
a niche media outlet that is created for and by a marginalized
group (LGBTQ, Hispanic,
Black, women’s media)
Your sample MUST include examples of all five types listed
above so that you can compare and contrast how different media
outlets, with different audiences and missions, frame stories
differently. Again, you should plan ahead by selecting your
media outlets even before your event happens.
For example, if you choose the Iowa caucuses, you might
choose to monitor New York Times
coverage; Politico coverage; the RNC’s website, the Guardian,
and theroot.com. Or you might choose, instead, the coverage on
the Chicago Tribune’s website, politifact.com, the DNC’s
Twitter feed, Le Monde, and latinomagazine.com. If you are
covering the Grammys you might choose the LA Times, Variety,
@theGRAMMYs on Twitter, the BBC, msmagazine.com.
That should provide you with a diversified sample of media
content about which to make some judgments. If you have any
question about the sample of media you have chosen, see us and
clear the sample.
Once you have all your data in front of you, analyze it. Think
about it. Figure out what lessons you can learn from it. In
writing the paper, below are examples of the kinds of questions
you might choose to answer. These are not exclusive. They are
meant to be suggestive. We will welcome papers that address
these questions from novel perspectives.
How do the visuals of your event differ across your various
media types? Do some media rely more heavily on visuals than
others? What emotions or thoughts do these visuals convey?
5

3. What aspects of your event were highlighted by the different
media outlets? For example, did some focus on personalized,
stories about people while other outlets focused on broader
implications of the event or historical context?
How significant are the differences in presentation? What word
choices shape possible differences in interpretation (for
examples Right-to-life v. Right-to-choose or Climate change v.
Global warming)? Are there some clear and glaring differences?
How much of the coverage seems to be fact-based, and how
much seems to be opinion, as best you can determine by
comparing various sources? Does there seem to be any pattern
in this fact-versus-opinion dichotomy based on the type of
medium; that is, is opinion more common in the information
presented in the industry produced media versus content in
general interest news source?
You cannot answer all of these questions in the allotted space.
Remember that these questions are meant to be suggestive. Your
data might lead you to ask and answer different questions and
make different comparisons. However, the paper MUST
compare and contrast the information in the five areas under
investigation: general interest news, industry specific news,
industry produced media, international news, and niche targeted
media.
If you want guidance on your selection of sources or your
analysis please just ask. If your sample is a weak one, your
paper will inevitably suffer. So start early planning what
sources you will gather data from.
Once you have organized your thoughts, write the paper, then
rewrite it, and then rewrite it again. Do not under any
circumstances turn in a paper that is a first draft, written the
night before it is due. You cannot pull that off. Believe me.
If you have questions about how to proceed, see professor(s)

4. BEFORE you write.
We will be utilizing TurnItIn.com
, which is a website that checks student work against a sizable
database of published works in order to detect possible
duplications. You will be required to upload an electronic copy
of your paper to TurnItIn.com through our class Blackboard site
on or before the due date AS WELL AS turn in a printed copy to
your instructor.
Format requirements:
The paper must be between 1000 words and 1250 words in
length
–
no longer.
The paper must be typed and double-spaced, and use normal
margins.
The paper must include a “works cited” or bi
bliography page(s).
You may use first-
person (“I”), but strongly discourage it.
Avoid directly referencing the assignment with statements such
as, “for this part of the assignment....”
You do NOT need to include a title page nor a clever title. Just
put your name at the top of the first page.
Please include the word count
for your paper at the bottom of the last page of text; most word
processing programs have a feature that can count words for
you.