Popular Culture and the Media
This assignment allows you to investigate a second important aspect of the course in detail, consulting the best available scholarly literature on the subject. You are expected to apply the analytic skills that you have learned in the course as you research a major topic or issue in the area of popular culture and write a scholarly essay on it. You are encouraged to follow the guidelines set out in the “Writing Essays” section of this document.
In researching this paper, you are expected to go beyond the textbooks and readings provided in your course materials, and make use of the supplementary materials (books and articles) in the Athabasca University Library or in any other college or university library to which you have access.
This essay should be approximately 3,000 words in length, and should include notes and a bibliography.
On the whole, is popular culture progressive or reactionary?
Explain the opposing viewpoints on this question among writers on popular culture, and set out the relevant criteria by which works of popular culture might be judged in this regard. In framing your answer, choose four appropriate works from different genres (literature, film, television, and music), including at least one that is not American, and identify the elements in them that support your argument as well as any that run counter to it. Do you find significant differences between the genres on this question?
