THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Department of Sociology

SOCI3082 Media and Cultural Studies Internship

Summer2017

Teachers: / Dr. Au-Yeung Shing (Shing)
Office: / C0911, 9/F.,
The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU.
E-mail: /
Office Hours: / By Appointment

Course coordinator: Dr. Au-Yeung Shing

Administrative enquiry: Ms. Tina Wu (E-mail: )

Course Description

Credits: 12

Status: Elective

Prerequisite:Major in MCS, year 2and3 students

Semester:Term Time

Course Objectives and Features

This 12-credit internship project is designed to offer Media and Cultural Studies majors the chance to integrate their academic training with hands-on work experience.

This internship is characterized by close connections among students, the academic tutor, and a wide range of community partners (CPs). The CPs work nature and content is highly relevant to MCS and are committed to offer meaningful work conductive to students understanding of the arts and culture world. In return, the student is expected to be open and dutiful.

Each student will be placed one of the community partners. They are expected to work for about 280 hours over the course of the summer. The actual schedule of work will be discussed and agreed upon by the students (interns) and the community partner concerned before the internship starts. Students are expected to integrate their classroom learning with their placement experience in order to develop a better understanding of issues in media and culture. At the end of the course, students are expected to be better equipped, both in knowledge and in skills, for working in the media and culture industries.

The Logistic

Application form can be downloaded from the Department website at Applications should be submitted by HAND to the General Office of the Department of Sociology (Room 928, 9/F., The Jockey Club Tower) or by EMAIL to on or before the due date. Individual interviews will then be scheduled and the information of successful candidates will be sent to Community Partners (CPs; see the above website) for consideration, after which they may organize another interview. Once your application is sent to a CP for consideration, withdrawal without a sound reason will be regarded as a failure of the course. Orientation programmes/workshops will be organized before the placement, and you must attend them. During and after the period of placement, you have to produce the required course works (see below).

At the end, successful completion of SOCI3082 will require students to exhibit high-levels of independence, initiative and intellectual rigor. Such efforts, however, will be rewarded in that successfully carrying out this internship may well become an invaluable stepping stone into the student’s postgraduate studies or career.

Assessment & Requirements

(1) successfully fulfill the internship requirements of the community partner; (2) fully participate in orientation and evaluation programmes and workshops; (3) thoughtfully write two 1000-word reflective journals; and (4) develop, present, and complete a 4000-word final report on a topic that links the student’s internship experience with his or her media and cultural studies courseworks.

Continuous Assessment 100%

Overall program participation 40%

Reflective journals20%

Oral presentation of project findings 10%

Project report30%

Students will be assessed based on their performance in completing the assignments listed below. The assessment criteria will be the same regardless of whether one participates in the summer term or in an academic year. Student assessment will be provided by two parties: the Media and Cultural Studies teacher(s) and the CP supervisor.

1.Overall Program Participation 40%

Throughout the course, you will be working with community partner supervisors and Media and Cultural Studies teachers to ensure that you are gaining as much as possible from this experience. These advisors will also be evaluating your participation in the course. Their evaluations as well as your own evaluation will contribute to your overall participation mark in the course. The specific evaluations include:

  1. Self evaluation
  2. Community partner evaluation (Mid-term and Final)
  3. Orientation & training participation evaluation

2.Reflective Journals 20%

Reflective journals are an important tool for you to use in making sense of your internship experience and in integrating this experience with your previous Media and Cultural Studies learning.

In this course, you will need to submit 2 separate reflective journals (1000 words each) which will aid students in developing a better understanding of the agency (or unit/department) in which they are placed and their personal learning objectives therein.

In the first reflective journal entry students should write about some general characteristics of the agency and explore their own research interest. Some of the topics related to the agency that students might reflect upon in developing this essay include:

Agency mission

Services provided

Signature events

Agency organization and leadership

Budget and funding sources

Agency network (audience, members, patrons, partners, etc.)

Office culture (people’s way of doing things)

Accomplishments and opportunities

Challenges and Threats

In the second reflective journal entry students should include a concrete research focus, methods of data collection, initial findings and further observations.

These journal entries will help you to critically reflect on your internship experiences. They should also help you to formulate a final project report topic that will integrate this experience and your Media and Cultural Studies learning.

3.Oral Presentation of Project Findings10%

After the placement, students will be expected to make a 20 minute oral presentation of the major points highlighted in their final project report. This oral “defense” will allow the student to “test” their report’s ideas in front of fellow students and teachers, who will in turn contribute substantive remarks on how to improve the overall quality of the report.

4.Project Report 30%

Students will be expected to develop and complete a final report on a topic that links the student’s internship experience with his or her Media and Cultural Studies coursework.

To ensure that your roadmap for this final report is sound, you will be required to first submit an outline that will need to include a (1) thesis statement (a summary of the central argument of your paper), (2) a general outline (a plan for how you will organize background information, arguments, refutation of counter-arguments, and conclusions to support your thesis), and (3) a bibliography of at least 5 sources. Further details on how to construct an outline will be given.

The final project report (4000 words, 12 pt. font, double spaced and one-inch margins) should resemble a short research paper with a clear thesis statement, necessary background information, supporting arguments, and appropriate citations. Further details of how to construct a short research essay will be given to you later.

SOCI3082 Internship in Media and Cultural Studies (Summer2017):

Schedule for Summerinterns

May / June
2017 / Mid-June
2017 / End of June 2017 / Mid-July
2017 / End of July 2017 / August
2017
Internship workshop
Internship begins / Internship continues
First reflective journal (1000 words) / Internship continues
Academic tutor to visit CP and interns
CP and self evaluation (mid-term) / Internship continues
Second reflective journal (1000 words) / Internship continues
Academic tutor to visit CP and interns
CP and self evaluation (final) / Internship completed
Oral presentation
Written report (4000 words)

Important dates:

Deadline for first reflective journal / 20 June 2017
Deadline for second reflective journal / 18 July 2017
Date of oral presentation and submission of final report outline / 8 August 2017
Deadline for submitting final report / 15 August 2017

Revised February, 2017

Au-yeung Shing

SOCI3082

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