Topics and related readings for the Essay: 2014-2015

  1. Please choose one of the following topics for writing the Essay Framework in Term I and the Final Essay in Term II.
  2. You will be constructing the essay framework using the course concepts (explained in the lectures) and the arguments in the articles that are listed for each of the topics.
  3. You will be applying this framework in the Final Essay to analyze various popular and critical media resources (for further explanation see, Final Essay details and evaluation criteria for the final essay and presentation posted on course website).
  4. Class time will be provided for discussing the essay framework on the topics, how to use the readings and how to write the essay.
  5. Also for the Final Essay, class time will be available for discussing all the details on the media materials you will need.

Topics on the left side of the table column 1 are for Term I Essay framework; On the right side of the table column 2 are for Term II Final essay.

Topic 1

Column 1 Term I Essay / Column 2 Term II Final essay
Docility and Commodification of the body / Popular and critical media portrayals of commercialized versions of the Body: women or/and men
  1. Chaput, Catherine. (2009). Regimes of Truth, Disciplined bodies, Secured populations: An overview of Michel Foucault, Science Fiction Film and Television, 2 (1): 91-104
  2. Menon, M. & Sharland, A. (2011). Narcissism, Exploitative Attitudes, and Academic Dishonesty: An Exploratory Investigation of Reality Versus Myth, Journal of Education for Business, 86: 50–55.
  3. Crittenden, V.L., Hanna, C.R. & Peterson, R.A. (2009). The Cheating Culture: The Global Societal Phenomenon, Business Horizons (2009) 52: 337-346
  4. Thorpe, H. (2008). Foucault, Technologies of Self, and the Media : Discourses of Femininity in Snowboarding Culture, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 32: 199
  5. McCarthy, D. etal. (2003). Constructing Images and Interpreting Realities: The Case of the Black Soccer Player on Television, International Review For The Sociology Of Sport38/2(2003) 217–238.
  6. Benford, R (2007). The College Sports Reform Movement: Reframing the “Edutainment” Industry, The Sociological Quarterly, 48.

Topic 2

Column 1 Term I Essay / Column 2 Term II Final essay
Do the government surveillance of the public and corporate surveillance of the consumers make them prisoners as Foucault argues? / The public and corporate consumers as represented in the popular media, .e.g., in popular advertising vs. critical media
  1. Chaput, Catherine. (2009). Regimes of Truth, Disciplined bodies, Secured populations: An overview of Michel Foucault, Science Fiction Film and Television, 2 (1): 91-104.
  2. Humphreys, A. (2006) The Consumer as Foucauldian “Object of Knowledge,” Social Science Computer Review, 24 (3): 296-309.
  3. Dryburgh, A & Fortin, S. (2010): Weighing in on surveillance: perception

of the impact of surveillance on female ballet dancers’ health, Research in Dance Education, 11:2, 95-108.

  1. Cressida J. Heyes (2007): Cosmetic Surgery And The Televisual Makeover, Feminist Media Studies, 7 (1): 17-32.
  2. Coffey, J (2013). Bodies, body work and gender: Exploring a Deleuzian approach, Journal of Gender Studies, 22 (1): 3–16.
  3. Bossewitch, J & Sinnreich, A (2012). The end of forgetting: Strategic agency beyond the panopticon, New Media & Society, 15(2), 224-242.

Topic 3

Column 1 Term I Essay / Column 2 Term II Final essay
School & education: Does it go beyond its role of teaching how to be disciplined to gain an education? Does it use its power to teach obedience simply to control students? / How is the school and education portrayed in the media? What is the freedom gained through self-discipline while seeking true education?
  1. Dalton, M (2013). Bad teacher is Bad for Teacher, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 41 (2), 78-87.
  2. Thomson, P. et al (2012). Towards educational change leadership as a discursive practice - Or should all school leaders read Foucault? Int. J. Leadership In Education, 16 (2)155–172.
  3. Anderson, G.L & Grinberg, J. (1998). Educational Administration as a Disciplinary Practice: Appropriating Foucault’s View of Power, Discourse and Method, Educational Administration Quarterly, 34 (3): 329-353.
  4. Taylor, L.D. & Setters, T. (2011). Watching Aggressive, Attractive, Female Protagonists Shapes Gender Roles for Women Among Male and Female

Undergraduate Viewers, Sex Roles, 65:35–46.

  1. Yakaboski, T. (2011). “Quietly Stripping the Pastels”: The Undergraduate Gender Gap, The Review of Higher Education, 34: 4, 555–580
  2. Vandermeersche, G., et al (2013). “Shall I tell you what is wrong with Hector as a teacher”: ‘The History Boys’,…,Journal of Popular Film and Television, 41 (2), 88-97.

Topic 4

Column 1 Term I Essay Power/knowledge
Choose one below / Column 2 Term II Final essay
Technologies of modification of body-parts
or / Popular vs. critical media versions of the Body, definition of beauty, surgical modifications, Tattooed body, etc.
What do Students know on gender/ race? What are their preferences and academic decisions they make based on gender and race
or / Popular vs. critical media images on racialized/ sexualized body and its expressions
Visible and Invisible oligarchy of power: Gender in higher education / Sex /Power and Gender discourses in popular vs. critical media
  1. Stern, B.B., Russell, C.A., Russell, D.W. (2005). Vulnerable Women on Screen and at Home: Soap Opera Consumption. Journal of Macromarketing, 25 (2): 222-225.
  2. Azzarito (2010). Future Girls, transcendent femininities and new pedagogies: toward girls' hybrid bodies?,Sport, Education and Society, 15:3, 261-275. Blackman, L. (2004).
  3. Merskin, D (2004). Reviving Lolita? A Media Literacy Examination of Sexual Portrayals of Girls in Fashion Advertising, American Behavioral Scientist, 48:1, 119-129.
  4. Meyer, M.D.E., Fallah, A.M. & Wood, M.M. (2011). Gender, Media, and Madness: Reading a Rhetoric of Women in Crisis Through Foucauldian Theory, The Review of Communication. 11 (3) : 216-228
  5. Sears, C.A & Godderis, R. (2011). Roar Like a Tiger o TV? Constructions of Women and child birth in Reality TV, Feminist Media Studies, 11 (2): 181-195.
  6. Hansen, A.H. (2013). Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in: Present pasts in 20 years of American TV serial fiction from Northern Exposure to Mad Men, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 27 (1): 141–159.
  7. Dubrofsky, R.J (2013). Jewishness, Whiteness, and Blackness on Glee: Singing to the Tune of Postracism, Communication, Culture & Critique, 6: 82–102.

Topic 5

Column 1 Term I Essay / Column 2Term II Final essay
Role of power and the shaping of ‘Truth’. / Corporate Media representations of race, gender, children that influence the public’s popular notions of them
  1. Winter, J (2002). Canada’s Media Monopoly, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), May/June 2002, (accessed 26 July 2009).
  2. Oliviery Case: Corporate Influence at the University of Toronto, Anne McIlroy, Olivieri affair was rife with errors, report says The Brownbag Research Seminars 2002-2003, ‘Your Silence or Your Job?’ Newsmaker Olivieri speaks at York.
  3. Hudson, S. & Elliot, C. (2013). Measuring The Impact Of Product Placement On Children Using Digital Brand Integration, Journal of Food Products Marketing, 19:176–200.
  4. Seale, C. et.al. (2006). Commodification of Body Parts: By Medicine or by Media? Body & Society. 12 (1): 25–42.
  5. Turner, B. (2006). Hospital, Problematizing Global Knowledge: Special Issue, Theory, Culture & Society, 23 (2-3): 573-579.
  6. Friedman, R.J. (2013. “A Moving-Picture of Democracy”: President Obama and African American Film History Beyond the Mirror Screen, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 30: 4–15.