Article- The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964) by Jurgen Habermas
PART ONE - Annotate
An annotation provides the reader with the big picture of the text as a whole.
Imagine that your reader is someone who has never read your selected text. Your job is to summarize the main ideas, drawing out key terms and concepts, using direct quotes. A strong annotation will also evaluate the claims/arguments being made in the text.
Each annotation should include three to five sentences of summary and paraphrase (summarize main ideas and main points; paraphrase main arguments and the writer's main position; directly quote useful portions or information) and two to three sentences of critical evaluation or analysis (why is the source useful or relevant as a resource; what does this source do to help contribute to your understanding of media and communication studies?). Your reader should be able to get a good sense from your annotations of the main argument(s) of the text, its relevance to Media and Communication Studies, and your impressions of the value and applicability of the ideas the text offers.
PART TWO - Animations and tweets to accompany annotations, prompt you to represent key ideas from the texts, using different modes of representation that call on your creativity.
For each of the three texts you annotate, provide an image OR a tweet, along with an explanation of your choices, as instructed below.
Animate - This option invites you to illustrate or represent a key idea from the reading with an image. This image can be an original drawing or a photograph, or an image you find from another source. The image may not immediately convey the concept to the viewer; therefore, it is up to you to explain its connection.
With this image, you are to write 1-2 paragraphs that address the following:
• What is the key concept you're addressing with this image?
• How do you see this concept expressed through the visual text you've chosen?
Your task is to explain why you chose this image and how it demonstrates your understanding of the text.
Tweet
This option invites you to imagine that you are the host of a popular Twitter feed for the field of Media and Communication studies. Write a tweet that captures the meaning of a core concept or key term from the piece you have annotated. A tweet consists of 140
characters. With this tweet, you are to write 1-2 paragraphs that address the following:
1. What is the key concept you're addressing?
2. How do you see this concept expressed through the visual text you've chosen?
Your task is to explain why you chose to write this specific tweet, and how it demonstrates your understanding of the text.
A strong tweet will concisely capture a core idea of the text. For example, if you were to write a tweet about the Carey reading from Week 1, you might write something like this:
"Thought is necessarily public and social because it requires us to use symbols and ideas that we commonly share."