We’ll keep this week open to respond to your evolving interests and needs. We crowdsource a new lOur agenda for today will take shape as we see what methods are proving particularly popular, what challenges we’re sharing, and what gaps we identify in our knowledge. Perhaps we’ll schedule a field trip to a local archive, engage in a collective ethnographic project, or look more deeply at a couple different methods or ethical concerns we haven’t yet had time to explore. Perhaps we’ll try out some of the speculative activities (e.g., designing our own measures and statistics, or developing methods for non-human investigation) Christian Sandvig uses in his “Unorthodox Methods” class. We’ll figure it out.
Okay, as you’ve requested, we’ll organize today’s class into a few acts:
- We’ll briefly review our learning goals to see what we’ve accomplished this semester.
- Please take five or ten minutes to review the class website, to reflect on what we’ve done throughout the semester, and to select one favorite reading/screening/sounding, a favorite passage from one of our texts, or a key take-away message. Please share your selection on this shared slidedeck. We’ll review the deck in class.
- Shannon will share a brief overview of various threads, branches, spheres, terrains, zones, nooks, and crannies of the wide world of media studies that we haven’t had time to explore this semester. You needn’t prepare anything.
- In response to some outside-of-class requests, Shannon will share some tips on “how to read efficiently“ (while still being conscious of “extractive” reading 😉)
- Since Penn’s legal counsel has decided to thwart our Scalar plans, we’ll discuss if — and if so, how — we want to share our Methods Toolkit.
- Shannon will organize you into small groups, where you can workshop your final projects. Please bring something to share, either on screen or in physical format. Be prepared to take your classmates on a five-minute tour of your work and to solicit feedback about areas of uncertainty or un-resolve. If you like, you might also want to share an example of an “aspirational project” — a project that, if you had more time and resources, you’d like your project to become.