AMST 320 SPRING 2024
Television in American Culture: Final Essay
Due Date: Friday May 17 by 11:59 p.m.
Submission format: Submit via Blackboard. First word of document title should be your last name.
Again, please remember to make your last name the first word of the document title.
Length requirement: 4 or 5 pages, double-spaced (max. acceptable length is 7 pages)—should work
out to about 1300 to 1600 words.
For this take-home final exam, you will be asked to consider one of the following key areas of
American television and screen media:
1. TV News
2. Pornography
3. Representation (meaning how different groups are represented in our media)
4. Children’s Television
Write an essay, with an introduction, body and conclusion explaining how this aspect of our media
works:
in terms of who’s in charge (ownership, production, writing) and why that is important
distribution and access
creation of content
regulation
audience demographics
representation of diversity and gender
and effects of content
In the essay identify what you consider to be at least two positive and two negative aspects of this kind
of media content and how issues like technology, ownership and regulation influence what we see (or
don’t see!). Consider the effects on specific target audiences and society as a whole and also consider
how much power those audiences have to influence content and whether those audiences have any needs
that are not being addressed.
Then choose one key problem area related to this subject and suggest how you would attempt to
address it—would you require more regulation? Less regulation? More diverse ownership and
production personnel? More accessible technology? Give it some thought and then explain how your
solution would improve content and benefit audiences and American culture.
Feel free to draw on ideas you posted in the discussion boards. Look back at the prompts for
each discussion board to give you ideas of “problem areas” or “issues” in each type of media.
You must back up your arguments by referring to at least three class readings or videos (you
may also use outside sources, but they are in addition to the in-class sources, not in place of
them). Be sure to use your sources in a way that is clearly relevant to your points. Please
highlight each source you use in the text in BOLD.
You must also back up your arguments by citing at least six specific examples from American
or western media* (specific programs/plots/characters, ads, videos, etc.) that bolster your
argument. Again, please highlight each example you use in the text in BOLD.
*Shows from other cultures that air on American broadcast, cable, or streaming networks are OK to use
as examples. So, Squid Game would be an acceptable example since it ran on Netflix.
