Background: Economists are increasingly required to work in interdisciplinary teams and engage with members of the general public to express their research findings.
In this assessment, your task is to educate a non-specialist audience about an issue of your choice pertaining to economic inequality.
You will translate your advanced academic knowledge of inequality into an engaging and educating article or podcast that a member of the general public can understand and enjoy.
This article could be a magazine article, long-form newspaper op-ed, a piece for The Economist, or similar.
The podcast could be imagined as featuring in an Economics Series, i.e. ABC’s “The Money” or NPR-produced “Planet Money”. A written transcript MUST accompany the podcast.
You can assume your audience cares about money, but you can’t assume they know how the economy works or the theories that an economist would use to analyse it.
Assignment task: Write an article or record a podcast for a popular media outlet to educate a non-specialist audience about an issue, debate, or future prediction pertaining to economic inequality.
Although a publication like a tabloid newspaper may not include sources ‘in real life’, your submission still needs to. At least 7 academic sources are required, and should be referenced properly using a recognised academic style guide such as CMS or APA. You may also employ your quantitative results from experiments conducted in this unit if relevant.
A strong submission will take a clear stance and/or pose a clear argument related to inequality.
Your media product should use language appropriate to a non-specialist audience, and include thoughtful rhetorical choices designed to engage and educate them.
Please specify who your intended audience is, including a brief indication of their interests and assumed knowledge. Please also note the publication you are writing for and anything you would like to specify about style. For example, ‘I am writing/podcasting for people who feel frustrated about taxation brackets and how these affect their take-home pay. I am writing/podcasting for The Daily Telegraph/The Money using an accessible tone so that people can quickly absorb my message on a daily commute or similar’. This information should be placed before the heading of your main text to avoid confusion.
