In this assignment, you will construct a website that features and analyzes a contemporary themed space from the political economy and semiotic perspectives. You will conduct research and construct the website in groups of 2-3 students and share the collective grade that the website receives. The assignment is worth 20% of your grade.
With your group, select a themed space to analyze and search for materials to analyze. Ideally you will be able to find these on the Internet, so that you can conveniently link to them in your website. You might also want to visit this themed space with a digital camera (available to borrow from the CIS's Help Desk) so you can display your field observations directly onto the website.
For this assignment you will also need to learn about the production and history of this themed space, which will entail "behind the scenes" information not usually presented on official corporate websites. Use Lexis-Nexis or another library database to search for news articles and research on your website. If these are not available, you might have to find them the old fashioned way by going to a library near your themed space and looking at their newspaper archives; this might limit the feasibility of studying a themed space any further than New York City. Plan accordingly around these potential obstacles by investigtaing the availability of research materials as early as possible.
Collectively, your group will write three essays of approximately 750-1,000 words each that will be incorporated into your website.
1. Political economy essay. Briefly describe the history and actors behind the construction and operation of the themed space. In the remainder of the essay, address the following questions: How does this themed space create urban wealth, and for whom? What is the political context of the surrounding neighborhood/city: urban renewal, gentrification, the competition for capital investment? What are the social conflicts reflected and engendered by this theme space? Address any other political economy issues that are relevant.2. Semiotic essay. How is this theme space to be "read"? How does it signify access/participation/consumption to some users and discourage these to yet other users? What kind of literacies does this space presume its readers have? How do its sign values add to the exchange values generated by this themed space? Address any other semiotic components that inform this themed space.
3. Synthesis. How is your understanding of the themed space improved by combining the political economy and semiotic perspectives? Do these perspectives fail to take into account other key issues? How does this themed space illustrate (a) cutting-edge trends in urbanization and (b) the development of urban theory?
This is your opportunity to be creative in designing a website that best supports your overall analysis. However, you must incorporate certain elements to receive full credit.
1. A separate webpage for each essay. You can organize your essays however you choose; I will be looking primarily for content and word count.2. Images. You are encouraged to include as many images as needed to sufficiently illustrate the themed space's design, social history, and use. Some types of images will be easier to obtain than others, so take care to gather ones that are key to supporting your analysis and otherwise "farm out" the collection of less crucial images to other sites on the Internet. A corporate or academic website, for example, may offer a virtual tour much better than one you design, so you may just want to link directly to these sites rather than recreate them in yours. By contrast, finding images of the themed space's prohibited uses and social history may be much more difficult; you may have to scan these from non-Internet sources and/or take your own digital images.
3. Links. Your website should critically evaluate on-line and real-world materials and data about your themed space, not simply provide an uncritical portal of existing links. For this reason, I do not want an undigested list of links.
Furthermore, incorporate links to supporting evidence only with at least some interpretation of your own; you have probably failed to do this if your website's visitor has to figure out what to look for as they click on your links. You may want to be creative in incorporating real-world materials into your website by, for example, scanning these and/or converting them into Adobe PDF documents -- again, only after you offer some interpretation of your won.
4. Credits. Here you list which group members contributed to which parts of the research, analysis, and website construction. Since you will be graded collectively for the whole website, I will permit you to parcel out the research, writing and web-authoring amongst group members as you wish. However, I will be looking for an equitable division of labor and reserve the right to assign different grades to members of the same group. If you feel your contribution to the assignment might not be apparent from the website, here is your opportunity to explain how it was in fact valuable.
For inspiration, take a look at the websites last year's Urban Theory students produced. Some of these are just okay; you can certainly set your standards higher!