Fan Economy in the Internet Medium Era

This assessment requires you to review some of the literature relating to your dissertation topic. This is not the full literature review or methods section of your dissertation but it prepares you for writing either of these. All dissertations require some kind of literature review and some kind of reflection on approach or methods.
Sometimes a literature review is more embedded in the main discussion of the dissertation and you might have a relatively short literature review section that sets up theories, examples, or approaches. You would then come back to in more detail in the discussion of your research materials. Other dissertations will have a more extensive literature review section that clearly frames the material before you discuss your analysis of this. You need some kind of explicit consideration of methods and approaches.
In each case you will need to identify literature in the field of Media, communication and cultural studies and write about it. This assessment will prepare you for this work of writing next term.
Identify at least 2 readings (but no more than 4) that are relevant to your dissertation – these need to be either journal articles or book chapters in the field of media, communication and cultural studies.
Write an essay which identifies:
1. the key concepts OR methods/approaches and 2. there search material/data of the readings
and discusses and evaluates the relationship between 1 and 2 The essay title will be as follows:
A Critical Analysis of: (concepts OR methods, approaches) in (topic) All essays will start with the following type of introduction:
This essay will outline the key concepts OR methods (replace with the terms you are using) and approaches in the two readings. It will identify the research material or data in each case. It will also note further readings in this area by examining the references made to other work in the articles reviewed. It will also identify the conclusions that the writers come to and offer an evaluation of these.
The following questions could be used to structure your essay:
• What are the key concepts in the two readings?
• What are the methods and/or approaches?
• Do the first two questions overlap (sometimes concepts are approaches)?
• What is the material under analysis? (This might be data or some kind of material
including interviews, media texts, practices, technologies).
• How do the authors write about the key concepts/methods? Do they use them in
the same way or in different ways? How do their approaches differ?
• What other readings from the field are used in the articles? What are they used to
do? For this question look at where there is an in text citation in the article – look at the source for this in the bibliography. Where this is a reading in the field, follow this up and read it, or an extract. Think about how the writer is using this source – is the citation there to point to and demonstrate other work in the field? Is it there to support the discussion in the article? Does it help explain a concept or approach? Is it there because the writer is challenging this other work? When you look back at the sources for the references do you have the same interpretation as the writer(s) about what the other research says?
• What are the research questions and conclusions that the writer(s) come to about their research? Are these clear and explicit or implied? What kind of conclusions are they? E.g. do they offer more or different knowledge or understanding of a phenomena in the world? Do they offer more or different knowledge or understanding of a theoretical framework/concept or do they add to methods and approaches? Do the conclusions identify problems or further issues? Are the conclusions normative – i.e. do they offer something that ‘should’ be done?
Finish your essay with an evaluation of the relationship between method/concepts and the research material. What kinds of challenges or difficulties does this suggest in terms of your own research? Is your interest in these articles mainly because of the topic or the materials, or the concepts or the methods? Or a combination of some of these – be clear about this kind of detail. Reflect on how your own research can be developed as a result of your critical evaluation of these readings.