Connection paper instructions and articles
for COMT 320-800: Summer 2007

For your connection paper, you may select any one of the articles at the bottom of this page. Articles are listed here alphabetically by author's last name.

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Directions for the paper are as follows:

1. Select an article from the list below. Choose an article not only because it interests you, but also because its content is in some way directly relevant to your life, your experiences, your media usage, etc. This is important because, as you'll see below, the third component of your paper is a discussion of the connection between the article's content and you.

2. Read the article critically. Read the article. While doing so, think about (and make notes to yourself, if it helps) these questions:

-   what is the writer saying?

-   what is the writer NOT saying? (that is, what information, points of view, perspectives, political positions, etc., are being left out, avoided, or ignored?)

-   who benefits from the existence of the article? who is hurt by it?

-   how are the content and point-of-view of the article shaped by the personal characteristics of its writer? of its intended audience? of the publisher (magazine, newspaper, web site)?

-   what are the strengths and weaknesses of the article?

3. Think about how the topic(s) of the article is relevant to something in your life. Does the article describe something you’ve experienced personally? Does the article talk about a medium that is important to you? Does the article either support or challenge your own point of view about the issues discussed? Does the article accurately capture something you’ve experienced? Does it distort something you’ve experienced?

4. Write your paper. This paper, though short (750-900 words, or about three pages), is intended to give you the chance to do the following things:

- Briefly summarize the article. (Be sure you identify the article’s title, author, date of publication, and place of publication.)

- Critically analyze the article, addressing some or all of the questions laid out in item 2, above.

- Link the article’s content to your own life, discussing how the topic(s) covered in the article relate(s) to your own experiences.

5. Follow the technical writing guidelines provided in the syllabus and on my home page.

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And now, here is the list of articles:

Associated Press: "Fan Memo to Music Industry: Lower Prices"

Bamford: "The Man Who Sold the War"

Barboza: "Nick's Cultural Revolution"

Belson & Fabrikant: "Cable Relents on Channels for the Family"

Billey: "Black and White and Technicolor All Over"

Boxer: "Comics Escape a Paper Box, and Electronic Questions Pop Out"

Bugeja: "The Media World As It Is"

Caramanica: "I Screen, You Screen: The New Age of the Music Video"

Carr: "Murdoch and Clinton: An Unlikely Alliance"

Carr: "The Lonely Newspaper Reader"

Carr: "Taken to a New Place, by a TV in the Palm"

Carter: "Virtual Rock is a Real Hit for MTV"

Cassuto: "Beyond Peyton Place"

Clemetson: "Young Ears Tune in to Theater on Radio"

Cloud & Gerth: "Muslim Scholars were Paid to Aid U.S. Propaganda"

Cohen: "When a Night Out is Dinner and a (TV) Show"

Cole: "Laptops vs. Learning"

Darlin: "Data, Music, Video..."

Dewan: "How Photos Became Icon of Civil Rights Movement"

Elliott: "And Now, A Commercial Break that Doesn't Seem Like One"

Elliott: "For Everyday Products, Ads Using the Everyday Woman"

Elliott: "A Column on (Your Product Here) Placement"

Fabrikant: "Media Executives Court China..."

Fleishman: "Revolution on the Radio"

Gladwell: "The Formula: What if You Built a Machine to Predict Hit Movies?"

Hafner: "After Subpoenas, Internet Searches Give Some Pause"

Hansell: "More People Turn to the Web to Watch TV"

Heffernan: "Earnestly Pursing the Gentle Art of Nastiness behind a Radio Microphone"

Heffernan: "Ministering Agent: Entourage's Shark Proves Warm-Blooded"

Heffernan: "MTV's Focus on Colleges Streams into Your PC"

Henderson: "30-Second TV Ads Too Long?"

Holson: "And the Emmy for Best Actor on iPods Goes to..."

Itzkoff: "In a New Series, the Suburbs Light Up"

James: "New Onscreen Losers are Winning a Following"

James: "The Trouble with Films that Try to Think"

Kakutani: "Bending the Truth in a Million Little Ways"

Kimmelman: "Ghosts in the Lens, Tricks in the Darkroom"

Kristof: "All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt"

Labaton: "Panel Would Cut Public Broadcasting Aid"

Lee: "Young Suburbanites Publish a Hip-Hop Magazine"

Leeds: "The Net is a Boon for Indie Labels"

Leeds: "When All the 'Greatest Hits' are Too Many to Download"

Leland: "New Cultural Approach for Conservative Christians: Reviews, Not Protests"

Levinson: "The Media's Righteous Outrage"

Manly: "As Satellite Radio Takes Off, It Is Altering the Airwaves"

Manly: "On Television, Brands Go from Props to Stars"

Markoff: "Coming Soon to TV Land"

Markoff: "New York's School for Scandal Sheets"

Maslin: "It's Kiss and Tell, Snoop and Print"

McWilliams: "Laptops in Classrooms Not Working Out as Hoped"

Morrell: "Trying to Become a Big Act on Campus"

Naughton: "Web Sites that Changed the World"

New York Times (no author provided): "Garage Rock Meets Garage Critics"

Nguyen: "World of Warcraft Has Gamers Showing Addiction Signs"

Nichols: "Newspapers...and After?"

Norris: "The Genies are Out of the Bottle"

O'Brien: "King Kong vs. the Pirates of the Multiplex"

O'Hagan: "From Mags to Rags"

Oppel: "Kurd's Writings Land Him in Jail"

Rai: "In India, Cable Industry is Buoyed by a Quiz Show"

Ralli: "Missed Church? Download it to Your iPod"

Ralli: "A Radio Program Turns to a Blog to Cull Ideas"

Randolph: "On Carefully Choosing a Book by its Cover"

Rich: "I Saw Jackie Mason Kissing Santa Claus"

Rich: "Two Top Guns Shoot Blanks"

Richtel: "In Phones vs. Cable, A New Turn"

Salamon: "Bob and Barney, with a Few Words from Sponsors"

Sanneh: "In the Wake of Grunge, a Rock Culture Clash"

Schechter: "Where News about the News is the News"

Scott: "Post-Popism"

Seelye: "Newsrooms Seek Ways to Shield Identities"

Shepard: "Postings of Obscene Photos End Free-Form Editorial Experiment"

Shepard: "Upheaval on Los Angeles Times Editorial Pages"

Siklos: "This Time, the Revolution Will Be Televised"

Sontag: "I Want My Hyphenated-Identity MTV"

Sontag: "The Ambassador"

St. John: "What Men Want: Neanderthal TV"

Stanley: "From One Voice to Many, A New Golden Age of News"

Steinberg: "Censored SNL Sketch Jumps Bleepless onto the Internet"

Stone: "A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs"

Stone: "What You Can't Say Will Hurt You"

Story: "Forget about Milk and Bread. Give Me Gossip!"

Story: "A TV Show's Content Calls the Commercial Plays"

Taub: "As His Sirius Show Begins, Radio Ponders the Stern Effect"

Tierney: "The Doofus Dad"

Vargas: "Coming Out of the Virtual Closet"

Waxman: "Sony Effort to Reach Christians is Disputed"

Waxman: "Sprinkling Holy Water on The DaVinci Code"

Weber: "Liked the Movie, Loved the Megaplex"

Winn: "Thanks to New Media, We Have All Become the Messengers...but What are We Saying?"

Wyatt: "Next Project for Oprah: Feel-Good Reality TV"

Zimmerman: "Harry Situation"