Topic of Focus: Our topic of focus will be info-mercials. Not just simply the make-up of an info-mercial, but who they appeal to and why, how info-mercials and their content vary from product to product, and also how influential incentives are to info-mercials.
Infomercials are an interesting genre, and I like the idea of analyzing them! It will help to focus your work if you identify a few representative infomercials you will conduct a close analysis of as representative of the genre.
Critical Questions:
Who buys products featured on info-mercials? Why?
Does a celebrity endorsement influence the sale of a specific product?
When comparing two products from the same category of sales (such as fitness) what makes one more appealing than the other?
Also, in relating back to the Five Key questions, why were specific advertising techniques used verses other techniques, and why are these techniques appealing to an audience?
Was anything omitted or misrepresented in the info-mercial, and what were the reviews about the product?
Are all info-mercials structured the same? With the same focus?
These are really good guiding questions! Your last question points to where you might select some specific infomercials. For example, if the answer is "no," you will want to include the exception. You will also want to post these representative examples to your wiki as soon as you identify them so that you and I all know from what you are working with your analysis.
Timeline:
Friday Feb 12th: Each person needs to decide which category they want to focus on (fitness, cleaning supplies, gardening, etc) and two products with their category to focus on. (I would think we all want different categories, right?) Post by the 12th on the homepage by your name so everyone knows your category and 2 specific products.( I went ahead and posted mine so if you guys want to take a look so we're orderly about it and not all over the place).
Tuesday March 2nd: Post individual research about your 2 products as well as answers to the above questions. (Also, don't forget to cite sources for our bibliography.)
Thursday March 4th: Our group progress report is due today, and we post it here (to our Wiki) so let's try to chat in class on Wed the 3rd about how far along we are and what direction we need to go to finish it up.
Friday March 19th: "Rough Draft" of our final product should be completed and edited. This includes, but is not limited to: the introduction (why we chose this, some of our overall findings), transitions between different people and their different products
Friday March 26th: "Final Draft" should be completed and final revisions should be made, any element still in question needs to be decided upon. (Technically we don't have to be completely finished until Wednesday, but if something goes wrong we have time to fix it).
Wednesday March 31st: Final project due and we need to e-mail link to the final project. Also, our response to another group's project will be due to our personal blogs this day as well.
Roles and responsibilities: As far as roles within the group go, each person will be responsible for their own category and specific products. We, as a group, will collaboratively write introduction, conclusion, and transitions. Also, we should utilize the discussion board as much as possible when in question!
You all have a good timeline and articulation of how you will communicate! I recommend including some peer review or something via the wiki so that while everyone is responsible for a particular product (which has yet to be articulated and needs to be), everyone has a voice in it. Remember, you all have a stake in this project and the grade, so you want a voice in all components. That is also the defining difference between collaboration and group work.
Questions for the Instructor:
Are there any other specific questions we should focus on when examining our topic?
How many images/video are required for the project, if any? There is no set required number of images/video (in this case video since you are analyzing infomercials), but they are required; you cannot analyze something without providing the text (or representative samples) that you are analyzing. Think of it like a traditional English paper: You know you need quotes and textual examples to support your argument, but the teacher does not say you need X number of direct quotes.
You are off to a terrific start and have chosen something interesting to analyze! Remember, I am here to assist you at any point in this process. I look forward to seeing your final project!
Infomercials are an interesting genre, and I like the idea of analyzing them! It will help to focus your work if you identify a few representative infomercials you will conduct a close analysis of as representative of the genre.
Critical Questions:
These are really good guiding questions! Your last question points to where you might select some specific infomercials. For example, if the answer is "no," you will want to include the exception. You will also want to post these representative examples to your wiki as soon as you identify them so that you and I all know from what you are working with your analysis.
Timeline:
Roles and responsibilities: As far as roles within the group go, each person will be responsible for their own category and specific products. We, as a group, will collaboratively write introduction, conclusion, and transitions. Also, we should utilize the discussion board as much as possible when in question!
You all have a good timeline and articulation of how you will communicate! I recommend including some peer review or something via the wiki so that while everyone is responsible for a particular product (which has yet to be articulated and needs to be), everyone has a voice in it. Remember, you all have a stake in this project and the grade, so you want a voice in all components. That is also the defining difference between collaboration and group work.
Questions for the Instructor:
You are off to a terrific start and have chosen something interesting to analyze! Remember, I am here to assist you at any point in this process. I look forward to seeing your final project!