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Module 2: Assignment: ALA #1: Creating a Media “Fraction of Selection”
An important part of being media literate is having critical thinking skills enabling you to develop independent judgments about media and media content. Can we use math to predict which media will flourish and which will be disrupted, or even extinguished, in the future?
In this active learning assignment, you will create your own formula for forecasting media consumption and test it on five friends.
You must complete your ALA and submit to Canvas as a PDF.
The Fraction of Selection
(Adapted from a Stanley Baran text)
An important part of being media literate is having critical thinking skills enabling you to develop independent judgments about media and media content. Challenge your own skill by predicting which media will survive and which will disappear as a result of the dramatic technological, economic, and audience preference turmoil currently shaking the traditional media industries. Which will change and how? The answers depend on you and your media choices. In 1954, when television was doing to movies, newspapers, magazines, and radio what the Internet and smartphones are doing to today’s media, communication scholar Wilbur Schramm created the fraction of selection to answer the question, “What determines which offerings of mass communication will be selected by a given individual?” It looks like this:
Expectation of Reward
Effort Required
It suggests that you weigh the level of reward you expect from a given medium or piece of content against how much effort—in the broadest sense—you make to secure that reward. Now, consider your own media consumption. For example, how do you typically watch movies: at the theater, streamed, downloaded, on disc, wait for them to come to cable? What “data” would go in your numerator? In your denominator?
You could choose, for instance, to put both parts of the fraction as a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the least useful to use or least rewarding to 10 being the most. So for me, for instance, “Watching broadcast TV.” My expectation of reward is low; most broadcast shows are not very good, so I say, maybe, a 5. Effort required: It is very easy, so I would say a 10, as I just use one clicker to make it work. So my chance of using the medium: 5/10 or 50 percent. But for my Sling TV, my reward expectation is an 8 because it has better shows, but using it is harder, because I have to switch the TV over with one clicker and use a Roku clicker to choose Sling, and then it comes up and then I have to wait for it to load etc. So that is a 6, for an 8/6. A 133 percent chance I will use it, or a 133 score is more like it. I can then enter ALL my media options and score them accordingly.
Your formula should be thought-provoking or fun or otherwise illuminating, but there is no one right or wrong formula. I want to see your thought process more than the outcome of it (the formula). Using the Schramm formula will limit your grade to 75 at the highest. I want to see a thought-out, creative formula/fraction of your devising.
Your Assignment:
Create a “formula” that explains media consumption. Explicitly state the formula. Build on the example above or create your own from scratch. Explain how you arrived at your formula, and how your formula is supported by concepts in the text (mostly Chapters 1 & 2) and research you find online (scholarly journals, articles in reputable news outlets about media consumption trends, online surveys such as Pew’sLinks to an external site.. See the rubric for details on how many research sources you need. Without cited research in your answer to Q1, you will score poorly.
Along with 5 of your friends or family, use your formula to rate yours and their media consumption habits and aptitudes. List their outcomes using the formula on these nine specific media: Broadcast TV; streaming services such as Hulu or Netflix; online newspapers; print newspapers; video game consoles; online gaming; terrestrial radio (car); streaming music services; and Facebook. List the results in tabular format by using the subject’s First Name.
Example of table to report resultsMediaName 1Name 2Name 3Name 4Name 5Your Name
Broadcast TV
Streaming
Online News
Newspapers
Video game console
Online gaming
Terrestrial Radio
Streaming radio
Facebook
3. Based on your results, can you speculate on tomorrow’s media winners and losers on that list? In the larger media universe? Which media are going to survive, which ones need to improve their ease of use, or rewards, or interactivity (could be a measure for you)?
To Complete this Assignment:
Answer all three questions above and number them, please.
Limit your submission to a maximum of 4 pages, including a Sources Cited list/page if you wish to include one. I am not seeking a term paper. Concise and targeted answers vs. bluster and BS
12-point font, preferably Times New Roman. 1.5 to double-spaced.
Put your name, MMC 3602, and Semester at the top of the page. File name: YourFullName_ALA-1_U24.pdf
Convert your paper to PDF and upload to this assignment page.
Please consult the grading rubric carefully to ensure you include all the critical analysis that I am looking for.
Please use this excellent guide written by a former teaching assistant, Patrick Sidwell, to see how to properly use citations in your paper.https://usflearn.instructure.com/courses/1862410/f…
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