advocate for social change by producing a text that operates within a digital ecology,

Help me study for my Economics class. I’m stuck and don’t understand.

BRIEF

Weight: 40%
Length: 1500 words total, or equivalent
Due: 2nd Feb 2020
Submission:

• Social Change Text: www.medium.com
• Project Statement: Turnitin via vUWS

AIMS/OBJECTIVES

• Demonstrate your understanding of how writing can contribute to social change and the various approaches and styles that can be used to do this using networked digital media
• Demonstrate your understanding of how the affordances of networked digital media environments invite innovative ways of agitating for change – both locally and globally – and how the concept of ‘community’ can be used to generate interest
• Support your academic research, reading and writing skills
• Support your ability to relate concepts, themes and case studies to your own emerging professional interests and demonstrate an understanding of the relevance of ‘writing ecologies’ as a concept to these interests

THE TASK

The unit Writing Ecologies has explored a range of digital media texts and their relationship to people and society. We have seen how new technologies are changing how we read and write, with implications for who we are and how our society works. Now you are going to put what you have learned to action to advocate for change in your community. For your Major Project, you need to write a text for social change accompanied by a short critical reflection on the approach you took and the digital ecologies your text engages.

Part 1: Social Change Text

Your task is to advocate for social change by producing a text that operates within a digital ecology, the web platform www.medium.com. Medium is easy to use, but also has some advanced design features for the adventurous. You can embed video and images, but remember writing needs to be the core of your work. Whatever approach you take, you need to think carefully about the presentation of your Social Change Text.

As far as choosing an issue to advocate for, pick something you want to see change in your local community. This could be anything from building a new skate park to restoring bushland, from cutting down traffic to revitalising local business. The issue you choose is up to you, but in communicating it you need to put into practice some of the ideas and strategies you have encountered in Writing Ecologies.

Your Social Change Text needs to be 1,000 words. Images, drawings or diagrams can count for 50 words each if they make a substantive contribution to the text, but you must have a minimum of 750 words regardless of the number of visual elements you choose to include.

Your Social Change Text could be many things:

• A web article, whether largely text or with substantial multimodal elements
• Short fiction written with a strong social message
• A proposal for a podcast that takes account of multimodal dimensions and elements
• A political speech suited to the digital world
• The treatment for a short film
• The concept for a game, including info on characters, narrative, interaction and objectives

Or maybe you have your own idea for a Social Change Text. If you do, your tutor must approve your idea.

The art of storytelling and effective communication are important in this project. Below are some resources that may help you think about how you’ll use story in your major project. These aren’t academic sources, but they do have some good ideas about why stories are powerful and how to write them.

• Persuasion and the Power of Story (Video)
• Storytelling for Change (Slides)
• Horticulture – Forms of Story (Infographic)

To succeed in this task you need to:

• Demonstrate you have understood the assignment brief and followed all instructions provided
• Write in a persuasive and creative manner
• Ensure your work is driven by narrative
• Ensure your work is attentive to the digital environment in which it is situated – this is critical

Part 2: Project Statement

You need to write a 500 word Project Statement about how your project fits within a digital writing ecology.

This must contain FIVE ACADEMIC REFERENCES from the unit readings plus your own research. Your statement will need to contextualise your Social Change Text project within a definition of digital writing ecologies.

In crafting your essay you should also aim to show how your understanding of what a writing ecology is has developed across the semester. This will be submitted to Turnitin via vUWS.