A Guideline on the Media Literacy Intervention Project The nature of the assignment: This assignment is designed as an opportunity for you to apply your understanding of how we use media and how media of different forms have the potential to shape our lives and develop a “media literacy prevention” project. As stated in the syllabus, you should aim to propose an intervention “that may be implementable in a school, a community, or an online platform.” This brief statement means two things. First, what you need to develop and turn in is a proposal or an action plan. Second, you may propose an intervention that may be taken up by a school for the benefits of its students or community for its residents or be adopted by a group of individuals (e.g., subscribers to or users of a particular SNS or members of a particular sorority). You need to form a group of 2-3 members to develop the project and turn in a joint assignment of 8-10 pages (double-spaced, in size 12 font, Times New Roman, excluding supplementary materials). The necessary tasks and ingredients: As stated in the syllabus, to develop this proposal, you need to perform the following tasks: (1) Perform a diagnostic analysis of the problem recognized, (2) Identify the specific set of media literacy skills that could rectify the problem, (3) Prescribe a set of specific and realistic actions to improve these media literacy skills, and (4) Stipulate the criteria and procedure for assessing the possible success of your intervention. You also need to make your proposal empirically grounded (i.e., based on observations real phenomena, as you practiced in completing the “Field Observation Diary” assignment) and theoretically sound, namely, based on social scientific research. Thus, in your proposal, you need to: (1) describe the research you have conducted and the findings you have obtained as part of performing your diagnosis, and (2) support your diagnosis by referring to and reviewing the research literature that we’ve discussed in class and/or you have located in the social science literature. To make it clear how you are proposing an implementable action plan, in your proposal, you also need to specify clearly: (1) the target that your proposed intervention is aimed at (or who may benefit from your intervention), (2) agent(s) that would be responsible for taking up your proposed action (if different from the target), and (3) how you may appeal to the responsible agent(s) (or target) for adopting and enacting your proposed intervention. The structure and format: 1 Your submitted assignment should take the form of a proposal. It should consist of the following components structured in the sequence described here: a. Title page: It contains two things: • a title of your project • Authors: Name and University ID of each group member Please note that the title should be clear and unambiguous; it should convey a clear idea to your reader on the key idea(s) of your project VERY quickly. That means, it should clearly reflect the focus of your proposal. It should clearly identify the media literacy problem and the action aimed to address it. It shouldn’t be too long; usually, it should be no longer than one line. b. An executive Summary: It should be on a separate page. In less than 300 words, you should provide a succinct summary presentation of the problem identified, your analysis, the proposed intervention, and the expected outcomes. It should clearly identify the target and the agent(s). c. The problem: This part is a narrative that describes context, namely, the location, time, and target population, in which the media literacy problem may emerge. It should state the problem and the specific kind of media literacy involved very precisely. The narrative also needs to make it clear how media literacy is part of a larger problem and how a media literacy intervention may be related to other actions taken in concert. d. The analysis: This part presents your prognostic analysis of the nature of the problem in your target population, its causes, consequences, and mechanisms. It should involve reviewing the relevant social scientific research literature and presenting your empirical observations. The latter could be direct (your own observations) and/or indirect (from existing research, including credible media reports). In other words, in this part, you make a convincing case on the “Why?” and “How?” of not only the problem, but also the improvement of the particular type of media literacy is a potentially effective solution. e. The proposed intervention: In this part, built upon the above analysis, you describe (1) a set of inter-related actions that constitute the prescribed intervention aimed at the target population, (2) the agent(s) that will take up such actions, given their obligations and capacity, (3) specific steps to be taken in order to implement the intervention (including steps to be taken to mobilize your individuals in your target population and/or persuade the responsible agent(s)), and (4) measures to be put in place to monitor the implementation. The language used here needs to be concrete and descriptive. Logical connections to the previous analysis need to be built as well. f. The assessment criteria and execution: In this part, you need to state the expected outcomes (or objectives) of your implementation and the criteria that may be adopted to assess how much you may have achieved the objectives. You also need to describe procedures that may be put in place to conduct the effectiveness and cost-benefit 2 assessment. Ideally, you should also describe how you may step back and reflect on the development and implementation of the intervention, its potential limitations and possible venues of moving toward more success. g. References: You should include a reference list of all your sources. h. Supplementary materials: You may attach materials related to your analysis (e.g., official statistics) and message designs (e.g., a script of an online advertisement that you include as part of your intervention, a draft letter that you may send to the local school board as part of the effort to make your pitch). While such materials are optional, their inclusion adds empirical substantiation and actionable weights to your report. But you should also guard against being excessive by including only the necessary ones. These materials must be numbered sequentially such as Appendix 1, Appendix 2, …. Please note that supplementary materials are not included in the page limit. Your assignment must be typed, spell-checked, proofread, and page-numbered. You have an option to submit it online via Canvas or in a hard copy. If you choose the latter option, you need to have your assignment neatly printed and stapled. As a general rule, you must properly attribute the work(s) that you refer to and provide a reference list in APA style. 3
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