Video essay

Video Essay Guidelines

Videos (either uploaded or link to) and completed peer review form due to Canvas Nov 13 @ 5p. Each team member must submit both the video and peer review form.

For this assignment you will be working in small groups of three-four people to produce a short video covering a topic within the domain of game culture.

It should sit under one of the broad topics we’ll have covered by Nov 13: socio-technical objects, embodiment & materiality, gender & sexuality, race & intersectionality, spectatorship, sociality & community, governance, labor.

You’ll dig in and research a topic of your choosing related to the course, utilizing sociological and media studies research to help anchor your analysis and argument. I’d encourage you to pick something the group is excited and curious about, maybe even something members have some experience with.

You’ll be using audio and visual materials to help craft your argument. Think of this as a video essay that can capture some of the vibrancy of game culture through a visual medium and presentation style. You can either do something straightforward like record via Zoom using slides or you could do a fully edited video with graphics, sounds, etc. Consider drawing on gameplay footage or other materials to enrich the evidence you’re presenting. I leave it to you to craft a visual product suited to the groups skills and interests. Ultimately your group should approach the task as one where you will give your viewer an interesting argument about a slice of game culture in video format. The video should not give the impression that each person was only responsible for a section but instead represent a fully integrated group effort.

As with the papers, you should still demonstrate a rigorous, scholarly analysis of the subject. You cannot just be “in your own head” or making broad claims but must evidence your arguments and engage with published peer-reviewed research. The key is that you find support for your argument in scenarios, research, and cases beyond your own personal experience. As with the written work, you’ll still working with scholarly journals and books, and anchoring in some good examples to build and evidence your argument.

Specs:

• Group formation will be self-directed between Oct 23-Oct 30 and occur via personal conversations/Discord/etc. Anyone who doesn’t sort themselves into a group will get assigned one as needed at our Oct 30 class.
• The video should be 7-10 minutes long.
• The video should include a title, the names of all group members, and “credits” noting any special “roles” (perhaps one team member focused on the graphics, another on script, etc). You should also include in the credits any “citations” to clips you’ve used, etc.
• The video should have a clear argument it is making.
• It should offer evidence and examples to support the argument or claims.
• It should make clear to the viewer what is at stake/why the topic it matters.
• It should do its best to utilize a visual format.
• Even though this is a video, it should demonstrate meaningful engagement with peer-reviewed social science scholarship and prior research. You should be using/citing at least three peer-reviewed pieces; they must come from the journals/sources list on http://tltaylor.com/teaching/research-resources-for-students/ Links to an external site.. Meaningful engagement can be about both building on and/or challenging work and is a form of intellectual conversation. You can be creative with how you utilize work in the video (short clip from another recorded piece a scholar has done related to the topic, a graphic or “pull quote” from an article to sit alongside the visuals, etc.).
• Work on this project should be fairly and equitably distributed across all members. Please make sure to be communicating and coordinating with each other; speak to me if any issues develop. Everyone will be required to submit a final confidential peer student evaluation form for the groupwork upon video submission to help me assess this component of the project process.

Late work

Given this is a group project, please stay in communication with your team and myself if any issues arise. The individual one-day extensions cannot apply to this assignment and extensions will only be given for religious holidays if you notify me at least two weeks before the deadline.