<aside> ℹ️ While popular discourses often describe digital, immaterial, and creative labors as disembodied, this assignment focuses on the bodies and machines necessary for the labor of original content creation for online distribution.

You will explore the embodied labor of online content creation and performance by constructing a specific persona that is legible to the conventions of YouTube, Instagram,, TikTok, or a podcast. While you are not expected to become famous, the process of imagining an entire channel and creating sample content for it will enable you to write a critical reflection that draws on the class readings on embodiment and digital media to analyze your own experiences engaging in this labor.

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Overview

<aside> 🧠 Your midterm assignment will consist of synthesizing your interview findings thus far and planning a digital channel that will be developed for the final project. This channel will serve as a platform to discuss and analyze the theme of alienation in digital media, informed by both theoretical frameworks and empirical research from your peer interviews.

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Objectives

• To synthesize key themes from your weekly interviews (especially around alienation)
• To plan a digital channel that reflects your understanding of the political economy of digital media.
• To outline the structure and content of your channel, demonstrating how it will engage with course materials and interview insights.

Assignment Details

Part I: Interview Synthesis (300 words)

Analyze the interviews you have conducted to date and synthesize the key themes that have emerged. How do these themes relate to the concept of alienation in the context of digital media? This synthesis will guide the direction of your digital channel.

Part II: Channel Planning (600 words)

1. Channel Concept: Choose the type of channel (podcast, TikTok, Reels, YouTube) you wish to create. Provide examples of how your channel could tackle topics from the syllabus. For instance:
   • A podcast series introducing the basics of political economy.
   • TikTok mini-series interpreting Marx’s theory of alienation using student interviews.
   • A YouTube channel discussing the decline of Web 2.0 in light of your peer interviews.
2. Content Strategy: Describe the content you plan to create. How will it engage with the themes discovered in your interviews and readings from the syllabus weeks? For example, a series of Reels focusing on the creative economy and AI's impact on digital media, or an investigative TikTok channel on misinformation and disinformation.

Part III: Theoretical Engagement (300 words)

Identify the theories and scholars you will turn to help understand the themes you’re hearing in your interviews. Choose three of the in-class readings we’ve covered so far and describe how you plan to use them in your channel. This page should have three paragraphs, each covering a different author or text. I encourage you to make Capital one of those texts as it’s a primary focus of our discussion.

Grading Rubric for Midterm

• Interview Synthesis (33%): Clarity of synthesis, relevance to the theme of alienation, and connection to course readings.
• Channel Planning (33%): Creativity, feasibility of plan, integration of course materials and interviews.
• Theoretical Engagement (33%): Insight into potential challenges, quality of proposed solutions.

Submission