Your post should do a close reading of the video and indicate how it engages with cultural conceptions of gender. Be sure to include the URL. Your post should also employ correct endnote citations methods when needed. Each reference should be sequentially numbered in the text and in the notes. Please consult the Chicago Manual of Style available in the library and the Style Sheet included under Files for more assistance. The professor and students will discuss some of the associated video analysis posts in class.
Brief description of close reading: Close reading, which is also referred to as textual analysis, is the process of studying and then precisely describing specific aspects of a text as a means of elucidating such things as the ways it works and what it represents. This analysis should be in support of a focused argument. Such close readings are a productive method of digital study because they are related to everyday technological engagements, including the ways people employ computers and online interfaces to analyze posts and memes, the bodies of influencers, and the veracity of URLs. Reading is also mandated in personal and programmed reminders to attend to unread emails and update social media accounts. New media scholar N. Katherine Hayles has chronicled the varied ways individuals read and analyze digital texts, including close, hyper, and machine reading. Hayles defines close reading as the “detailed and precise attention to rhetoric, style, language choice,” and other literary and visual features of texts.[1] She relates close reading to people’s deep focus and acceptance of boredom as part of their study. In a related manner, English scholar Nicole Shukin argues that reading is a form of time intensive labor, especially when trying to meet expectations about academic acuity and scholarly coverage.[2] When starting to closely read an online site, I recommend attending to site names, URLs, logos and other identificatory images, color choices and additional design elements, “about” and frequently asked questions pages, the ways readers are addressed and represented, options for personalization and posting, content and the ways it is arranged, emotional and other icons, and repeated terms and punctuation.
[1] N Katherine Hayles, How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 58.
[2] Nicole Shukin, “The Hidden Labour of Reading Pleasure,” English Studies in Canada 33, nos. 1–2 (March–June 2007): 23–27.
Requirements: two paragraphs
