Ideology Critique

Ideology Critique – The purpose of this assignment is to give students a baby-step introduction to literature reviews and the analysis of cultural texts. This paper must be no more or no less than 5 pages, not including title page and references. Students will analyze and synthesize three articles in a two-step analytical process. First, students will read James Lull’s article on hegemony, Luke Winslow’s analysis of Extreme Home Makeover, as well as one additional article that s/he researches on ideology. Step 1 requires students to synthesize the 3 articles. Compare their different definitions or applications of hegemony or ideology; address what sorts of analysis they provide, what cultural forms do they critique? How do they use theory and what are their conclusions? The synthesizing should take no more than 2.5 pages. Once you do this work, and provide a transition to your text, you will apply what you have learned about ideology/hegemony to a song, ad, episode of a TV show, music video, political ad, video game etc. In other words, you must select a text to analyze bringing to bear what you know about ideology. Use the Extreme Home Makeover article as an example of ideology critique. Try to imitate, in your own way, the moves that Winslow makes in his article as you analyze your text.