The Teacher’s Evaluation from Observation on Group Work

1. In the first presentation, group one presented the hard news of Linsanity3 by comparing articles from CNA (Central News Agency, Taiwan) and Taipei Times. Students pointed out the connection of Lin’s popularity with the media and concluded:

Jeremy Lin has become a product because of the media. Everything relating to him will be hot sale. Thus, various suppliers want to cooperate with him.

However, they described the phenomenon out of their assumption. In the second and third presentations, they highlighted the language part of the media and compared the differences of articles from New York Times and China Post, as well as Taipei Times and CNN. Referring to the fourth topic— media bias, they

3 _{The American born Taiwanese man Jeremy Lin who played basketball well in NBA caused a} craze called Linsanity in 2012-13.

addressed the gaps between men’s and women’s statuses in the Eastern and Western societies by looking at different cases though they did not explicitly explain how the news media manipulated gender bias.

In discussing the relationship between stereotype and the phenomenon of Linsanity in the midterm presentation, they referred to articles raising the question whether Jeremy Lin’s success would end stereotypes and discussed the usage of the negative term ‘Chink’ to discriminate Asians in this case. They questioned and reinterpreted the issue for analysis but did not explicitly address the context and the pros and cons of their ideas. In the final, they chose McDonald’s as the case to study the impact of cultural imperialism. They considered the commercialisation of broadcasting and argued:

Because McDonald’s is closely identified with the culture and lifestyle in the United States, its international business expansion has been termed part of Americanisation and American cultural imperialism. In East Asia, it has become a symbol for the desire to embrace Western cultural norms and affected local customs.

They further reflected on its influence on the life in Taiwan, including health, food culture, and service industry. They identified the problem appropriately and collected enough information to support their argument.

2. Group two raised the question of what real beauty is by referring to articles with different viewpoints from CNN and BBC in the first presentation. They compared views of women’s appearances and considered the contexts in Western, Eastern, and Middle East countries and concluded:

The best way to make women feel confident is natural beauty. Just like Lady

Gaga’s one famous song ‘Born this way’, the song encourages women to love themselves with who they are, and there is nothing wrong. That ‘I am beautiful in my way, cause God made no mistakes’ means women should understand that looking imperfect is fine and women should admire how they look.

Yet, in the second presentation based on the same topic, they failed to consider the background of the problem to relate to the media context. They had a low score in the third because they collected various resources, but the organisation was vague without a clear focus. When addressing the topic of media bias in the fourth presentation, they recognised the complexity among the business, customers, and promoting techniques but did not consider the impact of media bias.

In the midterm, they examined the safety of using cosmetics and identified the core problem: ‘Is it worthwhile for women to spend much money on cosmetics?’ by raising some questions like ‘Why does applying cosmetics cause irritations, allergies and infections?’ and ‘Can I believe the labels on cosmetic products?’ to help find the solution. They drew on professional remarks from various news articles and then concluded:

According to what some experts said, there can be toxicant in cosmetics that will cause irritation and allergy. If women want to use cosmetics, the ingredients including plants and minerals can be considered.

They did not relate the problem to how the news media dealt with the concept of beauty. In the final, they examined the relationship between Coca Cola and advertisement, highlighted its marketing strategy, and discussed the health concern. They mentioned the context by searching different sources but did not evaluate the effects of globalisation.

3. In the first presentation, group three drew on two articles with different styles from China Post, discussing the controversy over importing American beef with ractopamine, a muscle-growth drug used as a feed additive. This issue was complicated because it was related to not only food and health but economy, politics, and diplomacy. The government’s and student protesters’ views were presented, but the ideology hidden behind the stories was not revealed. After modification in the second presentation, they still did not tackle how the media reporting reflected ideology. In the third, they selected the sources from two Taiwanese daily newspapers with diverse stances to compare their views about

allowing Chinese students to study in Taiwan and relate it to the concept of media production. In the fourth presentation, they stressed the subjectivity of news media and pointed out its relationship to media bias.

In the midterm, they were interested in studying the academic and tourist exchanges between Taiwan and China. They compared the articles from two Taiwanese daily newspapers inclined to support two opposing political parties. They questioned and analysed the structures of the articles to which the concept of language is related; nevertheless, they did not clearly explain the context of Taiwanese governmental policies and evaluate the pros and cons. In the final, they referred to the influence of McDonald’s as ‘McDonaldisation’ which has become the emblem of globalisation. They argued:

To some extent, McDonald’s represents American lifestyle and culture, and globalisation of McDonald’s is seen as American cultural imperialism.

They analysed the marketing strategies via the media and advertisement to attract more audiences, evaluated their pros and cons, and considered how McDonald’s changed people’s life in terms of recognising the context and effects.

4. Group four listed different structures of different news articles in a neat table but ignored to provide evidence to support their ideas in the first presentation. In the second, they questioned assumptions but did not consider the context. They scored the lowest in the third because of focusing on describing the writing styles of two disaster news articles about five missing commissioned officers in the helicopter crash when rescuing people without reflecting on the connection with media operation. In the fourth, they provided the context of same sex marriage in the United States though the relationship between the same-sex marriage and media bias was not made explicit.

They discussed the controversial issue of importing American beef with ractopamine in the midterm. Though they collected information from different sources and presented various responses, they did not relate the stances to the backgrounds of the news media for analysis and problem-solving. In the final, they

took the products in Apple Company like iPhone as examples of cultural imperialism and regarded the media as a means to increase their popularity. They pointed out the negative influence of the media and the impact of the technological products on social relationship:

Because the media keep reporting the products, people are influenced imperceptibly, and some just want to follow the fashionable trend. Children play the games on the screen while their parents chat with their friends. Their relationships may gradually become weaker.

They identified the problem, considered multiple perspectives and related the issue to representations and audiences.

5. Group five discussed the controversial issue of building another nuclear power plant in Taiwan and compared the articles from China Post and Taipei Times. They made a table by listing the problems and different stances of the two media but failed to provide further information to support their argument in the first presentation. In the next, they talked about the river problem and compared the structures of different articles to highlight the differences. Although they discussed the river problem from different angles, they did not explicitly consider how views from news media affected the ways of reporting. They were given the lowest score in the third presentation of the temple fair of Matsu, the Chinese Goddess of the Sea because they merely introduced the event with its historical background rather than involved critical thinking. When working on the reports about gender bias in the fourth presentation, they emphasised discrimination against women by referring to different news media but still neglected to investigate how media bias affected the reporting.

They were concerned about the controversy over Taiwan’s independence in the midterm. They introduced the background of the political movement and then compared different views:

Many countries, including the USA, Japan, and Russia do not want to see that Taiwan is unified into China, but they will not support Taiwan’s

independence as well.

They pointed out the complexity of this issue but did not explain the reason. Their final topic was also globalisation, for which Korean fashion, particularly drama was the focus. They mentioned the current phenomenon and its impact on Taiwanese television broadcasting and then discussed the problems of showing Korean dramas on television. They considered the needs of different audiences but neglected to evaluate the pros and cons of their proposal— building an exclusive channel to show Korean dramas for their fans.

6. Group six searched a variety of information to consider different views of the influence of the famous brands of Coca Cola and Pepsi. They provided adequate evidence to support their first argument. In the second, however, in an attempt to evaluate the influence of the U.S. - South Korea Free Trade Agreement, they compared the background and organisation of the news articles but left the media context out of consideration, resulting in scoring the lowest among their presentation marks. After amendment, they compared different news items about importing American beef and related to the concepts of media literacy, especially languages and audiences and the wider environment. In the fourth, they discussed the outrage over ‘disturbing’ curvy LEGOs for girls and proposed incorporating voices from women’s groups, but the relevant element ‘representations’ was not expounded.

Owing to presenting different views from various sources with a clear structure systematically, they scored the highest among the seven groups in the midterm. They compared the headlines about American beef controversy from different newspapers and identified their positions, analysed the language used and related it to audiences. They further raised some questions with regard to bias and objectivity as well as the impact of media. For example, in response to the question: ‘Do media representations affect our views of particular social groups or issues?’, they answered:

Yes, first of all, we were angry at our President Ma because it seemed like he only cared about our economic competitiveness regardless of people’s health. However, after discussing with each other, we realised the reason why he said in this way even though we still felt upset. And we did not think it was appropriate for some news media to use extreme words to criticise because they seemed to oppose for the sake of opposition.

They reflected on the news though the pros and cons of the measures were not evaluated:

The government should consider the policy in many ways rather than just place importance on benefits. For a leader of a country, it is the most important to bear people’s interest and economic progress in mind. In addition to the policy of importing American beef, supplementary measures are needed.

In the final, they presented the multi-force influence of the pop music sensation, Lady Gaga on popular culture. Starting from introducing the current phenomenon, they then evaluated the pros and cons of her influence by referring to different news reports from various sources. They listed three points to answer the question they raised about the way of reacting to her influence:

1) Reading news and making judgement; 2) Expressing opinions in public and sharing comments; 3) Participating in meaningful activities.

Their project considered multiple aspects and also included practical suggestions of taking action.

7. Group seven conferred on the issue of the shooting of sixteen Afghan civilians allegedly by an American soldier and compared the hard news reports from CNN and BBC. They analysed from the structures of those articles but did not investigate further due to lack of studying the context. In the following presentation, concerning the topic that Coke and Pepsi changed the manufacturing process because of containing cancer-causing colouring, they deconstructed the structure

to compare the news articles but did not again refer to the context. In the following two presentations with different controversial topics, they still gave the context and views from various groups little consideration.

Focusing on discussing the influence of colouring contained in Coke and Pepsi on health in the midterm, they analysed by answering journalistic questions, including when, where, who, what, how questions used to highlight some parts in the context. Their analysis was organised, but the relationship between the issue and the concepts of media literacy was not made explicit. In the final, they discussed the current phenomenon of news reporting in Taiwan and argued that the emphasis on national or local news instead of international news might affect the Taiwanese views of the world. They related the situation to stereotyping because of prior assumptions or limited information. They reported the media influence on how the Taiwanese think of China:

Some people think that China is a developing country falling behind, but some of our news media just reported negative or limited information. We cannot receive holistic information but can surf the Internet to broaden our horizons.

They questioned assumptions of news media and provided a solution of referring to alternative information.

Students kept on modifying their presentations of the same topics in the first cycle despite that they tended to be used to the convenient way of analysing the news articles rather than investigating the context. However, they more or less demonstrated critical thinking by questioning assumptions, referring to different sources of information, considering opposite views, and making judgements. Their midterm and final projects were also revised on the basis of their previous works. The trend of analysing the news articles at the expense of deeper investigation into the context still existed, yet in the final assessment, students tended to reflect on themselves as audiences and who were represented, as well as the connection between the media and real life and endeavoured to provide solutions.