Transcript: digisoc1 support
An informal introduction to the first assessment
Version: Text and audio | Video | Audio (SoundCloud) | Audio (mp3)
This podcast is part of the UCIL Digital Society course from the University of Manchester. Each section contains an audio clip and text equivalent, including any links mentioned. If you prefer, you can listen to all the audio as a playlist, or watch a narrated video. The content is the same in each case.
The purpose of this podcast is to introduce the first assessment and give some examples which may help illustrate it. We recommend you read the official course information: Overview: Assessment, Overview: Marking criteria, and How to complete the first assessment, but you may find this page useful too.
Introduction
Hello my name is Dave and welcome to a Digital Society podcast where I will talk you through completing your first assessment, digisoc1. You can find all of the information referenced here under the Course Information tab.
The assessment brief
For digisoc1 we are asking you to:
“Identify an individual or organisation with a public online presence and critically analyse their communications through one or more platforms e.g. website, twitter feed”
This means that for digisoc1 you have the option of looking at an individual, say Greta Thunberg, or you could look at an organisation such as Tesla or the BBC and their public online presence. Choose someone or something that you are interested in as the focus of your assessment.
Critical analysis
A key part of the assessment is that we are asking you to critically analyse their communications through one or more platforms, which could for example be a website, Twitter, or TikTok — basically you can choose any platforms that the person or organisation are using to publicly communicate information.
You might be thinking about what we mean by “critically analyse”. Being critical can mean lots of different things in different contexts, but in terms of the assessment we are asking you to actively engage with the ideas and content, rather than passively accepting the information you encounter as true.
Also, it’s important to realise that if you are being critical, it doesn’t mean being negative, it means being impartial which in terms of digisoc1, allows you to judge how effective an individual or organisation’s public communications are. Make sure that you examine the positives and the negatives of the how the person or organisation has publicly communicated — what have they done right? What have they done wrong? Why have they or haven’t been successful?
Thinking about information critically is a theme that runs throughout the Digital Society module and is a key part of each assessment. For more support around developing your critical skills you can check out our topic page “Critical analysis” and our My Learning Essentials resource — Being Critical: thinking, reading and writing critically.
Moving beyond descriptive writing
Something to be aware of is that you can fall into a writing process where you just describe what the individual or organisation is doing — this is not critical analysis; it is just descriptive, and this is not what you are being asked you to do. If you have started on digisoc1 already, re-read your work and reflect on the content: have you just described the individual or organisation, or have you engaged at a deeper critical level?
How to reference in the Digital Society coursework.
digisoc1 asks you to write your submission in a Blog post style. This means a more informal tone than the academic essay that you are probably used to writing. Although it is a more informal style we are still expecting you to reference everything as you would in a standard academic essay — this includes links from the sources you have used to support your analysis in the submission and ideas from other students’ previous writing on this unit. If you have used a source then make sure you reference it!
As you are writing a blog post, link to what you are referencing within the text of your blog post, rather than producing a reference list at the end of your blog post. When you are editing a Medium post, simply double-click on a word (or select some text), click the link icon (🔗) or press Ctrl /⌘ +K, paste a link and press Enter.
For help with how to do this check out our Support for your coursework page — there is an Advice page on referencing facts and ideas in your coursework.
digisoc1 coursework examples
All of the coursework submitted in the Digital Society course is accessible online for the last four years. For digisoc1 there is a wide range of topics from David Attenborough, Harry Styles to Apple and Vogue.
So if you are not sure who or what to write about then you check them out for inspiration on the Course information: Overview Assessment page.
Marking criteria
To help your engage with the assessments we are going to look at a piece of digisoc1 coursework and see how it answered the question and how it could have been improved on. It received a 5 for both sets of marking criteria and received a high overall mark.
So just to return to the brief for digisoc1 you are being asked to “Identify an individual or organisation with a public online presence and critically analyse their communications through one or more platforms e.g. website, twitter feed”
In this piece of coursework the student focused on Kylie Jenner’s success in the competitive beauty industry.
There are two sets of marking criteria for each assessment and each one is on a scale 1–5, with 5 being the highest level — you need to cover both sets of marking criteria to achieve the higher marks. In this podcast we will focus on the higher levels for Marking Criterion 1 and Marking Criterion 2.
Marking Criterion 1, part 1: ‘excellent analysis…’
First of all we are going to look at the highest level for Marking Criterion 1 (MC1), which asks for “an excellent analysis, clearly explaining what makes an effective online presence and exploring the different elements of online communication that can be used to engage the audience”.
If we look at the post, in the second paragraph, the writer analyses and touches on a number of themes that contribute towards an effective online presence such as Kylie’s personal brand, the demographics of millennials/Gen Z-ers and how her relatable personality encourages trust between her and her followers.
This is a good start to the post and the analysis continues throughout. For example, later on the author talks about the importance of influencers and authenticity, which shows they have researched the topics well.
How this could be improved? The writer has linked to a number of sources e.g. Forbes, YouTube and to Kylie cosmetics itself. The sources that you use demonstrate the research you have carried out, but in this post the quality of the sources could be higher. By linking to peer-reviewed journal articles, market research and statistics from University resources you would be backing up your analysis with higher-quality resources. The writer could have also explored further why a relatable personality makes the difference — how is it that it works for some individuals/organisations and not others?
Marking Criterion 1, part 2: exploring elements of communication
Let’s have a look at how the writer “[explores] the different elements of online communication that can be used to engage the audience” in their post. This means that we are asking you to look at multiple types of online communication and how they can be used to engage the audience — so to achieve the higher marks you would have to ensure that you look at how an individual or organisation uses say twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or their websites.
In this submission the writer examined Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube so they basically covered all the channels that Kylie Jenner was using to market herself and her products.
So how could the writer improve on this? digisoc1 is only 500 words so one option would be to concentrate on two or three communication channels and use the word count to explore those in greater analytical depth.
Marking Criterion 2, part 1: writing style
For the highest level of the second marking criterion (MC2) we are asking for “a clear ability and grasp of how to write for an online audience, with a concise and engaging writing style, excellent structure, and appropriate use of formatting (links, headings, bullet points, paragraph breaks, etc.) to help the reader navigate the text”
Like MC1, we can break MC2 into two parts — first of all let’s look at “a clear ability and grasp of how to write for an online audience, with a concise and engaging writing style”
What the marking criterion is asking for is for the submission to be in a blog post style rather than, say, an academic essay, and to take into account that is for an online audience. The post should be engaging to the read in terms of the written content and the format of the post.
In the Kylie Jenner submission we can see that the writer has introduced the reader to Snapchat and Twitter and concisely explained how Kylie uses the channels to connect and sell to the audience. This is then followed by an embedded YouTube video of the launch of a product on Snapchat which reinforces the text and is visually engaging at the same time. You rarely see a blog post full of text without any images or videos.
Marking Criterion 2, part 2: structure and formatting
For the second part of MC2, “excellent structure, and appropriate use of formatting (links, headings, bullet points, paragraph breaks, etc.) to help the reader navigate the text”, we are asking you to ensure that post is structured and includes good use of the formatting available in Medium.
When structure and formatting is used well it can guide the reader through your submission. Headers tell the reader what you are going to talk about at each point throughout your submission, and takes them on a clear journey from start to finish.
In this post, right from the start we have a catchy and informative title and a sub-title as well — we know who we are going to read about in the blog post. Each section has a clear header, highlighting the content to the reader, and each section includes embeds that are specific to that part, e.g. Snapchat and Twitter. The embeds also include captions, which is great for people using screen readers/who have a visual impairment.
When using headers in your post, don’t just use bold text as this can cause problems for people using assistive software. Select or double-click the text and click the large/small T to create a large/small header. You can also press Ctrl /⌘+? to see all the keyboard shortcuts available in Medium.
So, where could the writer have improved? This post achieved a 5 (the highest level) for MC2, but some of the embeds are missing captions. It is best to be consistent throughout your submission.
It’s really important that for each piece of assessment you spend time on the marking criteria so that you know what to do to achieve the higher marks.
Further support
For further support, you can access Digital Society on Medium which has all the information on the module. We also have a How to complete the first assessment: digisoc1 page which contains detailed information on the assessment criteria and what we want you to do. We’ve also provided a lot of support in Medium around the assessments and using images, references and finding information for your assessment.
If you need to contact us, please just email us: digisoc@manchester.ac.uk.
