Using Generative Al in COMU 2150 (Note: these rules apply to this class only. If you have questions about your other courses, check with your tutor or course coordinator.) Per UQ

policy: 1) This task has been designed to be challenging, authentic and complex. Whilst students may use Al technologies, successful completion of assessment in this course will require students to critically engage in specific contexts and tasks for which artificial intelligence will provide only limited support and guidance. 2) A failure to reference Al use may constitute student misconduct under the Student Code of Conduct. 3) To pass this assessment, students will be required to demonstrate detailed comprehension of their written submission independent of Al tools. On the title page of assessments in COMU2150, you must include one of these sentences: 1) I declare that I HAVE used generative Al for this assignment, and I have documented that use according to the requirements set out in the assessment documentation. OR 2) I declare that I HAVE NOT used generative Al for this assessment. I understand that a failure to reference Al use may constitute student misconduct under the Student Code of Conduct If you do not include one of these sentences, you will be required to resubmit your essay, and encounter any late penalties that apply to late submission. If you ARE using generative Al for this assessment, it is vital that you use it well. While some classes will prohibit you from using the tool at all, I would like you to see this as an opportunity to learn how to use it in an ethical and scholarly way. To demonstrate that you are using it as a tool to augment your thinking, rather than as a tool to replace your thinking, you must do the following: 1) Add an appendix to your essay (this does not count toward your word count). This appendix must include a record of all prompts you have used with the Al, and a full record of all responses that the Al has generated. 2) For EACH Al response, you must provide at least a 1-2 sentence critical evaluation of that response. For example, you might ask "Is it accurate?" "Can I independently verify what it is telling me?" "What has it missed?" "What do I know that it doesn't?" "What mistakes has it made?" Simply saying something like "This sounded good, so I'll use it" is not a critical evaluation./nEssay Topics and Instructions Address one of the options below: • Take care to read the options carefully and clearly address all components. • All questions require you to draw on and engage with the academic material introduced in the course and with relevant theoretical concepts that have been employed during the course. It is expected that you will engage meaningfully with at least 6 peer-reviewed scholarly sources. You must also make good use of relevant primary sources (depending on which research option you have chosen). • The length of your paper (excluding works cited list) must be between 2000 and 2300 words. • • Option 1: Critical whiteness studies recognises that in western societies, whiteness is non-particularising, universal, and taken as the norm. As Nakayama & Krizek argue: "By conceptualizing 'white' as natural, rather than cultural, this view of whiteness eludes any recognition of power relations embedded in this category. This naturalisation process is a critical function of culture. Whiteness is masked through its non-labelling as a race" (300). Conversely, anything other than white is always categorised in particularising ways. It is always marked as the Other. Drawing on specific examples to support your claims, critically examine the way race is socially constructed by mainstream media. You might choose to look at news reporting, or a specific film or television show, or a specific social media account. The choice is yours, but you must use critical whiteness studies as a theoretical foundation. You must consider why is it crucial to take whiteness as an object of study and problematize it as an unmarked norm. Option 2: Online spaces are currently dominated by two cultural phenomenon: Popular feminism, which resides in hashtag and "empowerment" campaigns, and popular misogyny, which inhabits forums and groups like Men's Rights Activists, Pick-Up Artists, and Incels. Drawing on critical debates in masculinity and/or feminist media studies including the work of scholars like R. W. Connell, Emma Jane, Rosalind Gill, and others, critically examine gender representations and discourses in a specific digital media environment. Direct your analysis to one specific forum, discussion group, hashtag campaign, or a prominent incident other than Gamergate (i.e. Not Gamergate) - this has already received much academic attention. 2/nOption 3: We are currently in an era of increased transgender awareness (and concomitant backlash), with media visibility of transgender individuals at an all-time high. There are a growing number of films and TV series that feature central transgender characters played by transgender performers and increasingly, transgender people are involved in the film/TV production processes - the Wachowskis, Sydney Freeland, and Silas Howard are just three prominent examples. Drawing on a specific transgender film or television text, critically examine the significance of transgender productions involving transgender individuals on a production and/or performance level. Consider standpoint theory, strong objectivity, and/or intersectionality in your analysis. Some examples to consider include: Pose (Ryan Murphy 2018-2021), Sense8 (Wachowskis, 2015-2018), Her Story (Sydney Freeland, 2015-), Tangerine (Sean Baker, 2015), The Thing (Rhys Ernst, 2012 https://vimeo.com/34589976), or any other relevant text. Option 4: In Examined Life (Astra Taylor, 2009), Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor discuss the importance of social visibility to the deconstruction of myths about what it means to be "disabled." What role do media play in shaping ideas about the body and normalcy? How are myths about dis/ability and identity perpetuated and/or challenged in media? Select one specific media object (film or television show) or one specific digital media site (social media account, discussion forum, hashtag, etc.) as the object of your analysis. Draw on relevant material discussed in the course, including the resources from the lecture on dis/ability to support your claims. Things to consider when selecting a media object are the extent to which disabled people are represented in important roles (writing, directing, acting, producing) in the piece. Option 5: Much of the work on Indigenous representation in media focuses on how media talk about Indigenous people, as if Indigenous people have no agency. Instead of taking that approach, write an essay that examines how Indigenous people actively create and curate Indigenous identity, through either mainstream media or social media. If you select a mainstream vehicle (for example, Australia's "Black Comedy" or America's "Reservation Dogs") ensure that its creatives (writers, actors, producers) are principally Indigenous. If you choose to focus on social media, you'll need to narrow your focus with parameters that are logical for the platform and argument that you choose. Option 6: According to Donna Haraway, in high-tech culture, we find ourselves to be cyborgs, hybrids, mosaics, chimeras. For Haraway the cyborg (cybernetic organism) challenges binaries that have traditionally been used to dominate others-male/female, civilised/primitive, nature/culture, human/animal, self/other, whole/part ("A Cyborg Manifesto" 177). How do experiments with alternative anatomies by contemporary artists like Stelarc and Neil Harbisson destabilise these dualisms? How might their experimental work be/nOption 7: Simpson (2014) explores non-human animal agency in the context of eco-horror, eco-nationalism, and postcolonialism. At the crux of eco-horror is the notion of nature and/or its creatures hitting back. Just as humans have mitigated fears of the unknown through colonial invasion and environmental destruction, disavowing respect for, or connection to nature, eco-horror films reject humanity as indispensable. What do fictional imaginings such as this suggest about anthropomorphic attitudes in the age of the Anthropocene? How are human, non-human interrelations scrutinised in other media? Advanced Option (8): This option gives you the opportunity to develop your own research question. The rules are as follows: 1) It must be developed in consultation with your tutor. 2) It must address one of the weekly topics covered in the course following on from celebrity. 3) It must engage with the course material and be relevant to the focus of the course. It is highly advised that you only consider this option if you were able to demonstrate a sound understanding of key theoretical material in your media analysis. In the first instance you must e-mail your tutor with a short written pitch of your idea along with a tentative research question. If approved, we will provide feedback for further development. Note that this option will require more time to be approved, so plan ahead! Your pitch may be entirely original, or it might be an adaptation of one of the other options.