Media Analysis

Digital Media Analysis Mini-Project

 

This mini-project asks you to select a digital media account or profile of your choice and do an in-depth analysis of their audience and content strategy to provide an (to the best of your ability lacking detailed data) estimate of their engagement metrics and successes (or challenges), and forward-looking insights into what is working well and what the account or profile could do to improve engagement.

 

Your overarching goal is to say smart and informed things about​ your chosen piece of digital media, where “smart” is about your own powers of insight and​ observation and “informed” tracks your ability to connect those to relevant professional and scholarly discussions of media, digital culture, and technology more generally.

 

Here are the details:

 

Pick a digital media account or profile of your choice.

 

Pick an established media account or profile that allows some access to followers, views or applause rates, or other ways for an outsider to do a rough tracking of online mentions and presence. You have lots of leeway in terms of what you choose: a podcast, an Instagram account, a TikTokker, a Twitter account, etc. Blogs or websites are poor choices unless they have associated social media accounts with some visible numbers.

 

Don’t pick something like, say, Vox. That’s a good example of a digital media company. But they have too many distinct channels with different subgoals for you to do a good job of deep analysis. You could, however, pick something like Ezra Klein’s podcast from Vox as long as the goals are relatively narrowly defined.

 

Since you’ll have to dig deep into the account’s content, it’s a good idea to pick something that interests you and which you feel relatively well equipped to analyze. The more familiar you are with the content and the platform, the more useful the exercise will be for you both now and in the future.

 

• What are their goals? Again, raising engagement (followers, likes, etc) is NOT the relevant goal. What big picture value or aim drives what they do such that it could be indirectly measured by those stats?

 

Describe their audience

 

This can be tricky as there are two distinct elements: who their audience currently is – that is, who are their followers, listeners, subscribers, etc AND who is their ideal or imagined audience: this includes the people they are aiming at reaching, even if they have yet to be successful in gaining their attention. In your presentation, you need to give us as much relevant information as possible about these groups of people. You will need to do independent demographic​  research using the web and/or library resources in addition to checking out current followers/subscribers.  

 

Explain their content strategy.

 

Describe their posts. What kinds of content do they post? Describe it in as much detail as you can. For instance, what hashtags are they using? Do they use certain color schemes or have a particular aesthetic? How often do they post? Does it happen at particular periods of the day or week? Do they have regular collaborators? Do they typically tag others?

 

How do they moderate their posts, if applicable? Do they engage with their followers? How?

 

Different platforms and content will suggest different questions, but the point is that you should have a lot to say about what they are doing.

 

Additionally, you must explain their actions – that’s their strategy, as perceived by you. This is an extra step. You might say of me, “Laura ran 3 times this week. Here’s how far/fast she ran and where she ran.” That’s a good description of my running activities. But your presentation will​ need to explain this account’s activities a step further than mere description and move into strategy/analysis:​ “perhaps Laura is training for a half marathon with a combo of …. Because…”

 

Stats and Metrics

 

Give an overview of the account’s measures of engagement as they currently stand. You’ll want to provide as much detail as possible, though what you should provide will obviously depend on the chosen platform and how much access to the numbers you have. For instance, if you select an Instagram account, you’d want to give an overview of the number of followers, the average number of likes per post over at least the last two weeks along with the range, the number of comments, etc.  

 

Forward-Looking Advice

 

Given what you’ve examined in the previous sections, this is your opportunity to provide forward looking advice and critical analysis of the account or profile overall. Given the goals of the account or profile, what do you see working well and importantly how could the account better realize its goals?

 

 

Other Criteria and Requirements

 

• You must create an 8-12 minute VoiceThread presentation on this topic. That presentation must be posted to the appropriate VoiceThread Box (linked in module).
• Your presentation must contain a combination of audio and images. It must be easy to hear, see, and follow the content of the presentation.
• If there are links in the presentation, you must make them “clickable” by adding them as a text comment.
• Your presentation musti​ nclude scholarly discussion of media strategies,​  information-seeking behavior, HCI, or Information Communication Technologies more generally or the like. As an example, you might discuss spreadability in both your​  description of the account’s activities and in your forward looking advice. You needn’t necessarily pull from 480 content alone – relevant other eSoc, Comm, or Journalism coursework could easily be applicable here and given the aims of assignment, it’s strongly encouraged for you to draw on those.