First Assignment

Choose one of the topics below and write an essay in response. Your essay should be at least three and a half pages in length and should not exceed five pages. Use double-space lineation, a 12-point serif font, and one-inch margins on all sides. Your writing is expected to be error-free and up to university standards.

Your essay is expected to have a thesis: a main point that the whole essay attempts to support or prove. Your essay should carefully supporting every claim it makes, usually using argumentation and/or examples, and (almost) every claim should relate back to supporting the thesis. Your goal is not to treat the topic comprehensively, but to bring insight to your topic and treat at least one of the main components of the topic in considerable detail.

The essay is due on November 23rd, but may be handed in up to one week late without penalty. Consult the course outline for further information about late assignments.

A. Google Trends

Select three to five terms that people “google” frequently. Examine the data from Google Trends (www.google.com/trends) for the terms you have selected. What conclusions can you come to about people’s frequency in “googling” these terms? You may focus on a temporal perspective and/or a regional perspective, if you wish (and you are free to focus exclusively on, say, the United States or Canada). In choosing your terms, select them from one of two broad categories: marketing or education. For marketing terms, you can choose trademark names or “buzz words” (or other marketing-related terms). For education terms, you can choose discipline names, subjects/topics, institution names, etc. Your essay should include a discussion of the limits of the usefulness of the data from Google Trends.

B. Corporate web site analysis

Compare the following two web sites: icoke.ca and pepsi.ca (use the English versions). Write a report on the different strategies used by the web sites to create an identity. Note that you are not evaluating the effectiveness of the web sites, nor are you evaluating the marketing strategies used on the web sites: you are identifying how identity is created. This will involve summarizing the identities as they are presented on the web sites, but will mostly involve discussing how various features on the web site contribute to the overall identity being put forth.

C. Personal web site analysis

Choose a web site of a well-known celebrity (such as Justin Bieber, J. K. Rowling, Stephen Hawkins, Olivia Chow) where the web site is clearly a representation of the celebrity (rather than promoting a specific concert, book, or campaign). Write a report on the different strategies used by the web site to create the person’s identity. Try to keep in mind the distinction between the real person and the person represented by the web site. How do the features of the web site (including text, images, colours) contribute to creating an identity for that person?