THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO

Faculty of Information and Media Studies

MIT 246F: The Political Economy of Information

Fall 1999

Final Assignment

The final assignment is not just a conventional academic paper. Instead, you are asked to:

  1. make a graphic representation - a "map" or diagram - showing the workings of certain aspects of the information economy, and;

  2. write a brief accompanying essay explaining and commenting on your "map".

Topics

Choose one of the following:

  1. The Information Highway in Canada. Draw a map of the various interests involved in the construction of the "information highway" in Canada. Clearly, these include the various categories of corporate players - carrier companies, content creators and computing businesses - that we discussed in class, and may also include the state agencies involved in making media and communications policy. You will need to research to identify the main actors in each sector. Your map will also become more complex and interesting if you find a way to represent the involvement of other parties. For example, you may find various social movements, concerned with issues like privacy or universal access, that are anxious to have a say in how the "highway" is built, and warrant a place on your map. Or you may find categories of business involved that we haven't discussed at all. At the very beginning of the project, you'll need to decide carefully how you define the "information highway" - and that's something you'll need to explain in the accompanying essay.

  2. The Video and Computer Game Industry. Map the main players and interests involved in the digital games industry - that is, the industry centred on games made to be played on video game consoles and computers (don't include telegambling). You will, of course, be giving a central place to the big console and game makers such as Sony, Nintendo, and Sega. But you will also need to consider the many smaller game development companies, and the publishers who both make and market games. You will have to think about how to show the relation of computer hardware and software businesses to the gaming business - where, for example, does Microsoft fit in? Then there are all the various spin-off commercial activities - the game-based theme parks, on-line gaming sites, tie-ins with films and books, and the market research companies. Then there is the "shadow" side of the business - pirated games, and the fascinating links between digital games and the military-industrial complex . . . and so on. It is tracking this complexity that makes the project interesting. Although the digital game industry is very "globalized", focus on its North American activities.

Objectives:

The idea of the map is to produce the sort of visual material an instructor teaching a course like this might use as an overhead to explain a topic. Your map should fit on standard 8" x 11" sheet of paper. But you can use up to 6 sheets of paper if you want. You can decide whether the relationships you want to show are best demonstrated on a single diagram, or are made clearer by breaking them down into a series of smaller maps that could be shown in sequence. Use colour graphics, text boxes - whatever you think will work.

The accompanying essay should be between 1,500 and 2,500 words long. Its aim is to briefly explain the political economic forces shown on your map, and relate them to the themes and concepts studied in this course. So, for example, if your map displays the activities of large vertically and horizontally integrated communications conglomerates, point this out. Or perhaps it will display the role of government policy making or regulatory bodies, which we'll be discussing over the next couple of weeks again, this would be worth comment - and so on.

The essay is also an opportunity to include information that wasn't easily displayed in graphic form, or to explain why you decided to put certain things in and leave others out. The idea is to provide your reader with what they need to quickly and easily understand the map, and grasp its significance.

The essay should follow accepted academic format for a research paper. On a separate sheet, attach a bibliography, listing the sources you have used for making the map and writing the paper. You can use any of the standard methods for footnotes and references - see the MIT style guide Joanne Buckley's Fit to Print.

Resources:

Below are listed a handful of bibliographic suggestions for getting started: over the next few weeks, others may be added on the course Web site. There will be an in-class discussion of the issues and problems related to the project on November 11, so have your questions ready. But other than this, you are on your own. Neither the instructor nor the TAs will answer individual questions on how to do the assignment or find content for it. This is a hunt for you to complete using your own ingenuity and diligence.

The Information Highway in Canada. Much of the general overview you need is in the course texts. Another recent Canadian examination is E.Con, by Donald Gutstein (Toronto, 1999), which will be on 1 hour reserve in Weldon in a few days. Three of the many useful on-line sites are:

The Information Highway Advisory Council, at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ih01015e.html

The Universal Access site of the Information Policy Centre at the University of Toronto, at http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/research/iprp/ua/index.html

The CANARIE site, at http://www.canarie.ca

The Video and Computing Game Industry. Two books that give overviews of the industry - a popular account, Joystick Nation, by J.C. Herz (Boston, 1997), and a more detailed volume Game Developer's Manual, by Ben Sawyer et al. (Albany, NY: 1998) will be on 1 hour reserve in Weldon. Reports on the games industry can sometimes be found at the sites of market research companies such as the NPD Group, at http://www.npd.com, or DFC Intelligence, at http://www.dfcintelligence.com; in high-tech business journals, like Red Herring, at http://www.redherring.com, or Upside, at http://www.upside.com, or in amongst the reviews and ads, in gaming magazines such as Next Generation, at http://www.next-generation.com.

Useful sources for both projects include:

  1. References, bibliographies, and links from the sources given above.

  2. Web sites of relevant corporations and government organizations give detailed information about their operations.

  3. Databases from UWO's library system provide full text articles on relevant issues - try Lexis/Nexus, and ProQuest Direct to track down articles on specific organizations and companies, or to get overviews on particular sectors.

  4. Use Internet search engines, but be careful to refine your searches carefully: for example, if you are doing question 2, just searching for "video games" will see you deluged with useless materials. Adding "industry" or "business" may thin things down a bit. Likewise, for topic 1, adding "Canadian" to "information highway" may save a certain amount of information overload. You will do better the more specific you can get.

  5. Keep an eye on current newspapers - especially national papers like The Globe or National Post - which often have relevant articles: these are frequently in the business section. So do economic journals such as the Economist or Business Week.

Note: It is your responsibility to keep a copy of assignments to protect against loss or theft. Plagiarism - the unacknowledged use of other people's ideas - is a serious offence, and will be dealt with according to the established UWO procedures detailed in the Academic calendar. If you are unclear as to what constitutes plagiarism, consult your instructor or TA.

This project is a challenging test of your investigative, analytic, and design skills. It will require substantial research in order to do well: so start early. The assignment is due in final lecture on December 7. See the course outline for information on late penalties. The project will be marked primarily for content, but also for literacy and design: poor writing and design can reduce the grade for content, but good writing and design cannot make up for poor content. This assignment is worth 30% of the course grade. Good luck, get going, and if possible, enjoy.