Final Analysis

Pick TWO people, teams (sports or otherwise), organizations, or companies. You will want to
make sure that the selections have some similarities so they work for a comparison of social
media use. For instance, you could choose to analyze the social media of AMC Theaters and
Cinemark Theaters BUT you would not want to analyze AMC Theaters with Smart Car as they
are two completely different industries. You can also choose to analyze the promotion of two
specific items or events—for instance, the social media surrounding Spiderman and the social
media surrounding Wonder Woman. You could look at the social media of two different
television shows or media companies (ABC and NBC). As always, feel free to email me with
questions about selections! I am here to help you!! 2. Once you have selected your two, you will need to select TWO forms of social media in which to
analyze each selection. For instance, if I am analyzing AMC Theaters and Cinemark, I could look
at Twitter and Facebook of each company for a six month window of time. Depending on your
selected two points of analysis, you may choose Twitter, Facebook, SnapChat, Pinterest, Reddit
or others! 3. Select the six month period of time. For many people, this will probably be within the past six
months. However, there are events that happen that may make you want to look at a specific six
month period of time. For instance, if I were going to analyze Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s
Twitter and Facebook feeds, I would probably choose to do it from June 2020-November 2020 as
that would be the most interesting time period for analysis.
4. Analyze! This is going to involve critically looking at the posts from the selected six month
period for each selected person, team, organization, or company. While analyzing the posts, think
about how they are constructing their public image and using social theory in order to promote a
position in our culture, how they are working to create a participatory culture (or not!) in order to
engage their audience members, and the key themes of their posts. By key themes, look for the
patterns in the postings. For instance, if I were analyzing AMC Theaters and Cinemark, I may
find the themes to be 1- concessions (popcorn, soda, candy), 2- reasons to go to the movies
(promotion of date nights, a cool place to be on a hot day), and 3- upcoming film releases. Here is what you need in the paper (total points: 50): 1. Introduction: Like a good paper, you need an introduction that has a clear opening statement
(before the thesis), a thesis statement, and an overview of the paper. 2. Summary of Selections: In this part of the paper, you are going to briefly describe (probably a
paragraph for each selection) what you selected to analyze. This will involve some background
information on the people, companies, organizations, or teams. You may include why you chose
these for this paper in this section. I am perfectly fine with people using “I” in the paper! 3. Overview of Analysis: Briefly describe what you analyzed in terms of the social media (Twitter,
Facebook, SnapChat, etc.). 4. Analysis Part One: In this section, you are going to describe how each person, team, company
or organization you are analyzing:
a. Worked to promote sociality, b. How they constructed their public image (what do you think this is? With this one, you
may also look to specific things like logos and slogans used on social media if this is an
area of interest for you!), c. How they worked to create a participatory culture with their audience (followers).
While you are explaining these elements, you are going to want to explain the concepts
(this will involve referencing your textbook!) for your reader (pretend that you are
writing the paper for a person who has never taken a social media course), and d. Additional elements: any other things that stood out to you about their social media
posts that overlap with the course concepts presented by Fuchs (this could be anything
from capitalism to influencers, etc.). 5. Analysis Part Two: In this section, you are going to describe the themes discovered in the social
media posts. What is each person, team, organization, or company focusing on? Why do you
think they are choosing to engage their audience in this manner? What can you glean from these
themes about each person, team, company, or organization? In this section, you will need to use
posts to help build up for the reader how this is a theme. You may quote the posts or you can be
creative and include them in the text of the paper. Just remember to cite them! 6. Assessment: In this section of the paper, you get to explain to your reader (based on your two
parts of analysis), which person, company, team, or organization you feel is using social media
more advantageously. Which one do you think is more effective? Which one has greater audience
engagement? Which one has a more intriguing public image? Which one has clear themes that are
easy to discern for the follower? Why? (Make sure you explain the why!). 7. Conclusion: Like all good papers, you need a concluding paragraph (this is different than the
assessment!). The conclusion should have a review of your main points, a restatement of the
thesis, and a powerful closing statement. 8. Reference List: You are going to need one (for the textbook, the social media posts, any
information searched regarding background information for your selections). Remember to
follow MLA or APA style format

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