Essay Question – Fall 2019

Politics has witnessed a demonstrable shift in the last decade, as new avenues of communication have cemented themselves in our daily lives.  With the stellar rise in mobile technologies, instant communication and social media platforms, political actors must account for the realities of the digital age.  This is said to be especially true when it comes to youth:

Young people are now fully ensconced in the digital age as it whirls around and within them….  This is the epoch of the Anthropocene — the age of humans, wherein a technological

worldview and human tools hold the central place in re-shaping the earth and its people. It’s also a time when 1.8 billion youth make up the largest generation of 10 to 24 year olds in

human history with 50 per cent of the world’s population under 30 years of age.[i]

While the political game has certainly evolved with the digital world, it remains an open question whether our capacity to interpret and understand politics has in any way been altered, let alone improved.  Some argue that access to digital ‘conversations’ and a much larger volume of information has a positive effect on political understanding.  Still others argue that there has been a ‘hollowing out’ of political comprehension, with, at best, a superficial awareness of passing issues. 

As such, for your term essay, build an argument in response to the following question:

Keeping in mind the centrality of mobile technology in young lives, as well as the frequent utilization of social and personal media platforms, has digital access led to enhanced or diminished political understanding?

Your paper should be 1250 words in length (two type-written, double-spaced pages). Make sure that you are supplying an argument.  This means that you should not merely describe the situation to your reader and then give your opinion.  Instead, you have to build an argument, with a thesis and reasoned discussions that support your thesis. 

You will gain more insight into the research and writing process, as we go over it in class and in your tutorials.  But do not wait until then to get started.  Search out some interesting sources for your paper to get things underway.  You are required to utilise at least 5 credible sources for this paper, but it never hurts to use more!  By ‘credible’, we mean that each source 1) is reproducible (ie. can located by) your reader and 2) possesses a reasonable degree of authority on the subject you are discussing (for example, anonymous websites, ‘blogs’, and Wikipedia are NOT good sources for academic papers).

Your best strategy is to visit your T.A. during office hours and go over your ideas for the term paper as early as possible.  He/she can give you considerable guidance on how to get started, whether you’re on the right track, and how to construct a stronger argument.

Your grade for this paper will carry a course weight of 20%.