MEDIA EVALUATION

MEDIA EVALUATION

Leigh Alexander writes about video games, interactive entertainment, and contemporary culture for a wide variety of publications. This 2013 essay is part of The Atlantic’s “Object Lessons” series: essays that explore the “hidden lives of ordinary things.” Perhaps nothing is more ordinary than bad pizza.

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Reading the Genre

Question

1. Alexander admits, sheepishly, that she frequently eats Domino’s “simulation of pizza.” But this essay isn’t really about pizza, is it? Discuss the ways that, while Domino’s pizza is the object at the center of this essay, the lesson is about much more than food. How does Alexander show the “hidden life” of pizza in New York?

Question

2. Alexander discusses Colin “Slice Harvester” Hagendorf and his zine evaluating New York pizza. On his Web site, in the section dedicated to his criteria for rating slices on a scale from 1–8, Hagendorf has placed a picture of a middle finger. He is clearly telling his readers not to expect solid and reasonable criteria. Likewise, in this essay about pizza, Alexander never specifically tells us what makes pizza good or bad. How could Alexander’s analysis essay be rewritten as an evaluation or review of Domino’s? What criteria does Alexander use to actually evaluate the Domino’s “experience,” even though the pizza itself might be terrible? (See “Decide on your criteria”.)

Question

3. Can you think of other companies that do such a good job using media to shape the customer experience that you are likely to give them your business despite other shortcomings? Explore a few of these examples as a class.

Question

4. WRITING: Choose one of the example businesses from question 3 and write a full media analysis essay about this company, as Alexander has done with Domino’s. What does the company do to enhance its product or service — or to make up for what’s wrong with it? What reasons do customers have for liking this company?

Question

5. MULTIMODALITY — APP CONCEPT: Develop the concept for an app or social media campaign for a small business in your neighborhood. How could this small business use technology and new media to develop relationships with customers and to add value to the consumer experience?

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