History

Assessment item 2

Item 2: Essay 1

Due Date: Friday 10pm, Week 6

Weighting: 40%

Length: 2000 words

Please answer one of the following questions:

1. Compare and contrast several issues of The Times from the 1850s and 1900. Develop an argument to explain the changes, differences and continuities identified in The Times over the period. The differences could be in format, language, audience (class identifiers such as language, bias, advertising, content focus), political positioning or cultural bias.

1. Compare and contrast several days of The Times and the Daily News OR the Times and another British daily newspaper. Develop an argument to explain the differences you have identified. The differences could be in format, language, audience (class identifiers such as language, bias, advertising, content focus, city/provincial).

Hint: Select the same dates for the two papers you compare. You may wish to base your comparison on a run of dates (eg a week, fortnight or month), or on selected dates taken over a longer period (eg one day/month over 12 months or Jan 1 over a selected time frame).

1. Compare and contrast advertising in the Times and the Daily News OR The Times and another British daily newspaper. What does the advertising tell us about the nature of each paper and its assumed audiences? Develop an argument to explain the similarities and differences you have identified.

1. On the basis of your analysis of several issues of The Speaker and/or Nation and/or New Statesman, what do you consider to be the function of the English critical weekly towards politics and culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

1. A topic of your choice to be negotiated with your tutor.

The daily papers are available through the National Library of Australia eResources, ‘Nineteenth Century British Newspapers’. The Times is also available through the Griffith University Library database.

Many of the critical weeklies are available National Library of Australia eResources, ‘British Periodicals Online’. The New Statesman is available through the New Statesman archive link on the papers website.

These databases are also available through most City Council websites.

At least six scholarly sources must be submitted in Bibliography.