Extra Credit Post

When I first began the process of writing my Issues Paper, I knew that I wanted to write about the film industry and I specifically wanted to focus on how Hollywood (with its preeminence on the global market) influences cultures around the globe. On my mission, I found it interesting how widespread American culture has become and I wanted to do research on it’s implications.  Then, as I started looking around, I found a recent article about film censorship in China. I found the issue to be really interesting, so I stuck with it. As I began asking questions, my topic eventually narrowed down to what it is now. Also, as I began to really dive into the research process and began to better understand the issue itself, I also began to narrow down on what kind of information I was going to focus on in my paper in order to make an argument to my audience. As I grew in knowledge, I was able to sort through information, and even through aspects of my thesis and outline, throwing away anything useless or irrelevant and holding onto the gold.

My target audience is American film studios and filmmakers.  I hope to craft an argument geared to this audience by establishing ethos early on in the paper. I think that my audience is interested in money, but they are also interested in praise. I want to help them see that my argument will, in the long term help them to achieve both goals. I want to use many examples (comparing what is happening in the American film industry to what happened with the American auto industry, talking about the production process of Iron Man 3 to give a good taste of what kind of measures are having to be taken in order to get a quasi-American blockbuster on the screen, and even showing what kinds of films are being censored, what are not and why). I also want to back up my evidence with data and fact. I think that any money-maker is interested in the numbers. They want to see quantitative proofs. I hope to be able to deliver this.

The only lingering concern that I have as I continue the process of writing this paper is just making sure that I am able to have fluidity in my paper. I have many things that I want to say and a lot of evidence that I would like to include, but I’m afraid that the final product might just be a lot of information with no rhyme or reason in the way that it is organized in the paper itself. In order to prevent this, I am going to spend some good time creating a better outline before I continue the writing process. I feel like this will save me time and energy later.