Artifact Selection

This semester for my Lit3312 class on Punk-Cyberspace: Contemporary Cultural Criticism, I was asked to make a blog (TA-DA!) and also pick an artifact that I would be researching thoroughly throughout the semester.

I have a couple of choices I could see myself possibly using as my artifact. The first choice, also my favorite choice of the two, would be the Dallas Cowboys. I believe that the Dallas Cowboys have a huge cultural significance to not only the region that we live in, Dallas TX, but also the whole United States as they are widely considered “America’s Team”. Because of the fact that they are considered “America’s Team” I also believe them to have a small significance on other parts of the world, but this is yet to be determined and would have to be clarified more during the research of this artifact. This helps pose a few of the questions that I would be able to research, the most important of the questions being how significant this one team is to the world as a whole. Another important question I believe I could research would be how significant the Dallas Cowboys are to the National Football League in terms of revenue accumulated in one season, are they the most important team? Or are they only viewed that way by the public? I believe this artifact would prove to hold great significance in not only American sports culture, but also in American culture as a whole. I think it would also be interesting researching the demographic of people that are fans of the Dallas Cowboys, and why so many out of town people find it necessary to consider this team to be their favorite. Overall I believe there to be many outlets and resources in researching this topic, ranging from Youtube, to most newspapers, to magazines, to television shows, to actual game film, to interviews with the players both past and present, and even other sports blog postings.

The other artifact I would be interested in researching is Marvel comics. I think this would be interesting because of the history of the company, the wide-ranging demographic popularity, and also the amount of resources available to do research. The cultural significance of Marvel comics is shown mainly through their comic books, movies, and graphic novels. The target audience of the industry has changed from when they first started, targeting kids, to now, targeting pretty much all demographics in different ways and forms. A few research questions I would be able to pose would be, how and why did the evolution from comic books and graphic novels to movies and television shows come about? Also, I would love to answer questions such as, the significance of Marvel comics to the population, and how many people still enjoy Marvel comics today? Whether it be through comic books, graphic novels, movies, or any other outlet that they might find Marvel. (i.e. Action figures, amusement parks ect.) Like the Dallas Cowboys, I believe this artifact to have many different outlets of information, as it is a very popular company nation-wide.