COM2614 Assignment 1 (COMPLETE ANSWERS) Semester 2 2026 - DUE 20 August 2026; 100% Correct solutions and explanations.

COM2614 Assignment 1 (COMPLETE ANSWERS) Semester 2 2026 - DUE 20 August 2026; 100% Correct solutions and explanations. ASSIGNMENT 01 DUE DATE: 20 August 2026 UNIQUE ASSIGNMENT NUMBER: 524408 Decolonial Communication Analysis of Contemporary Scenarios INTRODUCTION This assignment requires you to engage with two scenario-based questions. Each scenario requires you to apply concepts from Units 1 and 2, with a focus on decolonial approaches to communication, media, and digital platforms. The aim of the assignment is to assess your ability to analyse real-world communication situations using decolonial theories, examining how power and knowledge operate within these scenarios, and demonstrate critical thinking in relation to contemporary communication challenges. You are expected to complete both Scenario 1 and Scenario 2 questions. Each scenario is marked out of 20 marks, contributing to a total of 50 marks for this assignment. An additional 10 marks are awarded for Technical Presentation, bringing the total for this assignment to 50 marks. For this assignment, you must respond using clear academic writing, support your answers with relevant concepts from the course material, and appropriate sources where applicable. ASSIGNMENT QUESTION QUESTION 1 SCENARIO 1: REWRITING LOCAL HISTORY A group of students at a South African university runs a Wikipedia "edit-a-thon." Their goal is to write and improve articles about local history - historical figures, indigenous knowledge, and community groups. They gather their information from oral histories, interviews with elders, and community archives. They write several new articles and post them online. A few days later, volunteer editors from other parts of the world remove many of these articles. They say the sources are not "reliable" and cannot be "verified," because they do not come from published books, journals, or news outlets. Most of the students' information came from people and local records that were never published. One student decides to test the rules. She asks an AI writing tool to write an article about one of the same figures, and she posts it. The tool produces a smooth, confident article and lists real, published books and articles at the end. The sources are verifiable - anyone who searches for them will find that they exist - so the volunteer editors accept the article. But if you actually open those sources, they say little about this figure, and some do not mention the claims in the article at all. The AI has attached real-looking references to statements they do not support. The article stays online as the "reliable" version, while the students' community-based articles remain deleted. The students must now decide what to do. They can change their sources to fit the platform's rules, keep arguing against those rules, or find another way to share the knowledge. Question (20 marks) Unit 1 makes an important distinction: colonialism was direct colonial rule, while coloniality is the way colonial power keeps shaping knowledge, power, and being long after that rule has ended. As you work through the questions, consider which of these is at work in the situation. Use coloniality, together with the wider set of ideas from Units 1 and 2, to look at the situation, then answer all three questions. Each question names the main idea to use, but you may also bring in other ideas from the Unit 1 Glossary. Each question has several parts. You must answer every part. 1.1 Explain why the students' articles were removed. In your answer, you must cover all of these: • What does the platform mean when it calls a source