Links for next few weeks

Neil Foote will be a speaker in our classroom on Oct. 30; here's a preview of his perspective, from Poynter.org:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=58&aid=147332

And a link to the Commercial Closet, which Glenn Griffin mentioned last week:

http://www.commercialcloset.org

For a foundation article about stereotyping, here are the words of Walter Lippmann:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/j6075/index.html?edit/course_syllabus.html

Final project assignment

We'll talk more about this tonight and next week.

You’ll be writing a 10-page final project, double-spaced, for the end of the semester. For this assignment, you’ll need to choose a method from those listed below, and you’ll need to choose a focus, too, from the areas of race, gender, sexualities, disabilities, dialects, economic class or a subset of these.

For methods, choose from:
Historical analysis (case study)
Content analysis (quantitative or qualitative)
Theme analysis
Semiotics or signs analysis
Rhetorical analysis
Narrative interviewing

First, you’ll need to find a corpus of mass media texts (ads, films, news stories, editorial cartoons, comics, TV shows, music), following protocols discussed in class for ensuring a consistent group of texts. Next, you’ll conduct research to build a short review of literature, using one major study on which to base your own. Be sure to include some theoretical work in this literature review, such as van Zoonen’s work on the politics of gazing or bell hooks’ work on stereotyping.

Devise a list of possible research questions for your corpus, after reading scholarly work about your topic. Once you’ve considered your texts and your lit review, you’ll decide on which method will be most useful for analyzing these texts and answering your potential research questions. To develop your methodology, finalize your research questions and write up a protocol for analyzing your data (be sure this method will expose findings that will be responsive to your research questions).

Report your data and synthesize these findings with your literature review, mixing your results with insights you have and with theories that you’ve studied. These insights will form the basis of your discussion/conclusions.

All parts of your paper should be like pearls on a string—all parts should be the same as to their purpose. In other words, tie things together and be sure your methods match your research questions, which should match your lit review and your discussion.

For your works cited page, which should be page 11 or higher, you’ll need to use APA style, which will be discussed in class. There are also online resources for how to cite sources; be sure to use quote marks for all material quoted from sources other than your own brain. After indirect or directly quoted material, give the citations of where this information may be verified, by offering the author’s name, the year, and page number.

Sexism in election coverage

We've been talking about this all semester. Here's are two interesting Q&A articles about current coverage, sexism, and coverage of Geraldine Ferraro in the 1980s:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/ii_20081001_8507.php


http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/ii_20081002_1929.php