Research Log Prompts: Choose two or three of the following prompts. If you choose 2 you should write 750 words each, if you choose 3 you should write 500 words each. See below for more instructions on if you choose two prompts. Please note that the Week 5 topic is not included in the prompts below.
1. ‘Becoming Media Researchers’
Write a critical reflection using the questions below, drawing on Stokes and other relevant other literature from the further readings lists and elsewhere, and on your lecture/ seminar notes. What are some of the reasons why it is important to study or research the media? What are some of the limitations? In what ways can/do we study the media? Otherwise put, what kinds of approaches do we find in media studies? What ‘research values’ do you think are important in media studies? How do they relate to your interests in media studies?
2,’Starting your research process’
Discuss how you would potentially define and build up a collection of sources, or a sample of participants, for one of the hypothetical research projects discussed in the seminar. Drawing on your essential and further readings and lecture/ seminar notes, include and comment on the practical and ethical considerations of developing your sample/ collection of sources. The research project you discuss can be one that you or your group have devised.
3.’Analysing written texts’
Report on the preliminary thematic analysis of data that you have conducted. How did you find themes in the data? What were the different patterns you began to see emerging? Did you reach any preliminary analytic insights? Be sure to include any visual thematic maps that you may have begun to draw.
4.’Digital media methods’
Report on two or three of different digital media methods explored in the readings, lecture and seminar. Briefly define these methods and choose an example platform on which you could conduct research using these methods. Report on the benefits and limitations of different digital media methods approaches in researching your chosen platform.
5.’Ethnographic approaches’
Report on the preliminary plan to hold interviews or undertake observation fieldwork for your hypothetical project (e.g. who you would plan to include and why, how you would find and recruit these people to participate in your project, ethical and practical considerations), and give examples of the kinds of questions you would plan to ask them, or situations that you would plan to observe and why – note: do not just include a long list of proposed interview or focus group questions – instead, ensure you include some paragraphs that connect your plan to this week’s core / further readings, and your seminar/ lecture notes.
6.’Political economy’
Report on the steps you took to begin to take a political economic approach to a select piece of media, company or industry. What did you begin to find? What kinds of challenges did you encounter? How might you try to address these challenges if you were pursuing the research?
If you choose two prompts, you need to ensure that you should include more references and do more reading around the subject to demonstrate appropriate engagement with those two prompts. In other words, if you choose to write 2 x 750 word logs, you should not just meet these higher word counts with ‘filler’. You need to put in the same amount of time and effort that you would put in for 3 x 500 words – thus, your 2 prompts will have to be thoroughly researched, referenced and detailed.
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