For this assignment, you examine the portrayal of one of the following in media:
- the elderly
- people of color
- women
- LGBTQ+
- the disabled (physically or mentally)
- those with mental illnesses
- body shaming: "too heavy"/"too thin"
Choose one of the groups above and then examine how that group is portrayed in some form of media (for example, movies, television, commercials, advertising, social media, news sources, song lyrics, music videos).
❓ Research Question
Decide on your research question. Many researchers start with nothing specific in mind (inductive reasoning) or with a very specific idea in mind (deductive reasoning).
As an example, you could think about looking for signs of racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, or body shaming, or body positivity, in four films made within the last few years.
Past researchers have looked for certain themes (i.e., research questions):
- How are people with mental illness portrayed in films available on Netflix?
- Do ads shown on network TV include multi-racial families or families with two dads/two moms; how are they portrayed?
- Do films portray overweight women in a negative way?
You're going to look for patterns. You should pick your topic and then a certain kind of media to examine. What patterns can you find?
📗 Assessment
Your paper should include the following headings (shown in bold).
1) Introduction/Methodology
The first part of your paper should be an introduction to the topic or issue that you will be discussing. Researchers typically decide upon a research question prior to beginning their research. In this case, you're examining how one of the above groups of people (your subjects) are portrayed and/or perceived in the media. What is your research question?
Here is also where you’ll describe your methodology - which group did you decide to analyze (women, people of color, the elderly, etc.)? What media source did you decide to examine (films, television shows, commercials, network TV, news programs, social media posts, YouTube videos, internet ads)? Approximately how many shows/commercials/ads/etc. were analyzed?
2) Findings
Once you decide on your subject group (the elderly, women, people of color, etc.) and the type of media you wish to examine you're going to look for patterns - the main component of content analysis.
What did you discover? You are looking for patterns.
- Were your subjects portrayed in a negative or positive light? Be sure to identify what you mean by "positive" or "negative."
- Was there a a word or words or term that was used repeatedly?
- Was there underlying themes of racism/sexism/ageism/body shaming? If so, how? Be specific. Use examples.
- Was there a pattern of how your subjects were portrayed? Giving percentages or counting is expected.
Brief Example of Questions to be Answered (using the elderly as subjects):
- Were the elderly portrayed, visible?
- If so, how were they portrayed (e.g., In films: as an important, central character or in a very small part, were they treated respectfully or as a joke? Did they have any "good" lines? Were they the main character? Were they sexually active? On twitter or in the news, etc.: How are they written about? With respect/without respect? What kind of comments are made about people who are older?)
- Was there a pattern that stood out to you the most?
- Who is the target audience of TV/film/post etc.?
Example Finding: Researcher Joyce watches 10 of the most popular American comedy shows on Netflix produced in the last two years. She finds that 2/3rds of the shows have very minor elderly characters or no characters over the age of 50. In two of the ten shows, the elderly character was treated disrespectfully by other character or appeared on screen for less than 4 minutes total.
3) Analysis/Discussion:
In the analysis (also known as the discussion) portion, you look at the patterns found in your findings, and analyze the meanings of these patterns.
- What general conclusions can you make based on your data?
- What might your findings say about our culture or society?
- What messages are being sent about the subject group?
- How might the portrayal of the subject group impact the real people in this group? (For example, if you find that the elderly are portrayed as senile and asexual, how might this impact actual elderly people who view that media - e.g., sense of self)?
- How might the patterns you discovered impact others in society? (For example, if a heavy person never is a romantic lead, might that lead others in our society to dismiss heavy people as being sexually attractive?)
- Was there an underlying theme of ageism, racism, homophobia, or sexism, etc. depending upon your topic? If so, how? Explain.
- What general conclusions about your media of choice (tv show/commercials/etc.) and the portrayal of your subject group can you make based on your data?
- Please note, you did not need to answer all of the above questions. These are suggestions to get you started.
4) Conclusion:
The final part of your paper should be the conclusion. This is the time to wrap up your ideas and concluding thoughts.
📝 Paper Guidelines
- at least 4 pages (no cover page is necessary)
- double-spaced
- margins no more than one inch
- font no larger than 12 point
💡 Resources
Below is a link to a scholarly article. I've made some handwritten notes on it focusing on how a researcher wrote up her findings, analysis, and conclusions. I think you'll find this useful.
Article with Jill's NotesDownload Article with Jill's Notes
Please view this video about content analysis:
Please read these three examples of content analysis of documents online (adapted from ReviseSociology.com) .
- Boepple and Thompson (2014) conducted quantitative analysis of 21 ‘healthy living blogs’. Their sampling frame was only blogs which had received an award, and from those, they selected the blogs with the largest number of page views. They found that content emphasized appearance and disordered messages about food/ nutrition, with five bloggers using very negative language about being fat or overweight and four invoking admiration for being thin. They concluded that these blogs spread messages that are ‘potentially problematic’ for anyone changing their behavior on the basis of advice contained in them.
- Davis et al (2015) conducted an analysis of postings that followed a blog post concerning a cyberbullying suicide of a 15 year old named Amanda Todd. There were 1094 comments of which 482 contained stories about being bullied, 12% about cyberbullying, 75% about traditional bullying, the rest a mixture of both. The research found that the main reason victims of bullying are targeted is because they do not conform in one way or another to society’s mainstream norms and values, with the most common specific reason for bullying being a victim’s physical appearance.
- Humphries et al (2014) conducted content analysis on the kinds of personal information disclosed on Twitter. The authors collected an initial sample of users and they searched friends of this initial sample. In total the collected 101, ,069 tweets and took a random sample of 2100 tweets from this. One of their findings was that Twitter users not only share information about themselves, they frequently share information about others too.
Please read Sample Topics Download Sample Topicsto help you begin.
Please read a Sample Student Paper Download Sample Student Paper.
😳 Using AI for Brainstorming Ideas
What is this? I'm giving you permission to use AI (artificial intelligence)? Yes, yes, I am. Using AI to generate ideas is one of its most valuable resources. I'm not telling you to have AI write your paper (dear me, no!), but I am suggesting that you can use AI to help you get started - this is often the most difficult thing for students to do - to just Get Started.
So here are the very simple instructions if you're stuck for ideas for research.
Go to ChatGPT
https://chatgpt.com/Links to an external site.
Set up a free account.
Then, type this (or something similar) into the message box:
Brainstorm some research questions for the following assignment: Examine the portrayal of one of the following in media - the elderly people of color women LGBTQ+ the disabled (physically or mentally) those with mental illnesses body shaming: "too heavy"/"too thin" Choose one of the groups above and then examine how that group is portrayed in some form of media (for example, movies, television, commercials, advertising, social media, news sources). |
You'll note that I basically cut and pasted the first part of the assignment into the message box. I just want AI to help me come up with a good research question; one that I find interesting and one that I can complete soon. You can change your question to AI to make it more to your liking. For example, if you know you want to study Taylor Swift, mess around with your prompts to AI. Try it!
For example ask AI the following:
Brainstorm some research questions for the following assignment: For this assignment, you examine the portrayal of Taylor Swift in media - examine how she is portrayed in some form of media (for example, movies, television, commercials, advertising, social media, news sources). As an example, you could think about looking for signs of racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, or body shaming, or body positivity. |
I did and here are some of the research questions generated:
Sure, here are some research questions you could explore:
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