Monday, September 23, 2013

Year 13 Critical Investigation Proposal

The next step in our Critical Investigations is to develop our presentations into detailed academic proposals. You will be given a one-to-one tutorial to help you find the right angle and issue to concentrate on but for now need to develop a blog post working through the following headings and tasks:

Working title

Include specific texts in the title and either 'how or 'why' or both, e.g.: To what extent and why are video games such as 'Call of Duty' and 'Grand Theft Auto’ becoming more violent?

Angle

E.g.: What impact are these increasingly violent games having on their audience? Is this simply a moral panic of the 21st century or is further regulation required?

Hypothesis

E.g.: Video games are psychologically damaging for young people, and audiences have become increasingly desensitised to screen violence.

Linked production piece

E.g.: Newsnight-style documentary video report looking at the impact of violent videogames on young people.

MIGRAIN

Apply the Key Concepts to your texts/topic by using the questions from the Summer Research Project to help you. (Include at least five bullet point/key concept). Include as many media keywords as you can.

SHEP

Apply the Wider Contexts to your text/topic, including at least three bullet points on each one.

Issues/Debates

Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using the Media A-Z to help you think about this:

  • Representation and stereotyping
  • Media effects
  • Reality TV
  • News Values
  • Moral Panics
  • Post 9/11 and the media
  • Ownership and control
  • Regulation and censorship
  • Media technology and the digital revolution – changing technologies in the 21st century
  • The effect of globalisation on the media


Theories

Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using keywords/specific theorists' names from the Media A-Z:

  • Semiotics
  • Structuralism and post-structuralism
  • Postmodernism and its critiques
  • Gender and ethnicity
  • Marxism and hegemony
  • Liberal Pluralism
  • Colonialism and Post-colonialism
  • Audience theories
  • Genre theories
  • Contemporary Media Landscape

Explain how your study fits into this.

Research plan (media texts, academic texts and websites)

Media texts
What your main focus will be, E.g.:
Call of Duty
Grand Theft Auto

Other media texts
(at least five related examples)

TV documentaries
Research videos online, e.g.:
BBC One - Panorama, Addicted to Games? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wlmj0

Academic texts/books
(a minimum of five, including author/full title/year, e.g.:)
Barrie Gunter: The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked (1998)
James Newman: Playing with videogames (2008)
Nancy Signorielli: Violence in the media: a reference handbook (2005)
Peter Vorderer, and Bryant Jennings: Playing video games: motives, responses, and consequences (2006)

Internet Links
1. At least FIVE from Media Guardian or Guardian Culture or another newspaper website.
2. At least FIVE from university websites/academic papers online. Use Google Scholar as a starting point.
3. Any other relevant sites/articles - the more the better.

Use last year's archive of previous top-grade Critical Investigations to help you.

You have two weeks to complete this detailed proposal before you need to start your research in depth. Good luck!

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