In-Class Research Activity Ideas

On Tuesday, I asked you to suggest specific media topics you were most interested in exploring in our class research activity tomorrow. Here’s the list that resulted. I’m going to come up with a combination of items 1 and 3 – pop culture and music, plus issues of gender which a number of you mentioned – for us to examine.

What a great list of ideas you generated — I hope you’ll continue to pursue these questions in later assignments and classes! The whole list is below. Here are some links we’ll use in our research:

Your research ideas for our in-class project:

  1. Content/effects of pop culture, from various angles (politics, gender) (7)
  2. Sports coverage and its effects (e.g., on participation, of athlete product sponsorships, on team popularity) (7)
  3. Music’s content and effects (4)
  4. Coverage of religion in the media (2)

Other intriguing suggestions:

  • Media coverage of violent video games
  • Effects of media portrayals of homosexuality
  • Radio broadcasting
  • Book publication
  • How ratings affect audiences’ perception of specific media products
  • Reasons why some stories receive more coverage than others
  • Effects of YouTube videos on the audience
  • Effects of social networking
  • Media coverage of marijuana legalization
  • Independent magazines