Thursday 11 June 2009

Q2: LOOK FOR THEMES/RECURRING ARGUMENTS TO STRUCTURE YOUR ANSWER

I included this point in an earlier post, but it is worth highlighting: when preparing a plan for your Q2, on what you found out, rather than listing what you found out, in sequence, from each secondary source then each stage of primary research, you could instead structure your essay around key themes you noted. For most research questions you'll have found arguments for and against - and perhaps some who insist there is no clear answer. Can you unpick separate strands from any of these positions? If you can list 5 or so key arguments/themes in your intro, you can then explore how your reading and primary research illustrate each point in turn - in doing this, each paragraph will be jumping between parts of your primary research and aspects of your secondary research.
This isn't essential, but will make for a more coherent essay.
As you do this, you gain an opportunity to cite/discuss some models of audience theory, e.g. pro-censorship opinion often implies an acceptance of the hypodermic syringe model, where the audience is ultra-passive and weak and the media all-powerful - or the two-step flow theory, where its social discussion of media one influential peer has consumed that spreads the influence of a still powerful media amongst still weak consumers (audiences), or even the Uses & Gratifications theory, wherein we, the active audience, use the media for our own ends (and accordingly then help shape the content the media puts out into the marketplace). Also tending to view the audience as fairly passive, and the media powerful, Hermann/Chomsky's propoganda model, with its five filters ensuring that the media act as a mouthpiece for the powers-that-be (society's elite; ruling class), as a key part in the process of creating and sustaining hegemony for their values - and (with flak, for example) ensuring that counter-hegemonic voices struggle to be heard at all or to get a fair hearing.

No comments:

Post a Comment