Critical investigation tutorial 24/11/16

• Notes & Quotes document currently a problem – version in front of us is 800 words but USB problems (latest version is apparently 1,500). Either way, this is a long way short of where it needs to be. This may be largely due to lost work needing to be re-done… Always back your work up somewhere – blog, school drive etc. In terms of what you’ve got so far, fantastic selection of web articles which for EU-related stuff is always going to be the starting point. There is so much coverage of recent events that it will take a lot of time to read, select quotes and make notes on all the online coverage. However, we now desperately need to develop this with academic books and journal articles. The BFI trip will hopefully help with this but remember for such a recent topic your BFI list may be somewhat shorter than others.

• Textual Analysis – this was Task #1 and was due last week. Obviously this is tricky in terms of the subject matter but I would focus on newspaper front covers from the period of the referendum campaign and perhaps look at one cover from each of the major newspapers. This doesn’t necessarily need to be focused on young people – it may be equally interesting for, say, the Daily Mail and Telegraph to focus on how young people are excluded or marginalised from the coverage. The other option is to approach this from a totally different perspective and do a content analysis of the news coverage of the referendum. Further details: http://psc.dss.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/content/intro.htm

• Task #2 is academic research and bibliography. Good to hear you’ve started the bibliography but I’d like to see it on your blog to check the progress. Remember, EVERYTHING needs to go in there regardless of whether you end up quoting it in the essay. If you’ve read it or watched it – put it in the bibliography. One request: please export your bibliography and post it to your blog next time you do this. On the subject of watching stuff, I’d certainly check out some documentaries on Brexit – the BBC have done two (one before and one after the referendum).

• Vital website for you: http://ukandeu.ac.uk/research-papers/ 

• You may also want to read web articles on bias and news reporting and extrapolate from that thoughts regarding young people and politics: e.g. http://www.newstatesman.com/broadcast/2013/08/hard-evidence-how-biased-bbc or http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/10/broadcasters-were-biased-during-eu-referendum-campaign-not-way-you-think 

• In terms of academic research, you will hopefully get some good stuff from the BFI trip next week but there should be a good starting point in DF07 with recent purchases. The Contradictions of Media Power by Des Freedman; Media Regulation by Lunt and Livingstone; Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky (look for politics in the index); Power without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain by James Curran; Misunderstanding the Internet by James Curran, Natalie Fenton, Des Freedman (again, look for politics in the index).

• Also check out Google Scholar and journal article PDFs. E.g. http://www.academia.edu/download/37184279/Gerodimos_and_Ward_2007.pdf ; http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/13766/1/196453_HENNUninterestedYouth.pdf  ; there are 10 on political engagement on the M: drive so make sure you read every single one (even if it is just the first few pages and you ultimately reject – still goes in the bibliography!) 

• Last week’s task is historical text analysis – this also needs catching up on. Looking at previous general elections could work – famous ones like 1992 perhaps? You’ve also got the 1975 European referendum which you should read up on and obviously not so much historical but as a secondary text the Scottish referendum is a great idea (particularly the votes at 16 stuff).

• Tasks #1-3 – make sure you develop these urgently to move the word count up to and beyond 4,500. New task is essay plan that you can work on over the next week or so.

• LR: Copy this into a new blog post called ‘Critical Investigation tutorial’ and write the next three steps in your research below my feedback.