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). You could think about looking for signs of racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, or body shaming, or body positivity, for example.
Past researchers have looked for certain themes (i.e., research questions):
what kind of personal information do people share on twitter?
do people believe election results?
do most commenters have a negative view about being overweight?
You’re going to look for patterns. You should pick a certain kind of story or blog to examine and then read through the comments of that story. You may choose to research comments on other similar stories, or research comments on a story posted on CNN vs. Fox. What patterns can you find?
Your paper should include the following headings
Introduction/Methodology:
Begin your paper with an introduction to the topic or issue you’ll be discussing. This could involve explaining the context of the media story you’ve chosen and why it’s relevant or interesting.
Describe your methodology, which involves explaining how you gathered your data. Specify which online sources you used (e.g., digital newspaper, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit) and approximately how many comments you read and analyzed.
Clearly state your research question, which could be broad (using inductive reasoning) or specific (using deductive reasoning). For example, you could focus on identifying signs of racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, body shaming, or body positivity in the comments.
Findings:
After deciding on your topic, research question, and methodology, start examining the language used in the comments.
Look for patterns in the comments, such as whether they are predominantly negative or positive (being sure to define what you mean by “positive” and “negative”), if certain words or terms are used repeatedly, and whether there are indications of underlying prejudices like racism, sexism, ableism, or ageism.
Identify any patterns in the topics that are most commented upon, and provide percentages or counts to support your findings. For example, you could mention the percentage of comments in a specific category or topic.
Here is a brief example:
Researcher Joyce reads the Daily Mail (online gossip paper) every day for a week. She reads every story that relates to Meghan Markle and then examines the “most popular” comments in each story. She finds that 2/3rds of the comments posted each day on each story included racist terms or derogatory comments about Meghan Markle.
Analysis/Discussion:
In this section, analyze the patterns you found in your findings and discuss their meanings.
Draw general conclusions based on your data. Consider what the comments might reveal about our culture or society, what messages are being conveyed about the writers of the comments, and how the comments might impact the subjects of the comments (e.g., if they contain racism or sexism).
Reflect on the societal impact of the patterns you discovered. For instance, discuss how the prevalence of body-positive comments on a TikTok video might indicate societal attitudes towards differing body types, particularly among young people.
Conclusion:
Wrap up your paper with a conclusion where you summarize your ideas and concluding thoughts.
Ensure that you’ve addressed any points you brought up throughout the paper in a clear manner.
paper guideline:
3-4 pages (no cover page is necessary)
the four page suggested maximum is fine
double-spaced
margins no more than one inch
font no larger than 12 point
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