Media Representations Analysis Essay Template

Plagiarism statementpage 1

Textual/Visual/MultimodalAnalysis
of ["Title of Your Article/Image/Cartoon"]
by [Author A] in [Medium B]

Media Representations Analysis

[your name]

[date]

Essay Template

As used during our Media Representations Analysis Summer School
at Maastricht University

GeoMeans Analytical Skills Development
© Leonhardt van Efferink 2016

Check our website for more tools, our courses, reading lists and
the "Getting Started with Media Analysis" blog

GeoMeans Analytical Skills DevelopmentEssay Template© Leonhardt van Efferink2016

Plagiarism Statement and Disclaimerspage 1

Plagiarism statement

I, [your name], confirm that the work presented in this report is my own.Where information has been derived from other sources,I confirm that this has been indicated in the paper.

Disclaimers

GeoMeans Analytical Skills Development used this template during the Maastricht Summer School 2016.
At the request of Summer School participants, it is now released as a free download on the GeoMeans website.
This template is for educational/training purposes only. Trainer, lecturers and students may find it beneficial to use for their teaching/coursework.
Please feel free to change the template in line with your educational or analytical objectives.

GeoMeans Analytical Skills DevelopmentEssay Template© Leonhardt van Efferink2016

Table of Contentspage 1

Plagiarism statement

Disclamers

Table of Contents

1.My Theme, Concept and Article

a.Relevance of Theme

b.Relevance of Key Concept

c.Relevance of Article/Image/Cartoon

2.My Research Questions

a.Meta Question

b.Central Question

c.Operational Questions

3.My Method

a.A Broad Perspective

b.A Narrow Perspective

4.My Findings

5.Conclusion

6.Bibliography

7.Annexes

GeoMeans Analytical Skills DevelopmentEssay Template© Leonhardt van Efferink2016

[your name][essay title]page 1

1.My Theme, Concept and Article

a.Relevance of Theme

Once you start writing a section, you can delete all my suggestions in it. It may be a good idea to save this file and then save it once more under another name. The latter file then functions as your working document and final document, while you can still use the original document to check my writing instructions.

Why have you chosen the theme? How does it relate to your personal/professional interests? Why does it matter to your society, to your discipline or to human kind?

[answering these questions helps you formulate the meta-question]

E.g. women rights

b.Relevance of Key Concept

What is a key (academic) concept in your theme? How would you define this concept? Which words, grammatical structures and visual building blocks do (implicitly) refer this concept?

[answering these questions help you formulate the central research question and the operational questions]

E.g. power

c.Relevance of Article/Image/Cartoon

Why have you selected a particular representation (or two representations)? What makes it a relevant "vehicle of meaning"? How does it relate to your theme? What can it teach us about your key concept in a particular context?

[answering these questions help you formulate the central research question]

2.My Research Questions

a.Meta Question

Meta research questions make clear why your research is relevant to the world, your society or your discipline.

b.Central Question

The central research question makes clear what your research is trying to achieve. For this course, I would recommend to refer directly to your article/image/cartoon, to include your key concept and to use a word referring explicitly or implicitly to meaning-making processes.

How does central question follow from meta question?

c.Operational Questions

Operational research questions make clear how the central research question can be linked to your concepts and methods. By answering these ‘smaller and less abstract’ questions, you can indirectly answer the central question.

How do operational questions help to answer the central question?

Do you see the need to define sub-operational questions?

3.My Method

a.A Broad Perspective

Why have you selected critical discourse analysis, social semiotics, framing analysis or a combination of two of them? What are the analytical strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

b.A Narrow Perspective

Do you follow an interpretation of the method of one particular scholar?E.g. Van Dijk, Richardson, Entman and so on.

How does this scholar define the concept that is pivotal in her/his approach? E.g. discourse, a sign/semiotic resource or a frame?

What are its key characteristics? Why is this specific approach useful to interpret your data?

How you do use your method specifically? How does your approach help you to interpret textual and/or visual elements?

4.My Findings

Analyse the text(s)/image/cartoon(s) by means of your operational questions

5.Conclusion

Summary of the answers to the your operational questions

Use these answers to formulate an answer the question to your central question

Reflect on this answer in more abstract terms (on a larger scale), referring to your meta question

What are the surprising aspects of your findings?

How does your own background affect these findings?

What are other possible weaknesses of your findings?

What questions do your findings raise, suggesting a possibility for further research?

6.Bibliography

Mention all your sources here. Make sure to prevent plagiarism!

7.Annexes

Please copy the text of your article(s) and/or your image(s) to this annex.

Essay Template

As used during our Media Representations Analysis Summer School
at Maastricht University

GeoMeans Analytical Skills Development
© Leonhardt van Efferink 2016

Check our website for more tools, our courses, reading lists and
the "Getting Started with Media Analysis" blog