Ethnomethodology Essay Assignment Help

Ethnomethodology Essay Assignment Help

NOTE TO ESSAYPRO WRITER: Assignment is only one page as said in the instructions below. I inputed two pages because one of the “pages” needs to be the notes (described below). Please ask me if that is unclear or you have questions 🙂

Content Analysis

Your text reviews three methodologies for content analysis: quantitative, qualitative, and critical methodology. For your final assignment, you will perform a content analysis using something called the Bechdel test for Women in Movies. You will also have a second option that is based on the Bechdel test. Your result will be a one-page perfect paper, specifics below. You will also turn in your notes sheet where you tally and make jottings. This notes sheet can be a photo submitted of your notes. Notes can be messy and do not have a perfect format. Just take them.

Your text describes critical methodology as follows:

This methodology takes as its main task pointing out to the reader things they have likely not realized: the ways in which words and images are being used to fool, manipulate, or indoctrinate the audience. Critical methodologists seek to reveal the ways in which power operates in mundane ways without the audience even being aware of it. Thus, critical social scientists think of themselves as activists, but also as objective. While these two terms normally do not go together, for critical methodologists, they are not contradictory. Objectivity to the critical social scientist means questioning the taken for granted so that you are seeing things as they really are, rather than as what you have been led to believe. (Gordon 2015)

Usually in a content analysis we report what we do find. However, one of tactics critical methodologists can use to achieve their critical stance is by asking what is MISSING or what is not shown in their content analysis. Thinking about what is not in the content tells us what might be unexpected and out of the ordinary where the ordinary is how society is structured and taught to us as “Common Sense.” For example, what can be missing from a newscast is information pertinent to workers such as labor union news and legislation that might benefit them in terms of employer-sponsored healthcare, wage increases, and the gender pay gap. Generally, the news discusses business, stocks, and other human-interest stories, not worker rights. When is the last time you heard a business report include information specifically pertinent to workers?

Directions:

Your research question: Using the Bechdel test, how are women represented in film?
Choose a film that is current or no more than say three years old. Watch it.
View the brief video about the Bechdel test in the Readings and Videos folder. Also, check out this piece by 538 (click 538 for link). The piece by 538 goes way beyond the basic Bechdel, and that is okay. It will help you with this assignment.
Apply the Bechdel Test for Women in Films. This means that as you watch the film, take notes about each scene where there are least two women and no men in a scene together.
For each of those times there are at least two women and no men in the scene, what are the women talking about?
Do the women have names?
One more item I am adding. Do the women in the scenes without a man all look white? What do their race/ethnic categories appear to be?
Once you finish watching the film and taking notes about each of the items above for each scene that has at least two women and no men in them, then you will write a one-page perfect paper about the following:
How many scenes have at least two women and no men?
Do the women have names?
Were all the women in those scenes white?
In how many of those scenes did the women discuss men?
Describe anything else you found interesting that the women in scenes without men discussed .
First paragraph. State the research question (I have given this to you above) in your opening paragraph along with a brief description of your methodology (quantitative and qualitative) and methods and which film you viewed. Briefly state any limitations of your content analysis. Note: Methodology and methods are two different things.
Second paragraph – Report your findings based on the Bechdel test.
Third and final paragraph. Offer a brief, critical analysis of who and what is not represented in the film based on the Bechdel test. Are conversations about the topic of the movie excluded when only women talk? Are people of color missing? Which ones?
Read your papers out loud to catch grammatical errors and awkward sentences.
Include your notes behind the one-page perfect paper after a reference page if you cite any materials. Or, you can take a quick photo of your hand written notes to upload, too.

***VIDEOS that may help with assignment:
Lerum, Kari. 2014. Introduction to Content Analysis

The Bechdel Test fro Women in Movies is a video embedded in this page. Scroll down to find it.
Content Analysis