Ideas for Topics

1. Ideas for Topics Critical Research Study Unit 2734

2. The Topics • We are offering you a choice of the following topics: • Crime and the Media • Women and Film • World Cinema • TV Drama • Children and the Media

3. Crime and the Media • Crime Films/television series • True Crime magazines • Press representations of crime • News reporting of crime • Moral panics • Trial by the media • Media and public perceptions of crime

4. Some questions for Crime and the Media • How realistic is the portrayal of criminal activity in The Bill? • Do newspapers cast judgements on criminals and their activities? • To what extent did the press create a verdict on Michael Jackson before the trial had ended? • Does the media glorify crime?

5. Children and the Media • Use of children in media products • Media as educative • Research into effects theories • Children’s reception of media texts • Representations of childhood and gender • Children as participants in media productions.

6. Some questions for Children and the Media • Are children exploited when they are used for promoting products? • To what extent are children’s television programmes educational? • Do computer games have a negative impact on the mood of children? • Are teenage magazines appropriate for their audience?

7. Television Drama • Place of TV drama in the schedules • Representations of social groups • Drama series • Soap Operas • Literary adaptations • High culture versus Low culture • Audience reception of television drama

8. Some questions for TV Drama • Are soap operas a clear example of low culture? • Why are period dramas so popular? • How stereotypical are the representations of social groups in Waterloo Road? • Does the series 24 make an accurate portrayal of terrorism? • How have Lost and Desperate Housewives changed the fortunes of ABC?

9. Women and Film • Gender issues – equality of opportunity • Gender representation in films • Feminist critical perspectives • Audience reception • Films made for female audiences • Female responses to films • Films made by women

10. Some questions for Women and Film • How are women represented differently within the action movie genre? • Do female audiences have a different perspective to male ones? • To what extent are women portrayed merely for male gratification? • Is success in Hollywood dependent on gender.

11. World Cinema • Differences of context, audience and genre • Hybrids • Cultural independence • World cinema and politics • Cinema as an agent of social and political change

12. Some questions for World Cinema • How aware are UK audiences of the cinema of other countries? • How is the Bollywood movie typical of a cross-genre film? • The work of Pedro Almodovar • How are social hierarchies demonstrated within Indian Cinema? • How are women represented in Japanese Horror movies?