Brochure

Media Research Proposal and Pilot Study

First you need a title: it focuses the mind and keeps ideas to the minimum.
Any subtitle should explain exactly what you intend to do.

Employ the Grandmother test - if you can't/couldn't explain your research idea to your Grandmother in a few simple sentences then how will you be able to convey it to others?

The opening section of your proposalshould identify the topic that your plan to study. It offers a preliminary description of the topic and states why it is relevant or important to study it.

Your statement of topic relevance should be as clear and concise as possible. You should also explain a little about the reasons why you want to study this topic. You will also need to bear in mind the constraints of time and the resourcesyou would need to carry out the research. Ask yourself these questions about your chosen research topic:
Ask yourself:

• What type of research has been done in the area?

• What has been found in previous studies?

• What suggestions do other researchers make for further study?

• What has not been investigated?

• What research methods were used in previous studies?

1. LiteratureReview and contextualising the topic within existing research.
This section moves you beyond a simple statement of the topic into a review of the literature that already exists about your topic. Here there are several things you need to be aware of; first you need to be concerned with getting a broad survey of the relevant literature, or at least as broad a survey as you are able to develop on thebasis of the materials you have found/gathered such as a library or Internet search.
This involves identifying books, journal articles, archival materials, popular literature, etc that might be relevant to your study. Then you need to summarize how the literature has treated the topic. What approaches have been used to study the topic? What are the significant findings that can be drawn from theliterature? What seems to be/is obviously missing from the literature? This question is particularly relevant because it may provide you with the motivation for your own project since you are trying to contribute new knowledge rather than “reinventing the wheel”. At the very least, you should provide an annotated bibliography, i.e. a reference list with a short description about what each of thereference entries are about.

(2) Methodological considerations.

After identifying your topic, the relevant literature, you need to consider which method, or methods, are most appropriate for your study.

Will you use a quantitative survey, conduct focus groups, do a content analysis, interviews or field observations to conduct your study, and what makes one of these — or a combination ofthese — appropriate to the topic you have selected and defined?

Which method would give you the most information with the minimum effort?
Which method would give you the best information with the minimum effort?

Here you need to reflect on the features of particular methods that make them suitable for your research topic and also to consider the particular ways in which your methoddefines and sets boundaries around the topic.

Furthermore, it is also useful to identify “methodological debates” within the literature surrounding your topic and to consider how these may affect your own study – such as the advantages and disadvantages of your chosen methods.

After selecting a method and indicating its appropriateness to your topic, you need to

(a) indicate how you wouldemploy such a method and
(b) critically analyze the way such methods have been used by other authors.

The first step might involve showing what kind of sources you would draw on, what factors might shape your selection and access to such materials.

If you are going to do survey analysis, you will draw up a prototype of a questionnaire. You would also need to indicate how the questions asked...