The Impact of Negative Political Campaigns on Democracy: Investigating Media Effects using Mass Comm

Assignment 1 - Final Research Paper Proposal

Task:

For your final project, you will use a mass communication theory to investigate a media effect(s) and write a 6-8-page, double-spaced, APA-formatted paper. Assignment 1 - Final Research Paper Proposal

Do negative political campaigns affect democracy?
Once you have investigated the research questions and decided which one you want to pursue, write the 2-page research topic proposal essay or memo to your instructor in which you include the following elements:

1.Re-state the research question that you want to pursue;
2.Explain why the question interests you;
3.List at least 5 things you already know about the topics-;
4.List at least 5 things you need to find out about the topic and
5.State what your proposed thesis or position statement will be on that topic.

Your thesis must take a position on the research question that you select based not on personal experience, but rather on what you know or learn about your topic from Googling it in Google Scholar or from readings in the classroom’s Course Resources. Be sure to include APA citations and an APA Reference page in your paper.

Assignment 2 – Mass Communication Theory Literature Review
 
Your final research paper for this class must be related to mass communication theory. For this assignment, you will conduct a relevant literature review to discover the mass communication theory that you will use in your final paper. In your literature review, you should also discuss the pros and the cons of each resource against the other resources you include.
?Begin by using the university library's Encyclopedia of Communication Theory to investigate whether any of these mass communication theories relate to your paper's research question.
?Once you have reviewed the theories, select one mass communication theory that appears to be related to your paper's research question.
?Using UMGC's library resources, locate three academic journal articles about your theory. This resource can help you find academic journal articles in our library's collection. You will need these journals for your final paper.
Academic journal articles are reports of previous research on your topic area published in journals for an academic field. Academic journals ARE NOT books, business, trade, or general circulation magazines, newspaper articles, or information found on general websites. The "scholarly journals only" One-search function on the library's Research Guide for COMM 302 web page can help you find academic journals appropriate for your topic.

Based on what you learn, write a 2-page, double-spaced essay in which you explain how the mass communication theory that you have chosen relates to your final paper's research question.
Do not merely summarize the three articles about the theory that you selected. Instead, synthesize what you learned by giving enough information about each article (e.g., its purpose, its study results, how it explains a mass communication behavior or media effect, etc.) so that readers will understand your argument for how/why using the article would inform and support your use of the theory in your final paper for this class. You will be graded on your argument, not on your ability to paraphrase what is written in the articles.
 
Your final research paper will need to reflect careful research on your topic. For this assignment, you will find three relevant, credible, current, and authoritative sources that you can use in your final research paper in support of your thesis or position statement on your research question. These must not be the same resources you used for your mass communication theory literature review. Focus on the media effects issue(s) of your research question.
You will summarize these resources to create an analytical or critical annotated bibliography according to the guidelines explained in this video tutorial from the university's library.

Assignment 2 - Mass Communication Theory Literature Review

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and other resources used for some research purposes. Each entry includes a citation that provides publication information on a source, followed by a brief descriptive and evaluative paragraph or annotation that describes the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the source.

Find three sources of relevant, credible, current, and authoritative sources of information that you can use in your final research paper to support your thesis or position paper. Review this resource from the Effective Writing Center to learn how to evaluate the authority and credibility of sources you think may be appropriate for your final research paper.

Once you have summarized your final project's purpose, refined thesis or position statement, and the progress you have made toward completing the paper, you must present your annotated bibliography for the three sources.
For each resource:

1.Start the annotation with a complete publication reference for the source, formatted according to the latest edition of the American Psychological Association's style rules. You will find guidance and examples in our library's resources at this page .
Describes the purpose of the work
Summarizes the resource's content, including its main arguments and conclusions
Describes the type of audience for which the work was written
Describes its author(s)
Evaluates and explains how the information's relevance to your research question
Describes any special or unique features about the material
Evaluates and explains the information's strengths, weaknesses or biases
Explains how you will use its information in your research paper

This editorial from the Economist describes the controversy surrounding video games and the effect they have on people who use them. The article points out that most critics of gaming are people over 40 and it is an issue of age not of the games themselves. While the author briefly mentions studies done around the issue of violence and gaming, he does not go into enough depth for the reader to truly know the range of studies that have actually been done in this area, other than to take his word that the research is unsatisfactory. The author of this article stresses the age factor over violence as the real reason for opposition to video games and stresses the good gaming has done in most areas of human life. This article is a good resource for those wanting to begin to explore the controversy surrounding video games, however for anyone doing serious research, one should actually examine some of the research studies that have been done in this area rather than simply take the author's word that opposition to video games is simply due to an issue of generational divide.

Please pay particular attention to the last sentence in the above annotation. It criticizes the author's research.

Arrange your three citations alphabetically with their annotations. Final Research Paper

For your final project, you will write a 6-8-page, double-spaced, APA-formatted, scholarly research paper one of the following research questions:

1.Do negative political campaigns affect democracy?

2.Your paper should clearly state your position on/conclusions about the media effects issue posed in your research question, supported by researched evidence and reasons, including at least one relevant mass communication theory studied in this course. It should be 6-8 pages in length and employ 6-10 credible and authoritative resources, of which at least three must be peer-reviewed, scholarly journals. Its ideas must be properly documented with in-text citations and an end-of-text reference list that conform to the American Psychological Association’s style rules.

3.Specific quotations must be employed, properly integrated into the paper as direct quotes, summaries, or paraphrases, direct quotes, summaries, or paraphrases accompanied by in-text citations that reflect American Psychological Association style rules. No more than three of the direct quotes may be long block quotes. The sources may not include general websites, blogs, Wikipedia, or wiki-type materials.

4.Your paper must be carefully edited and proofread. The paper also should follow the general American Psychological Association manuscript rules and be double-spaced with a title page.