Either conduct a thematic analysis of the research interview of an opposition leader of a country known as Country-Land. The research interview is provided here. You must come up with a research question based on the interview data.

Assignment 2  (Research Report)

Assignment Brief

This assignment is worth 50% of the module grade.

Wordcount: 3000 words (excluding references and appendices).

For this assessment you are required to produce a research report based on one of the two options below. Choose only one option. 

Option One: Qualitative research (choose one of the two tasks)

Either conduct a thematic analysis of the research interview of an opposition leader of a country known as Country-Land. The research interview is provided here. You must come up with a research question based on the interview data.

Or collect news data or any type of media data of your own (this data should be in the form of media texts and not interviews or any method in which you engage human participants). You data should be from either a single media outlet or two. You should then carry out a thematic or any other qualitative analysis on the media representations of any of these: class, gender, race, or sexuality.

Option Two: Quantitative research

Conduct a quantitative content analysis based on the provided quantitative data. The data is about how three media outlets reported or covered the government and opposition political parties on Instagram in a country you will refer to as ‘State Land’.

Twenty-Four (24) content items were collected for analysis. You can find the data here. The data are explained below:

Content items: These are the news reports, commentaries and other contents collected from three media outlets’ Instagram pages. In total 24 content items were collected

Names of media outlets: These are the media publishers who own the Instagram platforms on which they published their media content, and on which the 24 content items were published. The three media outlets from which the content items were collected are: Daily File, Hustle Times, The Shout

Content type: This means the category of content, whether a news report, opinion piece, or promotional content (such as marketing, advertising or doing PR for a particular political party)

Content format: This is the format or media type of the content. This could be in video, audio, written text, or other formats

Main source or referent: This refers to the news/information sources, or those on whom the news or content item is focused, such as the government or the opposition. In other words, this means the subject of media coverage.

Stance of media outlet towards the source/referent: This refers to whether the media content reflected positively or negatively or was neutral in relation to the source/referent (that is, the government or opposition party).

Content focus: This refers to whether the media content raised a public issue or was based on personal matters (such as attacks on people’s private lives; etc.).

User engagement: This refers to user interactions with the content, and data was collected on four types of engagement: number of reactions (such as likes, etc.); comments; sharing of content by users to their networks; and views.

After checking through the data, you are required to come up with your own research topic and question(s) depending on which aspects of the data or variables you are interested in. You might, for instance, what to explore the relationship between content type and user engagement (this is just an example). You are required to undertake the following:

1.Create a codebook (or coding manual) for all of the data (all the 10 variables)

2.Enter the data in SPSS Statistics

3.Analyse the data/variables which are relevant to your research question(s). Your analysis should include the following:

• Descriptive statistics
• Exploring relationships between/among your chosen variables using any of the statistical techniques such as correlation, partial correlation, multiple regression, factor analysis, etc.)
• Any other relevant analysis 

FOR BOTH QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE REPORTS, you will need to do the following as part of the research report:

• Carry out a Literature Review.
• Formulate your research question(s).
• For quantitative research, you should also formulate a hypothesis or hypotheses
• Outline your methodological approach
• Structure your findings using the conventional research report style.
• Use the Harvard style of referencing.

Your report should have the following sections:

The word count for the report is 3000 words

By submitting you are declaring that your submission is entirely your own work. If you have cited from other sources or in any way included material that was not produced by yourself, those sources must be acknowledged. Failure to acknowledge where work is not your own may result in an allegation of academic misconduct. For more information, see `Assessment Offences and Academic Misconduct` on Ask Herts, together with the following guidance from Library SkillUP:

`Referencing: Why do it? Introduction`

`Academic Integrity`

`Why bother to acknowledge the work of others?` 

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

Generative AI tools may only be used in an assessment when you have been given explicit and specific permission in the assignment brief.  If you have not been given such permission, you must not use generative AI tools - to do so will constitute academic misconduct.  Even where permission has been given, you must still reference clearly any use of generative AI in the development of your submitted work. If you do not reference any use of generative AI tools, this will also constitute academic misconduct. If in any doubt, you should ask your tutor for advice. Full information on the University’s policy and guidance on generative AI use can be found here on Ask Herts. 

AI TOOLS ARE NOT PERMITTED FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT

Third-party assets 

No third-party assets

Ethics

The Ethics Committee must approve all coursework that involves ‘human participants’ (such as interviews, questionnaires or surveys, even where these are conducted among family/friends). Applications should be made to the committee at least two weeks before the start of a project.  Approved applications will receive a protocol number and this should be included as part of the module submission. If students undertake work that involves human subjects without the prior approval of the Ethics Committee they may incur an academic penalty. Guidance on how to make an application can be found on Ask Herts under More Information here. 

Risk Assessment

A risk assessments exercise may be required to be completed prior to undertaking some assignment work.  You can find information about Health and Safety on Ask Herts here.

A risk assessment is not required for this assignment.

How to Submit your work

Submit your work through the assignment submission portal

How your work will be assessed

Your work will be assessed against the assessment criteria in the rubric below.

GRADE DESCRIPTORS (Postgraduate reference scale to assist coarse-grained marking of individual pieces of work)

NOTE:  Tutors will refer to SCHOOL-LEVEL GRADING CRITERIA when assessing your work and determining an appropriate mark to award. You can see the School-Level Undergraduate Grading Criteria here.

Engagement by the student in all aspects of Teaching and Learning and Assessment are essential to ensure successful completion of the module, students with an OVERALL Module Grade below 50% will be offered the opportunity of a referral in the same academic year.

All students are advised to read the School’s STUDENT/PROGRAMMES HANDBOOK.  The handbook provides information concerning many aspects of study, including how to submit your coursework, how your work will be marked, late work, Exceptional Circumstances, key contacts for support, etc.. The Handbook is available on the Creative Arts Toolkit here.