MDIA 4002 - Honours Media Research Methods

This course is designed to provide students with a range of advanced media methodologies and research frameworks to carry out sophisticated research. It focuses on research methods relevant to honours research and requires students to carry out activities that relate to contemporary media research and, where relevant, draw their major project dissertation or creative work closer to questions around research in the 21st Century. How do the methods we choose to perform our research shape the kinds of knowledge we produce? What kinds of insights can be gained through different methodologies? What are the politics and ethics of different research methods? What are the central themes of media discipline research and why? What role does previous literature play in ongoing research? How do you structure a research proposal? How do you find, and keep track of resources? How do you structure a literature review? How do you structure an argument? This course will be partly skills based and partly theoretical and will be closely integrated with student honours projects.