YOU WILL USE THE CULTIVATION THEORY FOR THIS PAPER
You need to come up with a communication question before writing the paper.
- For this short paper, you will think about a communication question that you would be interested in trying toanswer, and propose one of the theories that we have looked at that relates to your topic/question of interest.
- You will also identify an appropriate research method and explain briefly how it can be used to help answeryour question. A suggested practice for this paper is given below.
• In real-life communication research, we don't look at topics randomly and tend to focus on ideas which have real-world implications; hence, often we are looking at problems which we can use theory to help try and solve. For the purpose of this assignment, I really just want to see you all think about the topics, theories and methods and come up with something novel (meaning something we haven't looked at specifically in the lecture videos, but which relates to the theories covered). Whether it's a problem or not isn't essential.
• In terms of the rubric, "description of problem" can be read as "description of context" or "description of scenario". The points that are available for that rubric item are ultimately looking at whether you clearly, concisely and effectively explain the context that you are looking to investigate. When you are writing any paper, you should never assume that your reader knows about something specific. To use an example that I'm borrowing from intercultural communication, if I wanted to investigate differences between American and Japanese people on conflict resolution styles, it would be a mistake not to explain the differences between individualist and collectivist people/cultures.
This activity is designed to have you engage with the following general competencies:
• Describe the cultivation theory briefly, highlighting its main components
• Identify elements of an existing theory which relate to a topic/question of interest to form a researchquestion or hypothesis
• Selectand justifya research method which you think can be used to provide support for your question
In terms of your question, it should not be a question which has been specifically looked at by thetheories in the readings or lecture videos - I want to see you think about something that could belooked at with theory. It does not matter if research has already been conducted on that questionelsewhere: you aren't expected to know the literature! The only thing that is off-limits arequestions we have specifically looked at. However, keep in mind that your papers are put throughplagiarism checks - original thought is required, even if it turns out someone has already asked aquestion you are interested in.
Your short paper should be 1-2 pages long, meaning that it must fill at leasta single page entirely, without spaces, and should not extend beyond 2.5 pages - this will be enforced.
Use APA formatting.