Essay Principles of Sociology Assignment Content Analysis – Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task:

Task:

Principles of Sociology

Assignment 2: Content Analysis

Choose TWO of the media images that have been posted on Blackboard (under Assignments). Your aim is to analyze these advertisements sociologically by doing a content or frame analysis (see New Society, pp. 134-137). Treat the advertisement as a cultural artifact, produced by a cultural environment that takes for granted certain ideas and makes particular ways of being or acting normal.

Start by observing what you see here. What is in this image? Examine the words, objects, the bodies, the background, etc. – your aim is to figure out what they ‘make normal’. Your goal is to show how this object conveys assumptions that in turn become normalized as people view and read these advertisements. We want to show how certain ideas about gender, class, race, family, health, age, beauty, etc. are made visible through this very normal thing. We want to show how what we see here presents or represents cultural values, expectations and norms, etc. to those who look at it.

Here are some questions to consider:

What things do you see here? What symbolic links are made by putting all of these things on one page? What is connected in this advertisement (for example, a male body placed beside a car), and what are the consequences of making those connections? How is a version of gender or race or class (or family or age or health, etc.) established by this image?

What type of language is used here, and what are the consequences of those word choices? What ideas or expectations are invoked by those words? What do these words assume about men or women, or what do they take for granted about a particular ethnicity or racial group? What do they convey about family, or age, or what kinds of things do they suggest are essential for health or a good life?

Notice how the body or bodies are presented here. Consider the facial cues, the pose, what is worn on the body, etc. What do these cues normalize about the body, or what does this image present as an ‘ideal’ body? Does the advertisement or cover suggest ways for the reader to achieve this ideal?

If this object is part of a consumer culture, how do we see this? How do we know that this image is trying to sell us something? What visual cues convey this? How do we know that this is “mass” media, directed not only towards us individually, but towards a lot of different people? What does it suggest that the masses should be concerned about?

Finally, consider not only what is included in the advertisement, but also what is left out. What version of gender or race or class, or of family life, age, health, etc. is excluded? What might be some of the consequences of that exclusion?

Your aim is to show that you can sociologically analyze these advertisements. This means that you want to SHOW or UNCOVER the connection between what you see in these images and the ideas around gender, race, class, age, health, family, etc. that they take for granted. Your aim is to show how this advertisement, through its language, objects, visual cues, etc., makes visible or reproduces ‘normal’ values, beliefs, and expectations.

Note: In your paper you should identify the two advertisements from Blackboard that were chosen for your analysis