Description

Content Analysis Assignment: Commercials, Commercials, Commercials

The complaints about too many commercials on radio and TV stations continue to increase.  Some people say that it seems as though about 50% of a program consists of commercials.  Conduct a content analysis of one or more hours of two different radio or TV programs to determine how many minutes of commercials are included in a typical program.

Your project should include a section on 1) how you selected your program(s) [sampling], 2) a statement of what you believe to be your unit of analysis, 3) your coding scheme with how you measured your variables, 4) your results, and 5) your summary analysis.  You can present the results of your observations in a table that enables comparison.

Please do not look up random commercials that have been analyzed.

Do NOT write a literature review of the content analysis of this assignment. Do NOT write a literature review based on someone else's work.

Watch two different shows and log down the commercials presented within those shows.  A log is attached. 

Step 1:  Select a channel to watch.  For example, select channel 4.  

Step 2:  Begin watching a show beginning to end.  If the show ends in an hour.  Then watch another show from beginning to end.

You need to watch a minimum of two hours of television.

Step 3: Record information about those commercials seen within the two-hour period of watching television.

 ---Record:  Time commercial went on

                         Length of commercial

                          Observations of each commercial

Instructor's Advice:

Hi Folks, I'm getting a lot of questions as to how might you go about recording your observations as part of the content analysis assignment. There's a couple of things going on with the assignment. The first is that you are doing "science" rather than other "every day" ways of knowing. The big difference is that in scientific ways of knowing you need to be aware of what you are looking to see and you need to be able to record those observations to be used as evidence in a claim about the nature of commercials in media content. The second thing going on with this assignment was a bit too hidden. It has to do with logging media content. One of the first tasks you will be asked to do as you begin a career in the electronic media is to log or make a series of recorded observations about media content. Sometimes these logging systems are part of the asset management system of the company or part of specific software packages like ProTools or Premiere. The simplest logging system is done with a paper and pencil. Basically I'm asking you to log 2 hours of media content looking for information about the commercials during those hours. How you create a log (a record of your observations) is up to you. I don't want you to include your log in the assignment. I want you to REPORT to me what you learned from the examination of the logs. To give you an idea of what a paper and pencil log might look like I've uploaded and sample blank log from my Concert Hall Recording class. The idea of this log is for the production assistant to make a paper and pencil log of what was recorded during the concert. That log can then be used by the producer to select content for the eventual program that will be produced. Maybe you can adapt it for this assignment? Again, not required. I do not want you to do a literature review for the content analysis assignment. Focus on method, results, and discussion. You should have an introduction, body and conclusion (duh, good writing) and if you can format the paper in APA style it would be awesome.

Instruction Files