Blog 9- Group work evaluation and overall experience

Looking back at the last few months, I feel my group worked well together and was successful in achieving the end goal of producing a poster on a research project.  I think this was largely due to the individuals that were in my group.  Each member was motivated and I know they are all good students who get their work done.  This definitely helped to get me motivated to get the work done, and not just put it off until a later date.
When we first started the assignment, decisions were made relatively quickly as to who would be analysing which magazine and this helped us get off to a positive start.
As we were each analysing one magazine, at this point the workload was fairly equal.

However, problems that began to emerge were once we had analysed our individual magazines and we had finished having time in class to complete the work.  Finding time between differing timetables, living apart and work commitments was difficult, however we found that once we had met up a couple of times there was no real need to keep meeting up as we all had something we could work on individually.  One other issue that arose was once we had done our individual analysis, creating the graphs and the poster itself were two main jobs that needed doing, and without being able to meet up to do these as a group the jobs fell on to one person to complete.

Another slight problem that we encountered was gaining another member midway through the process of our research.  As we were a considerable way through we had to bring this person up to speed with everything we had done up until that point and also explain our decision making process and reasons behind choosing this particular research topic.  However, after a couple of weeks in our group, we had no contact from this person and so we had to make the decision to continue on our work as just our original group.

When it got to the actual performance, I felt that overall it was successful.  Although we all suffered from some degree of nerves, we delivered our research clearly and fluently.  I also think that our presentation was a suitable length to avoid our audience becoming bored or losing interest and concentration whilst we were talking and the content that we discussed was easy to follow.

Blog 8- Looking ahead to dissertations

In preparation for third year we have been asked to complete a dissertation proposal, which means knowing what we want to spend next year writing 10,000 words about.

Over the last 18 months I have had several ideas about what I could do for this, but each one I have dismissed shortly after thinking it.

I have decided to do my dissertation on cross cultural analysis of violence against women.  I wish to look at the different experiences of women in other cultures, and also look at the cultures in this country and how issues that some may not think are present here, in fact are. I also wish to consider the perceptions of this treatment within these cultures, whether it is behaviour that is common and acceptable, or whether it goes against the norms and is something that happens in private.  I want to consider the effects this has on women and if there is any research into how they feel about this.

Some themes that I have particular interest in that I wish to look at are female circumcision (or female genital mutilation) and also honour killings, as this is a frequent topic of news in this country, and female circumcision is something that many people do not expect to happen in the UK but it does happen, in some communities. 

I have undertaken some introductory research into female genital mutilation.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) the definition of female genital mutilation is 

"Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” (2007)

WHO also states that FGM is: Known to be performed in 28 African countries, and several Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Some forms of the practice have been documented in some Central and South American countries.

The reaons for it can vary greatly.  Some women of the upper class in Paris choose to be circumcised because it increases sexual pleasure, although it is against the law in France some hospitals carry out the operation

Other reasons aren't necessarily by personal choice. Non-excised girls often ridiculed and ostracised and unexcised girls will stand no chance of marriage (Dorkenoo, 1994 :35)

As for occurrences in the UK, it is estimated that 74,000 women in have undergone FGM and 7000 girls under the age of 6 are at high risk (Dept. for Education and Skills, DOH, 2007).

Dorkenoo, E. (1994) Cutting the Rose- Female Genital Mutilation: The practice and its prevention. London: Minority Rights

World Health Organisation 2007

Blog 7- Berlin

On the 11th of April, I took part in a visit to Berlin with the university. Whilst it was only a short visit, it was a really interesting and educational experience.
Having never been to Germany, I had no idea what to expect.  And having never been abroad with school, college or university, I didn't know what to expect from that side of things.
However,  both areas exceeded any expectations I could have had!

Whilst there we filled our days with tours including the Berlin Dom Cathedral, and the Memorial for the murdered Jews, which was a little emotional to say the least.  We walked for what felt like forever at times, attempted to figure out the trains, and explored East and West Berlin.

On the first evening, we went and explored a local club, which was possibly the best place I've ever been to in my entire life.  Possible exaggeration there, but it was pretty good.  When we first got inside, i wasn't overly impressed, a small room with a bar- looked pretty standard to me.  But then that room led to another room, and to 2 more, and 3 more, and then... there was a pool. A pool? Yes. Why? I honestly have no idea.   But I was amazed. Needless to say, that was a very fun night- but we didn't go for a swim.

The second evening we stayed with a big group and went and ventured on the train to explore the gay bar district.  We were told that some bars would not let us ladies in as they were exclusively for men!  After my outrage, we found a small bar that would let us in, however, for some reason when we arrived the bar very quickly emptied.  I'm sure there was no coincidence.  People just realised they all had to be somewhere. Or they told their friend they would meet them.. Or something!!

When it came to the last day, we all decided to travel together and visit Charlottenburg castle.  However, after taking  an hour to be served food, most of the group lost all energy and motivation, after the 2 long days previously.  So we opted for not moving and drinking cocktails. I blame Trish completely, but a wise decision I'm sure you'll agree, and a perfect way to end our 3 day trip.

So, New York next year? 

Blog 6- Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets".
Twitter was created in March 2006 and rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 500 million registered users as of 2012, generating over 340 million tweets daily and handling over 1.6billion search queries per day.

Twitter is the preferred social media site for many, including celebrities, who want to share SMS-type messages with a multitude of people worldwide.  
However, whatever its original intended function and purpose, Twitter is becoming much more than just a site where individuals share trivial daily thoughts.  Twitter is fast becoming many people's main source of news and updates of major global events.
https://blog.twitter.com/2008/twitter-news-wire
Because of the rate at which people across the world tweet and share information, it is very often the first place news is discovered, before most people get the chance to pick up a newspaper or turn on the television, they have already had 'x' amount of updates that can now even be accessed on the go on a phone- making it even quicker and easier to get information.


Twitter is not only useful for news and entertainment purposes, but also can be used as part of research.  Whilst in class, we were shown how to complete searches to find recently tweeted or trending information related to what we were researching, such as "women's rights", and then you can follow pages and link them to your news feed on Tweet deck. 
This can be a really useful tool for finding information, it comes to your direct, and it can be very quick and convenient.  It is making use of one of the most popular social networking sites for academic purposes, and so is a new and modern way of researching.
However, for the average person, and including myself, it can be confusing to set up and start the searches, and then save them, and follow them, and link them, and and and.... etc! I think this is something that perhaps puts off a lot of people from using this method- if it seems to hard, or you aren't sure what to do, there's always Google!

http://www.russellwebster.com/qualitativeresearch-using-social-media-for-social-research/
The author of this blog discusses using Twitter actually as part of social research, as a modern alternative to questionnaires or surveys, for example, as the character limit on tweets prevents answers being too long but allows for some more meaning and information.  I found this to be a really interesting concept, to combine two things together in such a way that could provide interesting results.

Blog 5- Group work update

After selecting my chosen magazine of Women's Health, I have undertaken further analysis and highlighted key themes and issues relating to our research question.
As a group we have discussed the themes that have risen and decided to link our research to theorists such as Rich, Gauntlett and Butler.

We have decided to examine certain aspects of the magazines, such as the number of sexual images, or topics on pages for example, and collate the data into graphs that can be easily read and presented on our final posters.

However, Women's Health has come to be a point of contrast, as it hasn't fit the framework for our graphs.

Women's Health magazine is one magazine, like Shout, that we looked at for comparative analysis, as we did not come to the same conclusions.
The magazine is primarily a health and well-being magazine aimed at women to help them 'feel great about themselves'.
One theorist who discusses issues in women's magazines is Gauntlett (2008) who suggests that there is a 'common assumption that women's magazines are all about "How to get a man"', and this is something we have found in our research so far.
Whilst not a dominant feature in Women's Health it is certainly present, although only in a few features, and so supporting the idea of normative heterosexuality.
The are pages dedicated to knowing how to please your man, based on a typical heterosexual image, with women perfecting themselves to appeal to men.
Similar to the other magazines analysed, Women's Health contains no examples of sexuality in any other sense, such as homosexual. In contrast to the other magazines, it contains significantly less sexual imagery and content.  There were in fact no examples of sexual images however there were only two examples of sexual topics in articles.

Reasons to explain this contrast between portrayals of sexuality in the magazines could be explained by class, and barriers that are created within the styles. Women's Health seems to be a magazine that is aimed more at middle class females.  The language used in the main articles and the content of the magazine supports this, with no trivial gossip sections and advertisements for particular health and sports products that are relatively expensive.

Reference:
Gauntlett, D. (2008) Media, Gender and Identity. London: Routledge

Further reading:
Moran, C. Lee, C. (2010) On His Terms: Representations of sexuality in women's magazines and the implications for negotiating safe sex, Psychology and Sexuality, 2011 Volume 2, Issue 2:159-180
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble London: Routledge
Rich, A. (1980) Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, Signs, Volume 5, Issue 4: 631-660

Blog 4- Beginning group work

Within our group we have been tasked with deciding a topic on which we shall form a research question and produce a poster with our findings and conclusions.

I was a late addition to my group, but it now consists of Deborah England, Kerry Williams, Kirstie Blaik, Kristian Leech and myself.

When I joined the group, the question had already been decided, however, this suited me well as the topic is something I have been interested in throughout the course of my two years as an undergraduate sociology student. The question decided on was: To what extent is heterosexuality portrayed as the only legitimate form of sexuality in various forms of media including film, TV and magazines?

I have found it very interesting exploring  the effects media has on society and the extraordinary power it holds over us all in some form.  I also produced a presentation in my first year which featured issues of sexuality and women's portrayal in the media and I felt this topic was a step on from this.

After discussion, it was decided that this would be quite vague and too broad of a question for us to answer, and in the time we had available.

So as a result, the question was narrowed down to just magazines, which we felt was a good choose of media to analyse.

A selection of magazines were chosen to be analysed with varied styles and target audiences.  An alternative magazine, a men's magazine, a stereotypical women's magazine, a teen magazine and Women's Health.

Newsstand.co.uk provides this description of what the magazine is:

If you’ve ever felt that you want to live a healthy life but don’t quite know how, then we recommend a copy of this magazine immediately. Written in a familiar, friendly style, Women’s Health magazine covers love, life, food, exercise and fashion. There’s almost no need to have any other magazines, this one has got you covered in every walk of life.

Nowadays living is a full-time occupation. Wait a minute, don’t laugh, we’re not being ridiculous. Whereas in the past people seemed to have just existed, care-free, not worrying about calories, exercise or getting their five a day, in modern times you can barely move for advice on how to live your life. But is this having any effect?

Recently there was some news that suggested that the first person to live to two hundred years old had likely already been born. It is certainly true that medical science has advanced wonderfully, bringing cures to diseases and extending our natural lifespan through to almost 80. That’s a far cry from medieval times, when anyone over 50 was considered a venerable fellow.

Living right means a lot of different things to different people. Eating healthily, exercising and many other factors all play their part. But what magazines such as Women’s Health allow you to do is live your life so that you enjoy it and feel great about yourself. After all, who doesn’t want to look as fantastic as Kate Beckinsale at 38, or Orlando Bloom at 35 (where has the time gone?)? Grab a copy of Women’s Health and feel good about yourself as you change your lifestyle for the better!

Although we narrowed the question down to just cover magazines, if time permits it could be interesting and useful to examine other sources, such as films and literature as a point of comparison, as there is a considerable amount of research on heterosexuality in books alone.

I am very much looking forward to working on the project with this group, as I know that each member is a hard worker and will put in a lot of effort.  I anticipate that we may encounter some issues along the way but I suspect this will mainly be finding time outside of allocated class time to meet and work on the poster.