Developing Research and Analysis

Holly Butler, s2967605, COM15 Developing Research and Analytical Skills, Assignment 3 – Research Report

Contents

1. Contents Page
2. Executive Summary
3. Research Question
4. Research

5-6. Literature Review

7-8. Findings

9-10. Discussion

11. Conclusion

12-13. References

Executive Summary

Criminality is defined as “activities that are in violation of the laws of the state”. The research question is 'How is criminality represented on Drama television?'.

The Findings draw interesting points about criminality, forensics and television drama and the Discussion looks at three tv crime drama shows NCIS, CSI and Criminal Minds.

Research question:

'How is criminality represented on Drama television?'

Research

Research was obtained using Google Scholar through searching keywords relating to CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Cultivation Theory. Webster’s Online Dictionary was used to source definitions.

Literature Review

Criminality is defined by the Webster Dictionary (2014) as being “activities that are in violation of the laws of the state”, “the quality or state of being criminal” and “criminal activity”. It is represented in different ways, from the crime, to the criminal, to the people trying to catch the criminal, justice and the families affected by the crime.

Major themes that appear through all four readings within our topic list folder all seem to tie into Criminality and Drama Television. Klein, Romer, Ferguson

Klein (2011) states that ‘the educational potential of entertainment television has been acknowledged, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, through research into entertainment-education strategies, intersections of politics and popular media, and the mediated public sphere’ (p2). In her paper "Entertaining ideas: social issues in entertainment television”, Klein explores the research she gained through what is currently available on Entertainment Education and her own interviews. Initially, she examines the question of stereotypical perception of Educational Entertainment and how this has become linked with social perception. She then explores the research on three elements: Politics, Unconventional Television (relating to specific Television shows) and Social Perception in relation to Social Issues (Crimes Against Children, Disability and Immigration pp911-914). The final part of the argument concerns the initiation of the entertainment-education framework to discuss how it questions the predisposition of the viewing population to compartmentalize programs and the possibility that society is engaging ourselves to the notion of equality, establishes entertainment programming as being an extremely useful tool and here she states that more entertainment personnel need to step out of the conventional and into the unconventional. (p918)