Week 9: Letting your research question guide you

This week you will focus on refining and mapping out a strategy to respond to your research question.

First, reflect. Reflect on the wording of your research question. Is it clear and concrete?

Second, define and contextualize. What key terms stated in your question do you need to define?  What events or ideas need to be explained for the readers?  Think through what ideas presented in the question need to be discussed and contextualized in order for you to fully investigate and respond to your questions

Third, consider memes.  Do your selected memes allow you to address and respond to your meme in a concrete way? How so exactly? Explain in detail.

Please write a narrative that addresses each of these area and provides a detailed explanation and rationale for your response.   Select three new memes from your sample and discuss in detail how point three relates to each.

Week 8: Creating a study sample

This week the focus in on creating a clear and comparative study sample of memes.  It is important to define your study parameter before you collect your memes.  Creating a meme study sample require: cohesion, consistency and clarity.

Cohesion-First you must clearly define the focus of your sample.   What traits must be present  each of the memes you collect that provides a justification for them being included in your sample.  Are you studying a certain stock character or event?  Are there specific people or images that should be present in all images?  What consistent themes or content should be mentioned in the text for it to be included in your study? Are you looking at memes posted on a certain site or platform? Do they all come from a set time period?

Consistency- It is important to clearly name and define the criteria you have chosen that will guide your selection.  This means not just stating the time frame/character/research site that you have selected, but explaining why you have made that selection.

Clarity-Consider how your research question creates boundaries for the kind of memes you will include or not include in your study. The criteria you select should be stated clearly, and you should be able to explain concretely how those factors will help you address your research question.

For this week you are asked to more explicitly explain your sampling strategy.  This includes naming and defining 3-5 criteria you will use. You should explain how those will be applied to your search strategy. Also provide a narrative about how those selection criteria will help you explore and answer your chosen research question. (Based on last week's feedback you might also need to revise your research question).

After you post your strategy you will apply it by identifying and recording 20 relevant memes and the web address of where they were located on a word document, to be sent to the course instructor.  Also post 3 of these memes, which you have not yet posted online, to your blog and explain how each matches the criteria and justification you have provided.

SAMPLE STUDY: Pope Memes on the Catholic Church & Sexual Abuse Scandal

In order to help model how to formulate a research study one memes I (Dr. Heidi Campbell) will be blogging over the next few weeks about a sample research study I am conducting on Pope Internet Memes. This case study is focused on discussion of the  Catholic Church  and the current sexual abuse allegations centering on the report released recently in Pennsylvania. Based on this I offer the following as an example of expanding on your research proposal with the template I have provided.

My research explores the theme of religion related to how Internet memes frame religious institutions in the midst of controversial situations.

This will be done by exploring how Pope Francis and the Catholic Church are being framed online through memes commenting on events related to the release of reports om the Child Sexual Abuse Controversy in the Catholic Church in 2018.

My proposed research question is: What messages and assumptions do Internet Memes communicate about religious institutions, specifically the Catholic Church, when featuring reactions to controversial events such as the Child Sexual Abuse Cover-up in the Church?

In order to answer this question, I will study 10 Internet memes related to how Pope Francis, as a representative and icon of the Catholic Church, is portrayed in relation to public responses to recent reports of child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania Diocese.

Memes will be selected on the basis of the following criteria: include an image of Pope Francis, appearing online in last 12 months, text reference most recent abuse controversy, and church's role or responsibility in these events.

The following 3 Internet memes provide examples of the types of memes I will be collecting and analyzing.  All three feature images of Pope Francis and commentary related to recent allegations about the Church's responses to the child sexual abuse scandal and have appearing online on different blogs in the last 6 months.  Each also highlight different narratives that seem to be promoted in this memetic discourse.

The first meme draws on a image of  Pope Francis which according to Knowyourmeme.com has become a stock character images associated with the current pope. It highlights Pope's supposed ignorance and lack of response to the current controversy.

The second meme uses an AP image of the Pope to challenge the Pope's pastoral response to Catholic clergy by evoking a theological narrative of mercy often used by the Pope to challenge his own action in the scandal.

The third meme uses a third image of the Pope remixed wearing meme stock character "scumbag Steve's" hat.  Scumbag Steve is used to highlight the clueless-ness and stupidity of the character. So this mash-up could be seen to communicate that the Pope's response to the scandal is ignorant and shows him to be contradictory, seemingly challenging his intelligence and handling of the situation.

All three of these memes highlight different critiques about the Church and the Pope, their authority and handling of the situation, which will be explored in more detail in my study.

Week 7: Refining Meme Research

In this week's blog post you are asked to refine your proposed meme research project.  First of all, you are asked to take into consideration any comments provided on your proposal in last week's post to help refine your topic.

Then, you are asked to consider more precisely what specific aspects of the themes of gender, race and/or religion you plan to explore.  You will do this by offering a brief description of the theme you will explore, what specific memes you will investigate in relation to this theme and offer a draft research question that focuses your work. Your narrative should follow this format:

My research explores the theme/s of...... related to......
My proposed research question is:
In order to answer this question, I will study 10 Internet memes related to....
Memes will be selected on the basis of the following criteria...

Please be as concrete, detailed and precise as possible in describing your research project area and the memes you will explore.  After you provide these details please post two new memes you plan to include in your study.  Briefly describe them and explain how each helps you address your chosen topic theme, research question and proposed meme sample.