The first source I look at, "Images of Couples and Families in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films," made use of a content analysis. Their results section had a lot of information in it, however, it was broken down by the different thematic elements of the family analyzed. The first section was about family, the second about parents, and so on. Each section was further divided based on information like who comprised the family or which parents were present. Then in these more specific sections, statistics were given to report information about the different structures. This is useful when thinking about my paper because I have SO MANY moving parts. On the surface level, this reminded me subtopics are very useful. More importantly, it helped me start thinking about breaking my information up into digestible pieces that relate to a theme. As in, it probably is not useful to hear that Belle had 16 instances of authority traits, but instead I can group characters together to say something like a percent of mother were submissive which is greater than the percent authoritative, and do this for each category.
Again, Subtopics seemed extremely useful in "Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/ Pixar." As this one is a thematic analysis, there was a lot of deep interaction with fewer numbers of movies, but the bottom line was that there was a subtopic for the type of theme being discussed, and some evidence displayed about the themes found in each movie analyzed. Similarities were drawn between the themes of the movies, however, the themes did not fully interact until the conclusion of the paper. So while I need to draw some more connections between the content and thematic analysis, I still think it is useful to see that this paper was successful in drawing meaningful conclusions when the themes were very separate from each other.
Unlike the other two sources, "Gender Role Portrayal and the Disney Princesses" made use of a table to exemplify the data collected of each prince and princess. Next there were tables that presented the statistics used to analyze the data, in this case it was the percent of behaviors of princes versus princesses. The written results section then focused more on the big picture statistics (the overall percentage of behaviors) and how statistically significant this was. Then it pulled out the most common and least common, the determined most interesting things to look at for the characters. This organization can be related to mine in that I can use tables to organize my data, and also my results. I have a lot of numbers, so I think this is the best way to organize all of the information without having to state each specific character and movie. Instead then in the written portion I can focus on the movies as a whole set.
To bring these three examples together, I see myself breaking my results two sections: the family structure versus the thematic analysis of parental control over a child's future. The family structure will be reported using tables of information. Then, I will pull out overall statistics and use subtopics to talk about power dynamics and gender personalities. Next, the thematic analysis will be broken down into smaller subtopics: rejecting or accepting parental ideals, and the success of the child in following chosen path. Finally, these two parts will come together in an overall conclusion for each movie in the form of two tables with two columns. The first table is for movies that fit Marxist family structures, the second for ones that do not. The first column in each table is the name of movie, and the second column is the overall theme for the parental control on the child's future aspect. This highlights specifically that the only movie to fit family structure also displayed an acceptance of parental ideals for the child. The Lion King was one of only movies to show this, while the rest of the movies showed some type of change between the parental or child control over their lives.
I am sorry this was so long but I think it was helpful looking at these sources to get a better picture for my own research. I look forward to the progression of my paper and conclusions!
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Hey Grace! So I am not quite as familiar with your project as the people in the 3rd period class are, but, from what I know about it, it seems pretty interesting. I usually don't pick up on the subliminal or unintentional messages put in movies or TV shows, but I always think that it is pretty interesting when someone points out something that I otherwise would have missed. Now, I know that there is a pretty big distinction between TV show conspiracy theories and the research that you are doing, but I am regardless interested in seeing what you find!
ReplyDeleteAnyways, onto your results section. I think that breaking everything into subtopics is a great idea. For the thematic analysis, although I don't know how many themes that you identified, I think it will be important to address each one independently before synthesizing the meaning of all of this in your discussion. Also, just make sure not to include too many tables or else the reader might feel overwhelmed with everything being presented to them. Keep up the great work!
Hey Grace! I've heard a lot of good things about your project, so I'm super excited to see what you find out! I definitely think that subtopics are going to be really important in your results section. I'm not exactly sure how many movies you're analyzing, but I can imagine that the amount of information you're working with must be huge. I also think that having tables will make your data easier to read. Since there are so many interesting features in your analysis, this'll definitely make it easier for you to emphasize the main points. Overall, I think you're doing really great!!
ReplyDeleteHey Grace!
ReplyDeleteI think, because as you said your research has so many parts to it that it can be sort of overwhelming, breaking the power dynamics and gender personalities section down into subtopics is your best option. I think also additionally having tables to break up the wording could further provide some clarity for the reader, without confusing them with too much information. Do you know how you are going to order the themes you look at? I think having that table with general trending themes of each movie would be a really concise way of presenting information rather than in huge paragraphs, while allowing the reader to visually compare the movies to each other. Make sure you have transitions between each subtopic that connect back to the greater purpose of your research and do not let the smaller conclusions about each theme or specific characters drown out the final answer to your question.
I think the way you outlined how you are going to present your results in the last paragraph of this post sounds pretty logical and clear. You're doing awesome!
I really like what you talked about in discussing the power and gender profiles in each family that you analyzed, and I'm afraid that the discussion we had on Monday might force you to lose some of that. As in, if you just use the gender and authority part to divide the movies up into two categories, some of the nuances are going to be brushed over. Is there a way we can preserve that while still making it clear and moving forward in the results?
ReplyDelete