Summary: For this assignment, you will experience parts of the archival research process by scouring the archives for clues about cultural change. This hunt begins by finding advertisements in print from magazines, newspapers, or other media. You will need a total of six ads from six different decades. Try to make your research as specific as possible by choosing one product and manufacturer.
If you use printed resources, provide brief bibliographic data like source, year, and author if available. If you use electronic resources, include the URL and retrieval date of the resource as an addendum? to your paper. These references will not count toward your two page maximum. Failure to do the above will result in my treatment of the advertisement as missing. You should not include your ads within the text of your paper. This paper may be no more than 2 pages, must adhere to the guidelines for written work in the syllabus, and does not require any extra outside reading. Single-spaced papers will not be accepted.
Observations: Describe your archival data. Make sure that your observations are rich enough to support your responses to speculations below. You may want to detail the following:
(1) Notice the people in the ad. Based on what they are wearing or what they are carrying, what might they be doing, and what norms or values are expressed? If people are not in the ad, explain who you think the ad is intended for. What norms do they abide by? Which symbols have meaning?
(2) Notice the ages, genders, class status, and race/ethnicity of people in the ad. Who seems to be in ads, and does this change at different points in time?
(3) Notice the design elements of the ad. What do the taglines tell you about the intended audience for the ad? What types of norms and values do these taglines promote or uphold? How is language used? How is space used?
Speculations: Using your archival data, generate three hypotheses about how social variables (like the elements of culture, income, race, age, family/relationship characteristics, occupation, and education, etc.) have changed over time. Hypotheses are of the highest quality when they speculate about how variables are related and are clearly drawn from observations. Hypotheses that are unrelated to observations and hypotheses about company sales are of low quality. Hint: Focusing on the changes in culture or society that the ads reflect is way more interesting than thinking about product sales, or even the product itself.
Ideas about Falsification: Explain what it means to say that your hypotheses are falsifiable, and what type of study you could use to test them.
Conclusion: In the final paragraph, use the information you provided to sum up the paper by developing a theme. What are commonalities among the ads? Are there trends of change, or forces of continuity?
Grading Criteria
Observations (20 points): The paper thoroughly and succinctly describes the advertisements in terms of their substance. Ads are attached.
2 points each for presence of ads from different decades
2 points each for quality of description
Speculations (16 points): The paper insightfully uses archival observations to generate three falsifiable hypotheses
8 points for three hypotheses—must relate two variables together! Hint: Many people find that “time” works wonderfully as an independent variable.
8 points based on quality of hypotheses
Ideas about Falsification (8 points):
4 points for statements that explain how/why your hypotheses are falsifiable
4 points for statements explaining which type of study would be best to test your hypotheses
Conclusion (2 points): The paper finishes by arguing how culture may have changed based on the information presented by the researcher.
Interest (4 points): The paper does not focus on clichéd topics, but takes risks in describing social phenomena that promote interest. This means that you will lose points if you focus on Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Cigarettes, or Chanel #5.
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