100-581 Media and Communications Thesis

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth-year honours in Media and Communications.

The Media and Communications Thesis provides students with an opportunity to originate, under supervision, a study on a topic of their own choosing and to pursue this over a sustained period of time to successful completion. The thesis will be expected to demonstrate a relatively sophisticated and detailed understanding of its subject matter as well as competence in research design and execution, methodological and theoretical reflexivity, high standard of argument and conformity to academic standards of presentation. The thesis topic and proposal will have to be formally approved by the thesis coordinator. Students will receive support and guidance via seminars/workshops and consultation throughout the process of conceiving, designing, researching and writing up their thesis. Theses can be variously oriented toward empirical investigation and study or close theoretical engagement with and critique of the ideas of others, or situated somewhere between these two poles of the research continuum.

• be able to plan and present a research proposal and a sustained piece of academic inquiry in conformity to academic conventions of presentation;

• be able to engage in a detailed and focused piece of study involving considerable self-directed learning;

• be able to gain in-depth understanding of how research processes and methods of analyses are significant to theory building and applicable to problem-solving.

A thesis of 12 000 words written over two consecutive semesters (due at the end of the second semester of enrolment).

A reader will be provided at the beginning of semester.