Essay Proposal

A proposed essay title or topic
Reading the media: A critical reading of the mass media (newspapers, radio, TV, and the Internet) and it's ideologies. - not a final title

The main issues addressed by your argument (in bullet points)
- The genderisation in music and television and newspapers - Man's world
- Trends in newspapers Tabloids vs broadsheet (coverage of social against political factors)
- Class distinctions (who buys, watches, listens to what?) does what we listen to, watch, shape views (can we change those views)
- The use of language (what language is used across media, how does it relate to class, gender, race)
- Politics and the mass media, who controls it? (westernisation) (News manipulated to include propaganda)

Any visual material that you will look at (include hyperlinks if possible)
Three newspapers of the same day (The Sun, The Times, The Guardian)

Music videos (Pop culture)

Television programmes (BBC News, GMTV) Reality TV (X Factor, Big Brother)

What theoretical approach / methodology will you use? e.g. marxism, the gaze, psychoanalysis etc
Critical Theory, Semiotics, etc

Which specific theorists / writers will you refer to?
Marx, Adorno, Althusser, Foucault

At least 5 books / articles / resources already located (referenced using Harvard)
Bignell, J. (1997) Media Semiotics: An introduction. Manchester University Press.

Fowler, R. (1991) Language in the news: discourse and ideology in the press. Routledge.
Sturken, M. & Cartwright, L. (2009) Practices of looking: an introduction to visual culture. Oxford University Press.
Semiotics for Beginners http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html
Marcuse, H. (1991). One-dimensional man. Routledge.