Our study of the family will look for both explicit and implicit assumptions about central
issues regarding family life (e.g. marriage, divorce, parenting, living on welfare, teen
pregnancy, family violence, child care, same sex relationships, etc.). Your paper will
analyze the views about family life that are embedded in these popular materials and the
implications of these views. To do this assignment, imagine what you would be able to
say about contemporary families if you only knew what you observed for this
assignment. Analyze these images of families in light of our course readings, lectures
and discussions.
When selecting what you will observe, make sure that there is content related to families.
You should observe at least ONE of the following:
10 TV programs (1/2 or 1 hour shows; reality or fictional shows)
or 5 movies
Please document all of your sources, including dates and times and titles. You do not
need to submit your notes.
What you are looking for:
Family structure: what kind of family is portrayed? In what way is it portrayed?
Are there assumptions about the correct family structure?
Roles: what roles do different family members play (e.g. gender roles, roles for
children and parents, etc.)? What are the assumptions about the roles people will
play? Is there any conflict in these roles?
Problems and Issues: what are the central problems and issues facing these
families? Are there conflicts or tensions? What is the basis of the conflict or
tension? Does the conflict get resolved? If so, how?
Imagery: how is the content presented (e.g. tone, style of words, sound, location,
etc.)? What do we feel about families after the observation?
Perspective: What is the perspective being assumed? What message is being
made about families today? What rhetoric do you observe about American
families? What purpose does rhetoric about family life serve?
Interpretations:
Your paper should be organized according to the subheadings listed above. Dont forget
an introduction and conclusion that ties your ideas together, a thesis that makes a
particular argument about what you found, and appropriate transitions between sections
of your paper. Think about the following questions: what did you discover about the
images of family that are projected today (including family structure, roles, problems and
issues, imagery and perspective)? Based on your analysis, would you say that American
families are in crisis or are they changing in ways that do not indicate a crisis? If you
were an alien who didnt know anything about American family life and these images
were all you had to consider, what would you conclude about American families today?
Your main task is to document the patterns that you observe and to discuss the
implications of these patterns. Be sure that you give specific examples from your
observations to illustrate the kinds of patterns you saw. Finally, how would the authors
of our readings critique the images of family that you observe? Interpret your results in
light of our course readings. What would our authors say if they had done this study
themselves? (It would be best if you integrated this into your paper rather than making
this a separate section.) In other words, refer back to your readings and/or lectures as you
conduct your analysis of the patterns that you see in the films or TV shows.
Organizing Your Paper:
In your presentation of your research results, you should organize your paper with
the following subheadings: family structure, roles, problems and issues, imagery
and perspective. In each section, describe your overall findings and then give
some examples from what you watched. Also, be sure that you refer to our course
materials. You also need to draw some conclusions about the implications of
your findings for how we think about family crisis and change.
Do not just summarize the plot of the films or TV shows. Provide only enough
information to illustrate your examples. This is NOT a book-report style of paper.
This assignment asks you to develop your analysis and interpretations of those
sources of data. Your data are the TV shows or films. Provide a summary of your
results, give specific examples, and explain what implications we can draw from
what you found. Dont provide a plot summaryjust give enough details to
illustrate your argument with examples.
Thus, when writing your papers, do NOT summarize the show episode by episode
or provide summaries of every show or film you watched. In each section, you
will give some **overall** findings with regard to ALL of the shows. Then you
will give some examples. You do not need to give an example of each show or
episode in each section. That would be too long. You need to pick some
examples that illustrate your points. Do this with each theme assigned. Make
sure that you say something in each of those sections ab
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