Social Science Question
These are the details my teacher posted to help guide us:
This week, you’ll be submitting a proposal for your final paper. In this paper, you will explore a public opinion topic other than elections, and the connections between public opinion and media and public policy regarding this topic. As part of this exploration, you’ll also need to investigate how public opinion about the topic is structured within society – that is, how views on the topic differ, and how people might understand the topic through different sub-components of it. The final paper should be at least 2500 words and can be written as either a research review (that is, in academic style) or a piece of long-form journalism; if the latter, you can also include additional journalistic sources (e.g., interviews), but still must base the story on public opinion data and research. In either case, it should include at least three academic sources and two sources of public opinion data (these are not limits – to explore the question well you will likely need more, and they will need to be significant to your paper).
For the proposal, please identify the topic and why you think it will work well for this project, and some preliminary sources of both data and theory related to public opinion on that topic. Look for theory in scholarly research on the topic . Google Schiolar, Web of Science, Pew Research, Gallup Data for Progress.
Here are your options for the final paper. These should be targeted to 2500 words of body text, which is about 10 pages in typical formatting, and should explore the characteristics of public opinion on your topic and why that opinion is structured the way it is.
- For an academic style paper, focus on reviewing academic research related to your topic; you can use your literature search to narrow the topic as you go. Google Scholar and Web of Science are good places to find relevant research (those links both use the FAU library’s proxy, so when you click on them you can log in and use them as if you were on campus). Public opinion research from outside of academia can also be useful, but consider it in the context of what the sc holarlymaterial tells you about theory. Pew is a great place for most topics you all are working on. Make sure all the information you bring into your paper from your sources is cited in the text – that is, with a (Smith, 2005) in the appropriate place – as well as listed in the bibliography at the end. When in doubt about whether something needs to be cited, cite it.
- For a journalistic style paper, think of it as a long-form piece that might run at a site like Vox (doesn’t have to be Vox specifically, but they do a lot of deep analytical pieces on public opinion topics – a good example can be found here. You won’t be citing sources the way you would in an academic paper, but you should make clear in your story where you are drawing information from.
This is the prompt I wrote and a topic I picked:
For my final paper, I think a good public opinion topic that will have a vast amount of information on public policy regarding this topic as well as the media influence is mental health awareness as well as stigma reduction in the United States.
I feel that this would be a good topic for the final paper because while a vast variety of mental health issues exists throughout society, there are still many stereotypes and misconceptions about mental illnesses and these stereotypes and misconceptions can influence how individuals in society act towards people with mental health challenges.
I also will be able to conduct research on access to mental health care based on factors such as socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, and geographic location. I could also deep dive into access to mental health care for students.
This topic also gives me the ability to focus on how the media portrays mental health, especially in entertainment media and mainstream media.
I will also cover the topic of education and awareness in society and the effectiveness of resources available.
While the topic has a lot of information for public opinion, there will also be a lot of information on the research done on this topic because of how prevalent mental illness is in the U.S. and how many different types there are.
Preliminary sources-
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1919612/Links to an external site.
https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ps.201300550Links to an external site.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1994-09623-001Links to an external site.
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