MCM619 Final project spring 2023

Due Date
15. 05.2023

Proposal for project/dissertation

Please read the following instructions carefully before writing the

proposal:

You are required to select any topic of research related to Mass

Communication as per your choice and interest. It may be about
Print media, Electronic media, Social media, Advertising & Public
Relations.
Write a proposal for project, according to following format.

1. Introduction of your topic (500-600 words)

2. Literature Review (500 words, must include summary of at least

5-6 relevant research studies and books)

3. Research Objectives
4. Research Questions
5. Research Design Including Sample size, Sample techniques, Time
period, Research methodology
6. Questionnaire (in case of survey) or Interview guide in case of
Interview
7. References (APA Format)
8. You have to submit the proposal by uploading it against
Assignment#01 on VULMS within due date.

The Assignment#01 - Proposal for project/ dissertation is

COMPULSORY which shall be evaluated to determine the validity
of the proposal.

It is required to submit the proposal (not only the topic) according

to the specified format as per notified schedule.

A valid proposal (approved by the Instructor) is a MUST to proceed

for the final project. Therefore, you are advised to follow the
instructions carefully and submit a quality proposal.

The proposal for project should be strictly according to the provided

format.

Make sure that you upload the proposal before due date. No
submission will be entertained through E-mail.
Be very careful while uploading your proposal as you shall not be
able to replace it once uploaded.

Plagiarism is strictly prohibited. Any evidence of plagiarism (if

found) shall be strictly dealt as per “ZERO TOLERANCE
POLICY” of the University. (Read the Plagiarism Sensitization
Document available in the DOWNLOADS section of the course
VULMS).

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………….
Title

 The title must not only be informative, but it should also be brief
i.e. 10-12 words.
 Be sure your title describes as specifically as possible the content
of your research.
 Words that must be avoided in the title are: ‘a co relational
study’, ‘method’ and ‘results’ do not normally appear in the title
nor should such words like ‘a study of’ or ‘an experimental
investigation’. Also avoid using abbreviations in the title.
Some keywords for idea
Social media
TV Programas
Movies
Facebook
Whatsap

1. Introduction

How to write an introduction?

 Your introductions should not exceed two pages (double spaced
lines, typed).
 Present background information only as needed in order support
a position.
 State the hypothesis/objective precisely - do not oversimplify.
 As always, pay attention to spelling, clarity and appropriateness
of sentences and phrases.

 Rational of study
Why are you conducting this research??
1.1 Literature Review

A literature review is an appraising description of information found

in the literature associated to your chosen area of research. The
literature review illustrates, summarizes and clarifies the literature
for which you are writing literature review. It should give a
hypothetical foundation for the research and helps you establish the
nature of your research. It should portray the link of each work to the
others. In literature review, unrelated works are removed
completely while the marginal ones are considered critically.

A literature review should cover these 4 points:

1. The literature review explains how each work is similar to and
how it varies from the others.
2. Literature review should be well-structured around and directly
linked to the research question you are developing.
3. The literature review should present an overview of the subject,
issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of
the literature review.

1.1.1 Citation Style for Literature Review

While writing references in literature review either your refer to the
authors of the article, book, research paper etc by citing their last
name with the year in which the paper was published appearing in
parenthesis immediately after the names. For example, I you are
citing the study by Lorna Hemandez Jarvis and Ptricia V. Roehling that
was published in 2003 you would write either“Jarvis and Roehling
(2003) found…..” or “Recent research (Jarvis & Roehling, 2003)
showed that …….”

You can only write those references in literature review that you have
actually read. If you read a paper by Barney (2002) in which the
research of Ludwig (2000) is described, you should not cite the
Ludwig paper unless you have actually read the paper. Instead you
should use something like this “Ludwig (2000), as reported by Barney
(2002), found that …………”

1.1.2 How to Write a Literature Review?

Apply these tips to write a good literature review:

 You need to keep entire and exact records and references of what
you read and find during research.
 Learn the required citation style.
 Make notes or summaries of the articles, books journals, papers
whatever you read.
 You must infer and read between the lines when go through any
written work.
 Broaden your vision and develop your own ideas without
worrying that it might not be accepted. Just don’t be relaxed with
copying previous work.
 Divide the literature review into different thematic parts which
will help you to focus.
 Read the leading published material and search for the current
issues for the latest information.

1.1.3 Resources to Develop Literature Review

There is a wide range of sources to develop your literature review.
These resources include:

 Books  Conference proceedings

 Scholarly Journals  Thesis
 Previous Research  Empirical studies
papers  Historical records
 World wide web  Commercial reports
 Bibliographies  Government reports and
 Encyclopedias reports from other
 Newspapers bodies
 Statistics
handbooks/information

1.1.4 Literature Review Revision

To revise and check of any flaw or lack in literature review, answer to
these questions:
 What is the specific thesis, problem, or research question that my
literature review helps to define?
 How good was my information seeking?
  Was my search wide enough to ensure the availability of relevant
material?
 Did I narrow enough the literature review to leave out irrelevant
material?
 Have I used suitable number of sources for the length?
 Have I critically analyzed the literature I use?
 Hive I just summarized the material I read?
 Does it have my own thoughts and insight?
 Have I used the citation properly?
 Will the reader find my literature review appropriate, and useful?

1.2 Significance
Significance shows why your study is important or useful within the
concerns of the discipline or course. It lays down the importance or
potential benefits of your project. Describe the importance of the
project to various stake holders.

1.3 Rationale of the study

Rationale shows what are the reasons of choosing your particular
subject of study. For example, if your project is about online learning
then the rationale would be something like this.
“The main reason to take the issue of online education is to explore
that how students learn effectively where minimum level of
instructor-student interaction is prevalent. So learning goals and
achievement motivation takes even more crucial form.”

1.4 Objectives of the Project

State the objectives/goals of your project, keeping in mind the
following points;
 These should state the purpose of the project
  These must be based on logical facts and figures
 Project objectives should be presented such that these should
facilitate the reader to locate various important points in the
research work;
 At the end of study, the objectives must be assessed to see if
they have been met

1.5 Hypothesis
Hypothesis is a tentative statement for a phenomenon. Often a
hypothesis is stated in the form of a prediction or some outcome,
along with an explanation for the prediction. Research hypotheses are
the specific testable predictions made about the independent and
dependent variables in the study. Usually the literature review has
given background material that justifies the particular hypotheses
that are to be tested. Hypotheses are couched in terms of the
particular independent and dependent variables that are going to be
used in the study.
An example would be
"Children who are exposed to regular singing of the alphabet will
show greater recognition of letters than children who are exposed to
regular pronouncing of the alphabet"
You can easily identify the independent variables in the above
mentioned example of hypothesis is ‘regular singing of the
alphabet’ and ‘regular pronouncing of the alphabet’ and
dependent variable is ‘recognition of letters’.

2. Research Method/ Methodology

The second major section of the body of research report is the method
section. It describes in detail how the study was conducted. Such a
description enables the reader to evaluate the appropriateness of your
methods and the reliability and validity of your results.

 Method section starts on the same page on which the

Introduction ends.
 It is separated from the Introduction with a double spaced
centered heading (method), and the text of the method begins
one double spaced line below the heading.

The method section consists of the following parts:

 Participants
 Instruments
 Procedure

Here's a review of what should go into each section:

2.1 Participants/ Sample: When dealing with people, it can be

defined as a set of respondents (people) selected from a larger
population for the purpose of study.
A population is a group of individuals, persons, objects, or items
from which samples are taken for measurement for example a
population of presidents or professors, books or students.

Review the targeted population and participants in your project.

Most studies review targeted demographics (e.g. gender, age,
ethnicity, marital status, socioeconomic status) and other
important issues that describe your population (medical history,
medication use, legal history). Remember to include the mean,
standard deviation, median, frequency and range when reporting
your demographic variables.
When humans are the subjects of the study, report the
procedures for selecting and assigning them and the agreements
and payments made.

2.2 Research Tools/ Instruments: Give the details of the tools

used for the project e.g. Questionnaire, Interviews, Observations,
etc according to the need of the project.

Provide an overview and description of each instrument or

measure. When describing your instruments, remember to
review issues such as the number of questions, length of
administration, readability and scoring. You can rely on the
instrument's manual and early normative articles to obtain a lot
of this information. After you describe the instrument, you will
then need to review the reliability (e.g. alpha coefficients, inter-
rater reliability, test retest reliability, split half reliability) and
validity of the instrument (content validity, external validity and
discriminant validity). Remember to clearly label and review all
of these components in the text for all your instruments or
measures.
 2.2.1 Demographic information: Report major demographic
information such as sex, age, race/ ethnicity, and where possible
and appropriate, characteristics such as, socio economic status,
disability status etc.

2.3 Procedure: In the procedure section describe what

happened from the beginning till the end of the process of whole
project. Describe how you will collect the data. You will want to
review issues such as the agencies or organizations you will
approach for participant recruitment, the order of the instrument
administration, testing procedures and informed consent. If you
are conducting a project based upon archival research, you will
need to review how the data was collected and how you received
permission to utilize another agency's database.

3. Proposed Data Analysis

It will include what will be the proposed statistical analysis for the
project. For example, if you are interested in studying the relationship
of two variables then you can propose that you will use correlation for
statistical analysis or if you have more than one independent variable
and only one dependent variable then you can use regression analysis
as statistical technique.

4. References
All citations used in the study must be given by arranging them
alphabetically by the last name of the author. (APA format should be
used)