COMMUNICATION, CULTURE, AND HEALTH

COMMUNICATION, CULTURE, AND HEALTH;
November 11, 2019 Off All,

Relates to communication, culture, and health; either something that wasn’t specifically covered in the course, or if the topic was discussed, then try to explore it from a new perspective. Paper details 1800 – 2200 wordsOverall aim Whatever you choose to focus on, you want to write a paper that addresses these general goals: 1) Effectively incorporate course materials – meaning, you should be touching on some of the ideas, themes, and theories that we’ve been exploring in this course. 2) At the same time, you should be trying to offer some insights not covered in the course 3) If you’re choosing to write the research paper, make an argument – you’re not just exploring a topic; there should be some kind of thesis statement. Format for the research paper? This is a general format that you could follow (you don’t literally need to have each of these sections, with headings, and in this order; this is just to give an idea of how you could approach this) 1) Introduction with a thesis statement. 2) Elaboration of your overall argument, including situating it within the academic literature. 3) Detailed explanation of what you’re looking at; how do the examples / literature you’re looking at demonstrate your overall argument? Component Grade Analysis: How is this a health communication problem? Descriptive and analytical reflections on the challenging aspects surrounding the topic – is this an issue of public understanding? Media representations? /15 Synthesis: Students will draw on relevant theoretical concepts and issues from the lectures and readings, or from external academic sources, to help guide their analysis and discussion. /15 Discussion: What is the overall impact of this issue? Situate the broader context and make the significance / relevance clear. /10 Style: Strength of writing, spelling and grammar, citations /10 TOTAL: /50 4) Why this case study / argument that you’re making not an isolated example? Consider any limitations or weaknesses in the argument you’re making. 5) Conclusion; briefly reiterate the connection between your case study / examples / literature, and your overall argument. The research paper should have at least 8 scholarly sources (not just listed in a bibliography at the end, but used within the body of the paper itself). If you’re not sure what qualifies as a scholarly source, or how to find one, feel free to speak with me. Citations may be in any style (APA preferred) but must be consistent and correct. Example topic We went over this example in class, but I’ll provide it here too: Let’s say you chose “mobile health apps” as a general topic; more specifically, you’re going to look at how mobile health apps are improving healthcare in rural and remote locations. There’s a bunch of literature out there about this, and there are a bunch of different potential examples you could look at (i.e. different apps and case studies). But don’t try to do too much with your paper – don’t include too much, at the expense of losing focus. Your main argument for this might be, “Despite concerns around privacy and corporate control, mobile health apps are improving access to healthcare and health outcomes in rural and remote locations.” You could go to the library website, or Google Scholar, to find relevant scholarly articles; you could search for case studies or examples that you want to draw from (things that have been maybe reported in the news). You would use this evidence to build your argument. You might also look at the concerns and limitations here: the research and articles that argue there are privacy concerns, or issues with companies like Google controlling health information. You also want to demonstrate how this is a larger, important health communication issue.