Tag: Thesis

Class Content

The focus this week was on developing an argument.

Guide reader through argument in logical way. Think about what questions your reader might have. If you can answer these questions through your argument, it will seem more convincing.

Key elements of an argument:

• Statement of problem
• Literature review
• Procice focus of your research as stated by hypothesis, question, aim, or objective
• Method of methodology (can also state parameters here)
• Results/evidence
• Discussion and conclusion (including implications for future research)

The BBC site that has lots of documentaries, interviews, etc, that BBC have produced. Could be good for the methodology and for analysing

Including your voice: your voice will emerge through your discussion, interpretation, and evaluation of the sources. Good to open chapter with citation, but equally good to make own statement and back it up with citation.

Establishing your voice in writing:

A good exercise to put your chosen topic through the following questions:

Nigel also asked us to post our current considerations for topic titles to a Padlet for him to give feedback on. This was the feedback for my topic title, ‘How do chosen visual styles reflect and comment on the socio-political themes explored within their respective narratives?‘:

• Very broad topic, needs narrowing down
• Two questions: What social political themes? What respective narratives?
• Alternate question: How do animators influence social political elements?
• Need to be a lot more specific
• Find that visual style, format, (eg children’s tv) to make topic more concise

Today we explored metamorphosis in animation, and how some animation works are more experimental with how they portray their visuals and narrative compared to more conventional works.

One example work we were shown, ‘Love & Theft’, is an example of literal metamorphosis through the visuals, with no cutting between shots as the animation instead seamlessly flows into itself.

For my current previs work, I am realising my idea will need a lot of thought put into the transitions between shots, so this will be a topic worth revisiting when working on my FMP.

Topic Progress

While I’m still busy with other projects, I did start some research and came across the essay by Gwyneth Jones ‘Wild Hearts in Uniform – the Romance of Militarism in Popular Science Fiction’ that I found interesting and relevant to my thoughts from last week. While quite opinionated, there is some very interesting thoughts on the representation of militarism in science fiction that could make for good frameworks for my own research.

Class Content

This week we went into detail for what a literature review is, and how to approach writing one.

I found the structuring advice helpful, where Nigel explained different ways to organise the writing. I often struggle to keep my writing clean and concise, so following more of a structure where things are broken down by key topics will be useful.

We were also given further dos and don’ts, such as avoiding being too narrowly focused with our research. When exploring a topic, it can often be useful to consider research outside of the specific scope that can lend valuable frameworks and considerations to our own research and writing.

Topic Progress

I haven’t made much progress with my topic development due to other academic commitments, but I have been thinking more about where my specific interests gravitate around when it comes to Andor and its core themes. I really admire how Andor displays the horrors of fascist regimes on a personal level outside of heroic acts, the idea of just wanting to exist but never being able to escape your personal responsibility to fight back. I think it would be a good idea to look into research that focuses on the glamorised view of war and the military that many films and shows have, contrasting against that shown in Andor.

Class Content

We went over the structure for our thesis proposal in more detail today, including what to include/avoid, different research methods, and some example works. The research methods isn’t something that was taught to me in great detail on my BA course (where the theory classes mostly focused on various topics rather than approaches to the writing itself), so this in particular was very helpful to learn about.

Topic Progress

While researching the various artefact medias (those I listed as my current interests last week), I ended up watching a few video essays on the Star Wars series Andor (2022) which inspired me to at least consider it as my chosen artefact for research purposes. A video by YouTuber Spaceman, ‘Andor is A Star Wars Masterpiece From 1978‘ was particularly well composed to elicit excitement and inspiration. I also very much enjoyed ‘Andor: Anti-f*scist Art‘ by Just Write for the same reasons.

I am still unsure what the wider topic of research will include. While I am interested in the complications of a mega-corporation with conflicting values against the media it produces, such as the conflicting values between Andor and Disney, I am unsure of what question or angle to approach such a topic from. Alternatively, I could approach from an analysis angle where I explore how the visuals of Andor reflect its socio-political themes, but I am a little concerned this might be too limiting. I will be considering this more in the coming weeks.

Last week’s lesson was cancelled, so this week was our first class with Nigel for this term.

We went over how to develop potential topics, and how our thesis and proposal should be structured. Nigel mentioned that while it is more standard for the Thesis to be connected in someway to our FMP, it doesn’t need to be. This does feel reassuring to me, as I often get very uninspired and demotivated when I am focusing on one topic or project for long periods.

I began considering areas of research I am interested in. While I am still unsure what would make a good research topic, my current interests are:

• Unique visual styles/techniques in digital media
• Viewer immersion
• Empathy towards fictional characters
• The link between phycology and the way we interact with fictional stories
• Socio-political themes in modern digital media (especially those that have conflicting themes against the production houses/streaming services they are featured by, such as anticapitalism themes in Apple TV show Severance for example)

I have also been considering potential artefacts to write about. I would want to choose those I have either enjoyed or had an interest in analysing, as to keep my focus while writing about. Some I have considered:

• Andor (2022)
• Arcane (2021)
• Severance (2022)
• Spider-Verse films (Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Across the Spider-Verse (2023))
• Scavengers Reign (2023)
• Russian Doll (2019)