Research

For the upcoming Multimodal Cultural Analysis, we will take the work we did on the Multimodal Formal Analysis and expand on it, particularly by incorporating outside sources to help us develop our analysis and situate it in a larger cultural context. For this assignment, you should add a new post or page to your website (minimum 500 words) that discusses and links to at least three sources you find through your own research. For each source, offer a quick overview of what it says and how it applies to your multimodal text. To complete your research, I recommend the following resources.

Newspaper and Magazine Articles, Other Digital Sources
As you conduct your research, you should look at a range of different databases. You are welcome to draw on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, but it will also help to look at more specific databases as well. For newspaper articles, use Nexis Uni or the sites of specific newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Guardian. Relevant magazines and sites for cultural criticism include Wired, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Slate, Salon, The Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Magazine, Media Diversified, The New Inquiry, Vox, Substack, and Medium. To find other relevant publications, do searches like “publications about [your topic]” or “magazines about [your topic],” or add search terms like “newspaper opinion” or “magazine opinion.” You can also use Bonaventure’s library site for further research help. You are welcome to look at other types of digital sources, such as blogs, forums (such as reddit), YouTube, social media, or anything else along these lines.

It will also be important to try different combinations of search terms. Willamette University offers helpful guidelines on how to generate search terms, particularly by taking one search term and thinking about other forms of the word. Try using the University of Texas at Austin’s keyword generator too.

Academic Sources
You are not required to incorporate academic sources, but you could likely find some that would help you develop your analysis. To find academic sources online, check out Google Scholar or go to the library’s website for databases such as Academic Search Complete, JSTOR, and Project Muse.