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How are Afghan women represented in the media? Do populist parties really get more broadcast airtime than mainstream political leaders? How do politicians present themselves online and on social media? What does it mean if we find that three different researchers understand archival sources in three different ways? What are the politics of online groups and communities? How does NATO use celebrity endorsement to legitimise its response to violence? What sorts of stories do ordinary voters tell about politicians when you ask them to keep diaries? How does contemporary travel writing produce and reproduce national borders?
This module will not necessarily tell you the answers to these questions, but it will help you understand how researchers have gone about trying to answer these or similar questions and how you could try to answer interesting and important questions about politics using texts and images.

This is a module that focuses on researching the *meanings* and functions of texts and images.

Indicative Topics

The module will cover the following methodologies and topics, which may be subject to variation depending on developments in academic research and the interests of the class:

• Content analysis;
• Discourse analysis;
• Narrative analysis;
• Evaluating different types of research;
• Research ethics and the role of values.

Teaching and Learning

You will be expected to:
• Read your required texts before attending the seminars and lectures
• Complete short weekly tasks before attending classes and bring your work to class. These tasks are not assessed.
• Actively participate and collaborate with others in seminars and lectures

By the end of this module you will be able to:
• Understand the methodologies employed in political and social research with a particular emphasis on texts and images;
• Develop a research question that can be answered using texts and images as data;
• Collect, analyse and interpret these kinds of data using qualitative methods;
• Evaluate these methods and their use in social research;
• Use these methodologies to conduct political research for dissertations or in future careers.