Field Project - Select one channel to view for a consecutive three-hour portion of the television broadcast day.

Create a log of commercials, listing the type of commercial - snacks, autos, feminine products, etc in a simple table or spreadsheet.

Is there a pattern as to what types of commercials are shown during certain types of programming?

What kind of audience is the programming and commercials targeting?

Be sure to include SCHOLARLY* research on advertising to help make sense of your results (with proper citations) and a copy of your commercial log.

Please be aware that turnitin may not allow you to submit the commercial log (must be a formatting issue). Because of that, a separate drop box is labeled for you to upload it there.

That will artificially create a grade column but you don't receive a separate grade for it. However, you are docked ten points for not submitting it.

view 1 channel for 3 consecutive hours

include a commercial log

include any of the following categorizations in the log:

Type of commercial (snacks, auto, etc.)

Name of product (for example, you can't just list snack, snack, snack - I would accept Fritos-Snack)

Which commercial was on during what programming (oftentimes students will just have a long list without times/names of shows, etc.... that simply lists auto, beer, beauty - which is insufficient)

Discuss what type of audience the commercials are targeting; include demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic level)

Discuss what type of audience the programs are targeting; what aspects of it tell you that?

Scholarly research may be found in academic peer-reviewed communication journals, such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Journal of Advertising and Journal of Communication.

For example for field project #5 research on advertising would be appropriate.You may find great help from the communication librarian's page in the Course Library Resources folder. I've also taped a demo on how to use the resources embedded there to find scholarly research.

You may also contact the communication librarian. She also has a short video clip on her webpage that will help. You may find a link to her  resource page among the icons on the main course home page on Blackboard.

Website content is generally not considered to qualify for this category; nor is Wikipedia considered a reliable academic source.

If in doubt about your source, use the resources provided for you and if still in doubt, obtain prior approval from me.

We've all read the textbook; please don't rely on it heavily for your paper. It will not count toward your scholarly sources total.

Need help in determining what's a scholarly source?

There is also help via the textbook site on Blackboard...

How many scholarly resources are enough? The "teacher answer" is: as many as it takes to write a good paper. One is not enough; ten are too many for this short paper and level of course.

Three is sufficient or aim for something between three and ten.