Lehre

Finding a topic for your thesis/paper is an essential part of academic work: What are you interested in? What do you want to find out and why? To what extent is the topic relevant (e.g. socially or for the scientific community)? What theoretical points of connection arise and what literature is important?

In the case of an examination for a seminar, your topic should arise from the context of that seminar. If you would like to have your final thesis supervised by a lecturer from Media Sociology, please bear in mind that your topic should correspond to the media sociological focus of the working area and/or connect to research topics within the expertise of the desired supervisor.

Once you have decided on a topic, you should discuss your project with the examiner on the basis of a written outline of your work. This should sketch the topic and a specific research question, as well as an initial structure and some references. The outline should help you to finalise your ideas and serve as a basis for the supervision of your thesis. If you face problems deciding on a topic or find yourself faced with many unanswered questions, please note that this is completely normal at this stage. Please also address them in your outline as a basis for discussion. The six-line format (Sechszeiler), in which you can then comment on uncertainties and the need for advice, could be suitable for this. In the case of more extensive examinations, a more extensive proposal should be prepared in consultation with the examiner.

If you have a topic in mind for your thesis, it is best to contact the examiner by email to arrange a consultation appointment and to clarify in what form and to what extent an outline is expected. Please contact the examiner in good time so that there is enough time to work on the topic before the submission deadline. Please note that only submissions that have been agreed on in advance can be accepted.

You should also discuss with the examining teacher how to organize the supervision with you, e.g. whether you schedule several consultation appointments from the onset or arrange consultation appointments if and when necessary.

Literature reviews

Literature reviews are a critical part of the foundation of good scientific practice. They provide an overview of previous research on the chosen topic and enable you to situate your own research in relation to the current state of research.

The easiest way to find literature on a topic is the so-called snowball principle: From the bibliography of a book, essay or encyclopaedia article on the relevant topic, you work your way to other books and journal articles. These in turn contain further references. A possible starting point for finding relevant sources for your topic is consulting bibliographies from a course you attended that deals with the topics or themes of interest.

Journal articles are particularly important and helpful resources for academic work and should therefore not be neglected under any circumstances. The reason journal articles are so important is because they deal with current developments in the discipline or respective field of research. Journal articles also and often deal with special topics that do not appear in the form of monographs. They take different forms, but often provide concise summaries of discussions and debates in the specific research field, and usually include a detailed bibliography. When comparing the bibliographies of several articles on a topic, it is very easy to determine which literature is relevant based on which titles or authors are repeatedly cited. Collective reviews, handbook articles or secondary literature can also provide a good introduction to a topic and the relevant literature.

The university library catalogue is another good place to start your research. On the library's website you will also find links to specialised databases and journals on your topic. Academic search engines (such as Google Scholar) can also be used. However, their results should be viewed with particular caution, as their quality standards are sometimes controversial.

Please keep in mind that generative AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT) are not suitable for literature research. This is because they often invent non-existent literature and usually do not provide the most current, up-to-date lists of relevant literature. If you do choose to use AI tools (such as Elicit or Research Rabbit) to supplement your research, we urge you to exercise a high degree of caution in the process and also an orientation towards the rules of good scientific practice!

If required, the university library offers training courses on literature research.

References and citation

In academic papers, literature references take the form of both direct quotations and paraphrases. In direct quotations, the author includes an excerpt from the text verbatim in the paper (e.g. “As X notes in his discussion of capitalism, “Marx was only one of many theorist interested in exchange value in continental Europe” [Author X 1999: 10]). In a paraphrase, the author reproduces the content of a text passage in their own words (e.g. X’s writings on Marx highlight the variety of theories that were produced about exchange value in continental Europe that both overlapped and diverged from Marx’s thinking at that time [Author X 1999]). Both paraphrases and quotations must be labelled as they refer to other people's ideas. If there is no reference to the author of a quoted/paraphrased thought, it is considered plagiarism. Direct quotations should be used sparingly and only if the exact wording is important, or if the quoted formulation is so accurate that a different formulation would hardly be possible without changing the meaning.

For paper submissions to Media Sociology, references should always be made in the body text, not in footnotes. It is recommended to use a citation style with the author's name and year as a reference (e.g. Harvard, ASA, or APA citation styles). In principle, a page number must also be given for the place where the idea is found, so a general, global reference to literature (e.g. to an entire book) is usually NOT sufficient. References must have a standardised format throughout the paper.

A literal quotation is always placed in inverted commas. The source is given immediately afterwards (see above). At the end of a sentence, the reference to the source is placed after the inverted commas of the citation, but before the full stop: This work is concerned with the concept of mass media as proposed by Niklas Luhmann. According to Luhmann, this  "includes all those institutions of society which make use of copying technologies to disseminate communication" (Luhmann 2000: 3).

Longer verbatim quotations (more than three lines) are indented. If you make omissions or grammatical adjustments in a quotation, mark these with "[...]":  Stuart Hall considers the “intervention in the media’s construction of race […] an intervention in the ideological terrain of struggle” (Hall 2021: 180).

If you trace a complex line of argument from another text in detail, please do not only refer to the texts used/quoted there, but also indicate the text that contains the argument. The structure of a particular argument or explanation is also an external academic achievement that you must cite. In any case, check whether a citation of the central conclusion is sufficient for your purposes.

If you cite several works by the same author from the same year in your text, mark the individual works with letters (Bourdieu 1998a, Bourdieu 1998b).

Quotations from internet sources should also be labelled as such. However, such sources are only admissible if the authorship can be clearly proven. Blog entries or newspaper articles can be used as sources, but should be listed in a separate list.

The handling of empirical data also differs from the citation of scientific sources. Their material is also listed separately from the scientific literature in a separate list of sources in the appendix. As a rule, a separate citation style is suitable for citing the material. Typically, a number of the piece of data with an internal reference is suitable, e.g. time or line reference: reference to the transcript of an interview via "(T-01: 22)" or "Interview 01:22", to a piece of music via "(MP3-04, 00:01:23h)" or a newspaper article via "(Source 03)". The code for the short reference is resolved in the bibliography. As requirements for the bibliography may differ depending on the type of material, discuss further aspects and uncertainties with the examiner if necessary.

Bibliography

All literature that you refer to in your work - and only this - must be listed in the bibliography after the body text.

All cited titles are organised alphabetically by author name and by year of publication. If there are several authors, the abbreviation "et al." should NOT be used, unlike in the body text. There are numerous options when choosing the format for your bibliography (a common style is the ASA style of the American Sociological Association: https://www.asanet.org/wp-content/uploads/savvy/documents/teaching/pdfs/Quick_Tips_for_ASA_Style.pdf). The bibliography should be created in a standardised style.  The use of reference management software (Citavi, Zotero, Jabref) also pays off here, as it automatically creates a standardised, complete list of the literature used that corresponds to the desired citation style. Please note that the entries in the literature management programme must be correct and complete.

Each paper to be submitted has the following parts:

• Cover page
• Table of contents
• Body text (usually divided into introduction, main part, conclusion)
• Bibliography
• (Possibly appendices)
• Signed declaration of independence (see remarks on independence and prevention of attempts to deceive)

Information on the above points:

• The cover sheet is the first page of your thesis and contains your name, matriculation number, subject related semester and e-mail address. The cover page should also refer to Bielefeld University, the Faculty of Sociology, the module, the seminar, the semester and the lecturer. It should also include the title of the thesis with a subtitle, if applicable, as well as the submission date and number of words in the body text. Your thesis should have a title that summarises your topic. It should not just be "seminar paper" or "Master's thesis", but should briefly outline or hint at the research question or announce the main result of your analysis, while the subtitle provides an insight into your project (e.g. "Mediated immediacy. An analysis of the creation of emotional co-presence between humanoid avatars and their users").
• The table of contents on page two should outline the content structure of the text with well-chosen chapter headings. To this end, it makes sense not to simply label chapters "Introduction" or "Main part". The table of contents should be numbered and contain all chapter headings (incl. appendix and declaration of independence) with correct page references. It is advisable to create a table of contents automatically with the word processing programme used.
• The introduction is the first section of the body text that introduces the topic of the thesis. The introduction should make it clear why the chosen topic is relevant and arouse the reader's curiosity. It presents the question(s) or thesis(es) and perspective(s) that the topic contains for you. In addition, the introduction outlines how you will deal with the research question in the subsequent pages in order to give the reader an idea of what to expect in the rest of the text.
• The main part of your paper contains a systematic treatment of the research question. Here, relevant theoretical and methodological approaches and controversies are discussed and empirical results are presented. The scope, composition and structure of the main part depend on the form of the respective examination paper. (Please also familiarise yourself with the requirements of your specific examination format).
• Each paper has a recognisable conclusion that summarises the results of the work. Briefly revisit the question of your work and summarise what you have found. In addition, place your results in a larger (media) sociological context: Which overarching research contexts can your results be assigned to? You can conclude with any unanswered questions or critical arguments (e.g. in relation to a research approach that was of particular importance to your argument).
• The bibliography contains all the references that inform the ideas presented in the text.
• Depending on the type of your work, the appendix can include, for example, survey instruments (such as questionnaires, interview guidelines, ...), excerpts from research data (such as interview transcripts or observation protocols) or other information. A separate list may be useful for particularly extensive appendices.  Not every paper requires an appendix (e.g. if you have written your paper using only the research literature you have correctly cited). If you are unsure, ask the examiner whether you should add an appendix to your thesis and what it should contain.
• With the signed declaration of independence, you confirm that you have written the submitted thesis yourself and exclusively with the resources specified in the thesis and in the declaration.

Working in the social sciences requires a sensitive approach to language: the categories you use should express the social facts you refer to in your work as precisely as possible and as differentiated as necessary. Language is a medium that does not depict reality, but is involved in its production and has the power to violate, marginalise and regulate. For this reason, a sensitive and appropriate use of categories is generally required in sociology; for the same reason, however, standardised language policy guidelines are also prohibited. You should be able to justify why you are writing in a gender-inclusive or gender-differentiating way, or why you are using or avoiding ethnic ascriptions or other human-differentiating categories such as "migrant".

Formulate sentences that are as clear and easy to understand as possible. At the same time, strive to use appropriate academic language. This is not a contradiction! Sociological terms and theories should always be used in a targeted and well-considered manner. Pay attention to the difference between a grandiloquent, possibly even incomprehensible (foreign) word and a technical term. The former should be exchanged, while technical terms should be deliberately introduced and sufficiently explained during their first introduction.

When referring to the arguments of other authors you can use clear rhetorical devices (e.g. "For Deborah Lupton, digital sociology is ..." or: "From Lupton's point of view, ...") to make the author's perspective recognisable. In contrast, please also make your own achievements clear - for example, if you independently summarise what has been said so far, suggest an alternative perspective or criticise an author’s approach (e.g. "In summary, I would like to state...", "If, on the other hand, one follows Bourdieu's explanatory proposal, then these conceptual bottlenecks can be overcome ...", "In the following, this view is deviated from in several ways ..."). Using these rhetorical tools, you can clarify your own and others' contributions and develop a comprehensible argument. 

Your work documents a progression of knowledge along a common thread: it is not only the individual sentences of your work that should be linked argumentatively and logically. The paragraphs and outline sections of your work should also flow smoothly and be related to each other. Paragraphs visually reflect the order of the content of your text. In order for your text to be read as a coherent or constructive structure, the paragraphs must have a sensible length and structure. They should therefore consist of more than one sentence! Transitions, short summaries, interim conclusions and outlooks at the end of an outline section can help to guide the reading and clarify why your points are relevant in the context of the work.

Guidelines for formatting your academic paper

Below you will find some guidelines for formatting your academic paper:

Pages: The margins are 2.5cm on the right, left and top and 2cm at the bottom. Please use page numbers (except for the cover page). Please structure your text as continuous text and do not place too much space or page breaks between (sub)chapters. However, if this results in a heading at the end of the page and the following text only starts on the next page, move this heading to the next page. Please also activate the paragraph control in your word processing programme to prevent single lines at the beginning or end of a line.

Font, font size and line spacing: Please use Garamond, Times New Roman or Liberation Serif, each in 12pt. For reasons of readability, please use a serif font (NOT Arial) for body text and adjust the size of other fonts if necessary. Headings can be set without serifs and slightly (2-4pt) larger. The line spacing in continuous text is 1.5x. In footnotes and in the bibliography, please use a line spacing of 1.0. Please also use justified text for text alignment.

Footnotes and endnotes: Please do NOT use them for citations (see above). There is space here for comments or further explanations that you do not include in the body text. For footnotes or endnotes, please use a line spacing of 1.0 and a font size of 10pt (approx. 2pt smaller than the body text).

Examinations must be completed independently and without outside support. On the one hand, this means that lines of thought that are not your own but originate from the literature must be labelled with appropriate references in order to avoid plagiarism. It also means that a paper may not be written by another person and passed off as your own academic achievement (ghost-writing).

If no other arrangements have been made with the examiner as part of your seminar or examination procedure, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in your work is permitted within a narrowly defined framework (Attention! This only applies to examinations that you take with teaching staff, instructors and lecturers of the Working Unit for the Sociology of Media). The transfer of everyday language statements into a scientific argumentation is NOT permitted, because its development is an essential part of your own work. However, the use of suitable AI tools for literature research (the results of which should always be carefully checked) or for linguistic correction of text passages from your work is permitted if this is stated in the declaration of independence.

Exceptions may result from the examiner's instructions:

For example, the use of AI tools would not be permitted (even if it takes place within the framework outlined above and is stated in the declaration of independence) if the examiner has prohibited such use in the seminar as a matter of principle. Under certain circumstances, however, an examiner may allow the use of AI tools beyond the scope defined above if the assessment of the acquisition of competences is also possible when using such technical aids. In this case, the explicit regulations on the use of (one, several or all available) AI tools agreed as part of your seminar or examination procedure must have been recorded in writing beforehand.

If you have used AI tools for the preparation of your thesis, please submit all prompts that you have entered to research or correct your text in a digital attachment (see "II. Chatbots als zulässiges Hilfsmittel"). The text should be searchable, so please do not use screenshots.

Any other use of generative artificial intelligence for the creation of written work is not permitted and constitutes an attempt to deceive.

Regardless of whether you have used AI tools or not, your work must be submitted together with a signed declaration of independence. You will find an example of this below:

“I hereby declare that I have written this thesis without outside support (for example, collaboration with fellow students or use of editing services) and that I have created the data sets, drawings, sketches and graphical representations shown by myself, unless otherwise stated. I have not used any sources other than those specified and have identified the passages in the work that are taken from other works - including tables and figures used - in each individual case by stating the source as a borrowing.

I have (please mark the applicable statement)

- not used generative artificial intelligence (ChatGPT etc.) in my work.

- have used generative artificial intelligence in my work. I applied the following prompts [= instructions or questions to the AI] to control the AI software in order to prepare / revise the work:

[Please break down below which AI tool you worked with, what function this AI tool had, for which parts of the work you used the tool, how you handled it and which prompts you specifically entered. You can use the table under "II. Chatbots als zulässiges Hilfsmittel" as a guide]

Place, date, signature"

 

You will usually receive your assessment via the examination management or in advance by email. If you would like to discuss your work, you can book an appointment during student consulting hours. The assessment of student work takes a lot of time and teaching staff, instructors, lecturers are sometimes on holiday or temporarily unavailable. If, for special reasons, you need early re-enrolment or a pass certificate, please let us know in good time and hand in your work earlier in such cases.

The criteria according to which your work is assessed may vary depending on the type of examination. The basic criteria that you should bear in mind when writing your paper - regardless of the type of written examination you are currently working on – are:

• Formal and linguistic criteria: You fulfil the formal requirements and present a coherent, sensibly structured text that uses appropriate language.
• Topic, title and thesis/question: You identify a relevant (media) sociological problem. You translate this into a concise title.
• Introduction: Here you formulate your thesis/question and the aim of the paper coherently, clearly and concisely. Your research question is comprehensible and you explain the structure of your work and your procedure.
• Use of relevant literature: You refer to the relevant literature on the chosen topic and present it appropriately. Terms and arguments are reproduced correctly and referenced appropriately.
• Independent scientific procedure: Your research question engages with prior research and scholarship in the form of an independent analysis that goes beyond a mere description of your topic. You use your own formulations and your argumentation is sensibly and comprehensibly structured according to a common thread. You use descriptive, interpretative and evaluative statements in an appropriate manner, distinguish between them in a recognisable way, and provide explanations and justifications for their use where necessary.
• You make it clear which academic achievements are your own and where you draw on external sources. Quotations are labelled as such and consistently referenced. The literature used is also listed in a complete and standardised bibliography.
• The final section of your work should include a summary in which you revisit the research question/thesis and provide a concise summary of the results as well as reflect on your procedure (and any limitations or follow-up points).

If you have any questions, please contact your lecturer or examiner and ask for a consultation appointment.

Further information on academic writing (including more detailed information on seminar papers, 6-line papers and exposés) has been compiled online by the AB Organisational Sociology.

Writing advice: You can get support and advice from other sociology students at the ZLL at Bielefeld University. Among other things, the Writing Centre offers various services to support you with writing during your studies.

Literature research: The university library offers training in literature research.

Psychological counselling: The Central Student Counselling Service offers psychological counselling in the event of work difficulties and exam anxiety during your studies.

The seminar paper is a short piece of academic work in which you demonstrate that you have acquired the skills to deal in depth with a topic that you have already dealt with in a seminar course and to communicate the results.

In seminar papers, you will therefore use a research question or a research thesis to tie in with a topic from the course you have attended. Your work should therefore have a recognisable connection to the seminar topic. You are also welcome to address questions/theses that have already arisen in the seminar in connection with the discussion of texts or that may have already been discussed in working groups or in plenary sessions. It is expected that you try to establish an argumentative relationship to your topic, your research question and the texts you have used, i.e. by referring (also critically) to the assumptions, questions and concepts discussed in the seminar texts. You should also draw on texts from the course in your work. However, the inclusion of relevant literature beyond the seminar readings remains essential.

Make sure that you choose a research question that can be dealt with in the context of your thesis. It should be complex enough to require the length of a seminar paper to answer. However, it should also be narrow enough so that answering it is possible within a seminar length paper, too.. The examining teacher will be able to help you in this process if you are unsure.

The length of your seminar paper depends on the module or degree programme in which you are enrolled. The following length specifications refer to the continuous text of your paper:

• Subject module Media Sociologist in Bachelor Sociology: approx. 3600 words.
• Modules in the Master's programme in Sociology: approx. 6000 words.
• Modules in the Master's programme Interdisciplinary Media Studies: approx. 4500 words.

You will be informed of the binding submission deadline for your seminar paper by the examining lecturer during the course. This deadline is usually one week before the start date of the new semester. The arrangements made with the examining lecturer also apply.

With your Bachelor's or Master's thesis, you demonstrate that you are able to work on a media-sociological issue in a scientific paper within a specified period of time. In doing so, you demonstrate that you can apply the skills you have learnt during your studies to a research topic of your own choosing. You will be supported by your supervisor in this process, but nevertheless will write this scientific paper independently.

Students on the Bachelor's degree programme in Sociology as well as those on the Master's degree programmes in Sociology and Interdisciplinary Media Studies can write their theses on media sociological topics and request members of the Media Sociology working area to act as their supervisors and/or examiners. In this context, please consider the "Basic information" (see above) regarding the start date of your thesis - in particular those relating to agreements with the examiner.

Reading the information provided here does not release you from the obligation to read the subject-specific regulations for the preparation of theses before registering your thesis.

• Bachelor Sociology
• Master Sociology
• Master of Interdisciplinary Media Studies

Under these links you will also find information on the required scope of your thesis. Even in the context of final theses, it is important to always bear in mind the framework conditions of such qualification theses and to adapt your own ambitions. Bear in mind that the thesis may be a larger project than the seminar papers you have been used to writing so far, but that you are still limited both in terms of time and in terms of the means and resources available to you. No one expects you to complete a project of the same quality and scope in just a few weeks or months that would otherwise take project staff years to complete. However, your research question should be chosen in such a way that it requires the scope of a Bachelor's or Master's thesis to complete it.

The literature paper is a classic examination format that is often completed as a seminar paper at the end of a seminar course. However, with a correspondingly broader research question, the literature paper can also be a suitable format for a final thesis. Instead of collecting empirical data in the research process itself and analysing it in the thesis, literature papers introduce and combine theoretical concepts and/or empirical findings from the scientific literature in order to answer the question posed. In other words, you simply draw on existing academic literature.

In this examination format, you demonstrate that you are able to develop a specific research question that is not only feasible within the given scope of your work, but should also be interesting at best. In addition, you show with your work that you have the skills to research the literature relevant to your topic and that you can use this to develop a comprehensible and pointed, but also reflective and critical argument to answer the question.

Choosing a research question or research thesis

The research question or research thesis is central to working on your topic, as it defines the underlying research interest of your work. One such question could be: "How has the sociological concept of ‘co-presence’ developed theoretically in the context of digitalisation?" Questions or theses can also relate to current events or developments that you want to examine in more detail from a media sociological perspective. An example of a question would be: "How can the attractiveness of conspiracy theories be explained in terms of the sociology of knowledge?"

A research thesis could be: "From a systems theory perspective, social networks such as Instagram constitute a type of communication that is used en masse but can be distinguished from the mass media."

In principle, you can use a reference text for your work that you mainly refer to. This can, for example, raise a particularly interesting perspective or controversy that you analyse as part of your work. However, ten-page anthologies are usually not suitable for this purpose. Reference texts are more likely to be monographs or original book sections or journal publications. However, you should always use additional texts to accompany the reference text.

Answering the research question

The introduction states the topic of the thesis. It also includes your research question(s) or the thesis(es) as well as your perspective(s) on the topic. In addition, the introduction includes the structure, an outline or a ‘road map’ of your thesis to the reader (e.g. a brief description of the order the following chapters or important argumentative steps).

The main sections of your thesis should deal with the research question as systematically as possible. Here, relevant theoretical approaches and controversies are discussed step by step and empirical findings are presented. It is important that after the introduction in the first chapter of your paper, you address the state of research relevant to your question or topic ("State of Research"). Which authors or which terms are relevant to your work? Who has already dealt with similar questions? You should therefore try to situate your work within the framework of a research approach or field of research. The explanations in the following chapters should build on each other. Those are the ones where you develop your arguments to answer your question or justify your thesis. It is important that you try to evaluate the arguments of the authors you consult for your work with regard to your question/thesis and not simply repeat them.

The conclusion summarises the results of your work. Firstly, briefly revisit the question or thesis of your work and summarise what you have found. Secondly, you should try to place your results in a larger (media) sociological context: What overarching research contexts can your results be assigned to? You can conclude your paper with unanswered questions or critical arguments (e.g. with regard to a research approach that was of particular importance for your argumentation).

In the course of writing up a qualitative research paper, you demonstrate that you are able to develop a meaningful and interesting research question that is both workable on the basis of analysing the chosen type of qualitative data and appropriate to the scope of your work. You show that you can relate your research interest to the literature written on the topic so far and that you can conceptualise and flexibly implement a research design that can answer your research question.

You can find a guide to writing a qualitative research paper, which goes into more detail on the individual steps from choosing the research question to the research design and data collection, processing and analysis through to writing up the paper, at this link. You should follow this in particular if you are planning to conduct qualitative research in your thesis. However, you will find a brief overview of these steps in the following section.

Research question and research design

The research question is also central to qualitative research work and must fulfil specific requirements, which are discussed below. The research question may also change and become more specific in the course of the research. In order to be able to answer your research question, you must choose an appropriate research design and develop it further in the course of the research process on the research object.

Qualitative research offers you numerous different methods and methodologies for this, but these must always be tailored to the research question and the subject matter. The same applies to the theoretical embedding of central concepts, which, like the choice of methods , must be conclusively justified.

Data collection, processing and analysis

The collection, preparation and analysis of qualitative research data can differ greatly depending on the method chosen. Here, too, your procedure should be plausibly justified and tailored to your subject matter. For example, you should be able to justify whether you conduct participant observations or narrative interviews, according to which rules you transcribe the latter and which method you use to analyse your data, because every decision you make in the course of collecting, processing and analysing your data places some levels of this data at the centre and obscures the view of others.

Writing up the work

Even if the research process in qualitative social research does not have a linear history, you need to translate it into a linear text. A suggested outline, from which you can deviate for good reasons, is outlined below:

With the introduction, you arouse the reader's interest, e.g. by formulating questions or problems that have led you to your research question. Here you prepare for the following text and justify the structure of your work. The summary of the research question and the aim of the study can be part of the introduction or a chapter on the state of research. In the latter, you show that you are familiar with the work relevant to your topic and make it clear where your own work ties in with the current state of research.

In the theory section, you introduce the epistemological and theoretical concepts relevant to your research question and relate them to each other. The methods chapter then contains the justification and reflection of your methodological procedure. In the following chapter(s), you analyse the results (using examples): Here you use your material to display how you proceeded methodically. Also quote from your material to substantiate the analysis. In the discussion, reflect once again on the methodology and the results of your analysis in relation to the previously discussed state of research, the theoretical concept and the chosen method. The final section summarises, concludes and provides an outlook. Here you should point out possibilities for follow-up research. Finally, the appendix ensures the intersubjective comprehensibility of your research. Excerpts from the research data and interim results from the analysis process are often attached. However, the composition of the appendix should also be tailored to the research design and can therefore vary from paper to paper. The anonymised data must be kept in any case and the examiner must be granted access if necessary. 

Quality criteria

In addition to the appropriateness of your chosen theories and methods to the subject matter , important points of reference for the quality of your work are that the way in which your results were obtained was made transparent and intersubjectively comprehensible on the basis of the data presented and that a conventionalised system of documentation was used or the deviation from this was conclusively justified. Your data should reflect field-specific relevance and emphasise the characteristics of the social phenomenon under investigation. Your situatedness as a researcher should be reflected as well as the situational, social and cultural contexts of the survey and analysis. The work should recognise a connection to previous scientifically generated findings and offer starting points for further research. Ethical and data protection guidelines must be observed. These may vary depending on the research topic and method, but you should always think about how you can obtain the informed consent of your research participants, guarantee their anonymity and avert potential harm to you. This also includes ensuring that you only use secure ways to store your research data.

The choice of question

The development of a research question is central to qualitative research. The first step in research is therefore the precision of the research interest and the resulting formulation of the research question. However, care must be taken when formulating the research question, as it must be possible to address it using qualitative methods. Qualitative methods are not suitable for quantitative questions, as they collect a much smaller amount of data than is necessary for quantitative research and do so according to other principles that do not provide you with a 'representative' sample. Accordingly, statements on frequency distributions and correlations cannot be made.

You should also avoid asking questions that 'predetermine' the phenomenon you are investigating or contain specific assumptions, such as "What differences are there between Germans and migrants?" With this question, you are 1) assuming that there are two fixed, distinct groups (Germans/migrants) and that these are 2) primarily characterised by differences. A more suitable qualitative question would be to ask, for example, how the distinction "German/migrant" is created in the media discourse.

More suitable questions are those that correspond to the interpretative paradigm of qualitative research, for example, i.e. those that aim to understand the interpretations of actors.

Typical questions of qualitative research on an abstract level are, for example

• How is meaning produced interactively?
• How is meaning negotiated?
• How are (meaning) conflicts made visible or invisible?
• Which artefacts produce certain meanings?
• Which practices produce certain meanings?
• What is the nature of the discourses that form around certain meanings?

Concrete qualitative research questions for media sociology that arise from this are, for example:

• How is emotional co-presence created in interactions between humans and humanoid chatbots?
• How are binary gender norms constructed in picture books?
• What (mutual) expectations do family members anticipate when they share holiday pictures in WhatsApp group chats?
• Which media practices and ecologies are constitutive for the culture of influencing?
• How are communication technologies used to exercise parental care practices under the condition of geographical distance?
• How do users communicate with algorithms?
• How is stereotypical knowledge (re)produced through which media practices?

If you are struggling to find a specific research question, it often helps to be clear about how you arrived at your research interest. Your research interest may also change and become more specific during the research process. However, the research design must then always be adapted accordingly. The first part of the research process already reveals a central feature of empirical qualitative research: the iterative-cyclical process. The phases of the research not only run chronologically one after the other, there is always feedback at the same time. In practical terms, this means the following: From a chronological point of view, a precision of the research interest is required before data collection can take place. In the history of the survey or the collection of natural data, the first phase can and must usually be reopened in order to make the research question, data collection, evaluation or interpretation and the resulting generalisation congruent.

Research design

In qualitative research, there are various methods and methodologies available to you for working on your research question, all of which have different advantages. However, the development of a research design must always be tailored to your research question and your subject. It also requires a theoretical embedding of central concepts. Theoretically, any background theory is possible if you can conclusively justify why this perspective is well suited to exploring the object of research and answering the research question. Each theoretical framework opens up a view of very specific aspects of reality and obscures the view of other aspects. While symbolic interactionism, for example, focuses on intersubjective meanings and their construction, a neo-materialist research programme is interested in the assemblages or material-semiotic practices that produce certain phenomena and the actants involved.

Data collection and processing

Data collection can be divided into several sections. In the research design, you have to work out your sample and your data preparation. Analogous to random sampling in quantitative research, as a qualitative researcher you should try to describe as many real-life cases as possible with as little data as possible. You could use the concept of theoretical sampling for this. The basic idea is to select cases that represent a range of data by contrasting them. This makes sense because qualitative research does not ask about quantitative relationships, but about the multiple and different possibilities of interpretation and meaning. Once the first cases have been selected, it is advisable to collect and analyse and interpret them immediately afterwards. This is because the requirement of an iterative-cyclical process also applies here. You cannot know one hundred per cent at the beginning of the research what data is relevant for you. If the corpus fully utilises the capacities of your work from the start date, the sampling is usually less precise than if you start with one date and then continue to sample piece by piece.

Data preparation is heavily dependent on your data. Text data, for example, needs (almost) no preparation at all, whereas audio tapes, for example, need to be transcribed. The decision on how to prepare data also depends on the research question. Books are published in contexts and have preliminary and subsequent chapters. Social media posts have a point in time and possibly images and comments. Audio files show pauses, voice pitches, video files facial expressions, gestures and other forms of performance. Images and social situations require fundamentally different data collection methods than text.

Again, you can decide which method you choose if it is sufficiently plausible. There is no one right method, even if some methods are more suitable for dealing with a specific issue than others. Every form of data collection and processing still requires justification. Even if you are looking at texts from books, you have to justify why you are ignoring the context and only looking at the selected words. If you are transcribing, you have to justify which transcription method you have chosen. Each decision places some levels of the data at the centre and obscures the view of others.

It is important to bear in mind, especially when (planning the) data collection, that you may have to process your data (e.g. transcribe) and then analyse it. If you have to adhere to fixed deadlines, determine the time you want to spend on data collection in advance. If you want to conduct interviews based on a self-designed guideline to use for your thesis, for example, it is advisable to contact potential interviewees before you register your thesis. It is even better to have received enough firm commitments and, if possible, to arrange an appointment. If an appointment is cancelled, you will then have a time buffer to find a new appointment or a new interview partner.

 

Analysing the data

The purpose of data analysis is to break down the data and work out the underlying concepts. This generalisation of the data is the aim of qualitative research. The method of data analysis depends on both your research question and your data. Depending on the research question, other aspects of the data are relevant in the analysis. This relationship is also reflected in the fact that the theory is determined by the research question and the theory guides the method of analysis. At the same time, the data determine how they can be analysed. For example, transcribed conversations or interviews require different methods of analysis than observation protocols. The iterative-cyclical process is once again very evident in the data analysis. In this phase, we generate sociological knowledge about our object of research. This knowledge often makes it possible to concretise the object of research, theory and other important data. Therefore, the analysis of the first datum is not the end of the research, but the first exploration of the object, which makes it possible to precisely theorise the object and the resulting generalisation of the data.

While at the start date of the data analysis you are faced with the task of breaking down your data using a suitable method, towards the end of the data analysis you must condense your results into findings (with recourse to your theoretical concepts and in relation to them). This analysis step is very demanding and definitely takes time.

Writing up the work

Ideally, the writing of the actual thesis should accompany the entire research process. However, this does not mean that you write the "theory chapter" chronologically first and then start collecting data, but rather that you repeatedly produce text in the form of research and analysis notes, field diary entries or notes on theoretical considerations and explanations of terms, which you can then refer back to during the final preparation of the research report.

When writing the research report, you are faced with the challenge of translating a non-linear research process into a research report with a linear (textual) structure. This challenge can be tackled on several levels. For reasons of argumentation logic, the topic and the research question should be at the beginning. Furthermore, the research design must be presented before the data collection and this before the presentation of the analysis results. To keep the research report concise, discarded questions and research designs should not be explained. Within this framework, you have the option of categorising theoretical reflections at various points. You can either include theoretical findings and decisions in a theory chapter before the explanation of the research design or/and they can be included in the presentation of the empirical results. The latter procedure allows a stronger presentation of the iterative-cyclical process, but also requires a clearer argumentation so that the common thread of the work remains visible. The sections of the thesis are briefly described below:

With the introduction, you give a reading guide. You introduce the topic, arouse interest, e.g. by formulating questions or problems that have led you to your research question, and prepare for the following text in order to justify the structure of the paper.

The summary of the research question and the aim of the study can be part of the introduction or a chapter on the state of research. Here you briefly and concisely formulate and justify a sociologically relevant research question. What do you want to find out? What unresolved questions does your work aim to contribute to? In which theoretical context do you categorise your research question? The research question and the resulting subject matter are the measure of the work. Your aim is to develop research appropriate to the subject matter on this basis. This section should therefore be given special attention. In the chapter on the state of research, you show that you are familiar with the work relevant to your topic and make it clear where your own work ties in with the state of research.

The theoretical assumptions are explained in the theory section. All research is based at least on theoretical assumptions about how reality is recognised. It is therefore part of good research to formulate these assumptions clearly. Qualitative work almost always refers to theories that belong to the interpretative paradigm. For example, the central concepts of symbolic interactionism could be explained and discussed. The aim here is not to summarise books or chapters that you have read, but to introduce relevant epistemological and theoretical concepts in relation to the research question and to relate them to each other. Depending on the method of presentation, more specific theoretical concepts could also be introduced here. Otherwise, this should be ensured in the data analysis.

The methods chapter contains the justification and reflection of your methodological procedure: What types of data are available to you for the analysis? How did you collect or generate them? How do you proceed with the analysis? How meaningful is your data with regard to your research question? Justify the appropriateness of your methodological procedure! Where do you see the strengths and limitations of the methods used?

In the following chapter(s), you will analyse and theoretically classify the results (as an example): You use your material to display how you proceeded methodically. Bring empirical data into a reciprocal observational relationship with theoretical concepts. In other words, you do not simply subsume the data under already known theories. The concepts that you apply as a lens for focussed observation of a phenomenon must prove their explanatory power on your data. It makes sense to quote from your own material in order to empirically substantiate the analysis.

In the discussion, you reflect on the methodology and the results of your analysis once again in relation to the previously discussed state of research, the theoretical concept and the chosen method. The following questions may be relevant:

• What contribution can your analysis make?
• Where does it confirm the existing state of research?
• Where does it perhaps contradict it?
• What could the chosen theoretical perspective achieve?
• Where might it have reached its limits?
• How can the choice of method be improved?
• What further data would be needed to make the analysis more meaningful?

The final section can be a summary, conclusion, outlook, etc. You should point out possibilities for follow-up research here.

Appendix

The results of qualitative-empirical research should be intersubjectively comprehensible . To ensure such comprehensibility, you can use not only your continuous text, but also the appendix of your paper. Depending on the methods and data types used, this can be composed differently, e.g:

• Sampling strategies (e.g. screenshots of your search for analysed YouTube videos)
• Interview transcripts, observation protocols, etc.
• Transcription convention used
• Representations of intermediate results, such as code trees or correlation models
• Research and field notes, memos, reflections from your research process, etc.

By no means do you have to include all material in the appendix of your paper - especially if you have a very extensive data corpus. However, you should be able to present the relevant material if your examiner asks you to do so.

Quality criteria

The quality criteria of objectivity, reliability and validity that apply in empirical quantitative social research are not applicable to qualitative research. Nor have any generally applicable quality criteria for qualitative social research been established. Rather, the question of good qualitative social research continues to be the subject of debate. However, some important points of orientation for your work are listed below:

• Appropriateness to the subject matter: the chosen method(s) of data collection and analysis should be appropriate to the subject matter of your research and your research question. The same applies to the theories you draw on in your work.
• Procedural reliability: The methodological procedure and the way your results were obtained should be transparent and made intersubjectively comprehensible on the basis of the data presented. Either a conventionalised system should be used for the documentation. In the event of deviations and the development of your own documentation system, it should be possible to justify this.
• Authenticity and quality of the data: Data should reflect field-specific relevance and thereby bring out the characteristics of the social phenomenon under investigation.
• Originality of the results: At best, something new was discovered with the research
• Positional reflexivity: The situatedness of the research or the researcher is included in the analysis. It is reflected that the researcher actively makes decisions and interpretations in the research process
• Context sensitivity: Situational, social and cultural contexts are taken into account both in the survey and in the analysis
• Cumulative cognitive process: The research builds on previous scientifically generated findings and in turn offers starting points for further research.

Please also consider the "Basic guidelines for all examination formats" in order to meet the stylistic and formal requirements of a qualitative research paper.

Research ethics and Data protection

It is not only in media sociology that research using qualitative methods places high demands on researchers in terms of ethical standards and Data protection. Their concrete design and implementation ultimately also depend on the subject of your research projects and the methods used in it, which is why we will refrain from proclaiming general guidelines at this point as far as possible. However, you should always confront yourself with the following questions in your research process in order to protect participants in your research in the best possible way:

• How can you ensure the voluntary nature of participation in your research?
• How can you ensure anonymity and confidentiality?
• How can you help to avoid possible harm to research participants?
• How can you obtain informed consent from your research participants?

The following also applies in principle:

• Avoid collecting personal data as far as possible.
• Anonymise your data and delete personal data as soon as possible.
• You should be able to account to research participants at any time for what happens to their data. Use secure ways to store them.

Your personal network drive (P drive) is primarily suitable for storing research data. The data is also protected there by a backup. Nevertheless, a private backup is of course advisable.  Under no circumstances should research data containing personal data be stored on third-party cloud platforms (Dropbox, OneDrive etc.). For sensitive data in particular, the campus cloud Sciebo is also not permitted in accordance with the university's IT security policy. In any case, personal research data may only be stored on Sciebo in encrypted form (e.g. using VeraCrypt). With regard to Sciebo, it should also be noted that the data there is not secured by a backup.

You can find more information here (in German):

• Code of Ethics of the German Sociological Association and the Professional Association of German Sociologists
• Data protection law on forschungsdaten.info
• Data protection handout from the Council for Social and Economic Data

In some seminars, the examination may also consist of the written preparation of a presentation that was previously given in the course. In this form of examination, you will show that you are able to write down the discussion of a topic in a presentation that has already been given orally. You should therefore show that you can introduce your topic and your research question in a comprehensible manner and discuss the relevant research literature and, if necessary, examples of application. In addition to a simple written retelling of your presentation, the paper also demonstrates your ability to reflect on your presentation against the background of the seminar discussion, to identify important and interesting contributions to the debate and to address these in writing.

The presentation

For a presentation, as with any other piece of work, you choose a topic in consultation with the teacher that is usually linked to the topic of the course. As in a seminar paper, a question should be developed in relation to the subject of the presentation. In addition to the topic and the question, please also discuss the expectations of your teacher, e.g. with regard to the length of the presentation or the use of media in it.

After a brief introduction of your topic and its scientific relevance, briefly present the research question in your presentation. Also explain the structure of your presentation to give the audience an idea of how the question will be addressed.

In the main part, you should work on the research question and develop a line of argumentation. You should refer to the literature read in the seminar, but also include independently researched literature. You should also make references to the topics covered so far in the seminar and the discussions held there.

Finally, a presentation should also have a clearly recognisable concluding section in which you briefly summarise your findings and return to your research question. Please stick to the agreed time frame for the presentation. In most cases, speakers are also expected to prepare a subsequent discussion in the plenary session. You should therefore not only be prepared for comprehension questions from the audience, but also develop some discussion questions/impulses in order to be able to initiate and moderate a subsequent discussion.

It should also be clear in a presentation where you are presenting someone else's ideas and what your own academic achievements are. When using presentation slides (e.g. PowerPoint), it is advisable to attach a list of references. You can also record this on a handout. When designing presentation slides or handouts, make sure that you present the key messages of your presentation briefly and clearly and do not overwhelm the reader with confusing continuous text.

The written elaboration

The written elaboration is similar in form to a seminar paper, but is essentially based on the presentation you have already given. However, the paper should not simply recount the presentation in written form. Instead, the topic and question of your presentation should be set out in the main part of your written paper and also take into account the seminar discussion that followed your presentation, so that the focus of the paper may shift from the original presentation.

A portfolio is an examination that brings together different types of written material in which you document your learning process and progress and reflect on your study activities during the course.

A portfolio therefore consists of different "modules", which may vary depending on the course in which the examination is to be taken. Please follow the teacher's instructions accordingly. As a general rule, the portfolio should be submitted in its entirety. It should therefore not only contain all types of material to be submitted, but also be framed by an introduction and a conclusion and list the literature used in a corresponding index. Of course, a portfolio should also fulfil the linguistic, stylistic and formal requirements of academic texts. (Please be sure to read the "Basic information for all examination formats").

With a research proposal, you demonstrate your ability to conceptualise a larger research project (hypothetical or possibly to be realised in a different context). It is a text in which a research topic is introduced and a research project is outlined in a comprehensible and convincing manner. A research proposal is often the beginning of a larger writing project, the foundation of which it forms. It should centrally negotiate the questions of what previously unavailable knowledge can be gained in the course of the research projects presented, why such knowledge should be gained, and how it can be gained in a convincing way. Under special circumstances, which you should discuss with your teacher, a research proposal can also be submitted as a seminar paper in the seminar context, the specific question of which is then aimed at the conception of a research question, a research design and a plan for its implementation.

Structure

The other formal and stylistic conventions in the preparation of academic texts (see "Basic information for all examination formats") should also be taken into account when writing research proposals . Your text should therefore also have a clear and comprehensible structure. While it is generally advisable to write a continuous text as a framework, it may also be appropriate to choose other formats for some of the components of the proposal (e.g. listing research questions in list form or providing a timetable of the research in tabular form).

You should grab the reader's attention right from the start date. For example, theses or questions that promise to stay in the reader's mind are suitable for this purpose. Convey to the reader in a clear and precise way what new insights they can expect from the realisation of your research, but also for whom your research could be of interest. Also include some background information on your research topic to provide orientation for the reader. In addition, try to convince the reader of your project by arguing for its professional and possibly also social relevance, the topicality of your research question and the corresponding urgency of your work. Convince the reader rhetorically, e.g. through surprises or apparent contradictions.

It is also essential to introduce the current state of research in a literature review (and to include a current and comprehensive bibliography after the body text) in order to highlight the gaps in the research literature that justify your research. By discussing the state of research, you also demonstrate that you are familiar with existing research and can build on or challenge it.

You should also explain in your research proposal how you intend to conduct your research. The methodology you propose should not just be a list of methods used, but should be formulated as an argument as to why the research tools you have put together are the best approach to address your research question. Be as specific as possible and do not just go into detail about which survey or evaluation methods you intend to use, but also make it clear how you plan to access the field or which problems can be anticipated and how you intend to deal with them. You should also show that you have already considered the research ethics aspects of your projects and reflect on your relationship as a researcher to the research object and field. You should also set out in a timetable that you have realistically planned the course of your research and its publication. It may also be useful to include a preliminary outline of your future work.

Finally, you should return to your topic and your central question and summarise for the reader why your research is important and promises to produce important and interesting results.

In a literature review, you demonstrate that you have the competence to access the current state of research on a topic by expressing your knowledge and understanding of the relevant scientific literature. In addition to the ability to correctly reproduce the content of the referenced research papers, you demonstrate that you are able to analyse existing literature, evaluate it in a well-founded manner and relate it to one another. The literature review is therefore an essential resource in narrowing down relevant research gaps and questions. It can be part of a larger research paper, but it can also stand alone and, if it has a clear scientific question, be submitted as a seminar paper in the seminar context in consultation with your examining teacher. The following sections refer to this case.

Structure

The structure of a literature review is based on that of other academic papers: Introduction, main body, conclusion. In the introduction, the topic and research question of your literature review should be introduced. This should also indicate the scope of your review and how the corpus of literature discussed came about. (What selection criteria were used to exclude literature? How did you narrow down your topic? Do you limit yourself to literature from a specific language or time period, for example?) The introduction should also provide an outlook on the structure of your text that follows in the main part and, if necessary, provide a brief preview of which trends, controversies or gaps can be identified in the field of research discussed.

In the main section, you will discuss the selected literature based on your research question. Here, it is a good idea to group the texts according to categories of your choice and discuss them in corresponding sub-chapters. The categories can, for example, be of a content-related nature and refer to sub-topics that you have identified in the research literature on your topic. However, you can also group the papers according to your chosen research design or according to completely different criteria. In any case, you should be able to justify how you arrived at your selection. Within the subchapters, you can introduce the works to be discussed, discuss them critically and evaluate their scientific value. The various works discussed should also be related to each other and gaps in the research literature should be identified. Of course, as in any other academic text format, it is important that you limit your topic in order to be able to deal with it in a meaningful way. Even with a clearly defined topic, it may not be possible for you to discuss all of the existing literature on your topic in your review. Identifying and selecting the literature relevant to the research discourse is therefore an important task.

The final section summarises your literature review. It should also formulate a perspective for future research on your chosen topic.

Of course, the body text must be followed by a complete list of the literature that you have discussed and used.

Guiding questions for the preparation of a literature review

Questions about which literature may be relevant and how the relevant literature should be discussed can cause uncertainty. The following questions can help guide you in the selection and discussion of the literature to be reviewed.

• What does the existing research on your topic focus on? What is its current status?
• Are there any authors who are particularly important for your topic (e.g. because they are also repeatedly cited in other literature)?
• Which methods are used in the literature to research your topic? Which ones are particularly suitable?
• Where are the links between different research papers? How are the results of previous research discussed and built upon?
• Which debates are controversial in the research or where is there consensus?
• Are research gaps identified (by the literature or by you)?