03.10.2012

Our First Meeting...

 

In the middle of week 2, we had our first RSEL group meeting at Lauren's house. We had loads to talk about, mainly about which topic we wanted to study for our project. Some of the ideas that we came up with are shown in the scanned-in notes that we jotted down during the meeting.

 

 

 

 

We also talked over any issues that we were concerned about. We agreed that the best way to keep in touch was via text message, as not everyone could access the internet to check Facebook when on-the-go. We all exchanged numbers and agreed that if we had any issues to raise, we should text each other.

 

 

* * *

 

The first things we discussed were various ideas for our project.

 

The 3 favourite ideas were:

 

a) The use of language in social networking, potentially looking specifically at the way language is used in Tweeting. However, we decided that there wouldn't be much reading/research on this already around. We also agreed that it was probably too much of a niche area for a group of 5 of us to be developing over 12 weeks.

 

b) The use of age-specific language. Our conversation turned to anecdotes about phrases our grandmothers said (some very amusing!) and the idea was put forward that we could do some research into vocabulary that was specific to ages.

 

c) The last idea was how advertising language tends to vary depending on which gender it is aimed at. After Lauren showed us a hilarious video about advertising in women's cosmetics, we were very passionate about the subject of gender-specific language in the selling of cosmetics and healthcare. It seemed like a meaty topic, but not too wide that we would find ourselves out of our depth.

 

 

* * *

 

After coming to a group decision to pursue Idea C, we started looking up some books that may be useful on the library website, as well as on Google Books. We found several that could potentially prove useful and noted them down - deciding that it was Jodie's job to track them down in the Uni Library. We also decided on how we were going to analyse our data and research - this was through annotation of printed advertisements; transcribing television advertisements and analysing them; keeping an ongoing photo journal of gender-specific advertising that we came across in every day life.

 

Next, we started putting together our project proposal - getting about 300 words done. However, with the deadline for our Proposal looming, we decided to schedule our second meeting for Tuesday the 9th October.

 

* * *

 

For the next meeting, we decided that a number of things needed to be done. These were:

 

- We would all bring 5 printed advertisements for cosmetics - for each gender respectively.

 

- We would all look through our textbooks from last year to see if there was anything relevant to our project.

 

- We would all think of a potential question for our project title, with the intention that we would then pool all of these together and decide on the best one at the next meeting.

 

- Jodie would look for some relevant books in the library.

 

- Meg would type up an account of today's meeting (done!)

 

- Where possible, we would all start taking photos to put in our ongoing photo journals.