COM3706 Assignment 1 (DETAILED ANSWERS) Semester 1 2025 - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED

COM3706 Assignment 1 (DETAILED ANSWERS) Semester 1 2025 - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED Answers, guidelines, workings and references Topic: A social media analysis study to understand how your selected public broadcasting radio station1 engages its audience on social media2. As a researcher, Karibu Media Strategies, an international company based in Tanzania, has appointed you to investigate how your public broadcasting radio station engages its audiences on social media. This entails that you should select a public broadcasting radio station of your choice in order to conduct the social media analysis3 to understand how your selected radio station is engaging its audiences via social media such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok (you will need to select one social media platform that is accessible to you and has enough data to analyse). You may analyse the last 50 posts on its social media page to provide a specific answer of how the radio station engages its audiences through social media. For instance, you could investigate the main themes that your radio station is likely to post on social media, whether the audiences are likely to respond positively or negatively to the social media post of your radio station, and/or provide a statistical report of the social media posts (tweets, statuses). The study is both qualitative and quantitative as you will be required to read through the social media posts and comments to provide your general interpretation of the meanings of text, images and video (qualitative). As a communication scholar, you may also be interested in interpreting whether the language used is persuasive, emotive, formal, informal or humorous (qualitative). You may also count how often a specific topic or theme such as news, sports, programme update, questions, community engagement, opinion polls or quizzes are represented on the page (quantitative). You will also be required to categorise the text into various categories such as programme updates, sports, quizzes, news, and the like, or categorise how the viewers respond positively, neutrally or negatively toward the social media posts of the radio station (quantitative). You may also provide a statistical analysis (quantitative) of the social media page by describing how often audiences post; how many followers it has on its page; what the average number of comments, retweets/sharing or likes/reactions is; and what the most popular or less popular posts are. INSTRUCTIONS FOR ASSIGNMENT 01 With the above in mind, you are expected to present a research proposal (Assignment 01) to Karibu Media Strategies, where you highlight the following: 1.1 INTRODUCTION [5] Briefly explain to the reader the purpose of the study (or assignment) and what to expect in the following sections of the study (assignment). This entails that you will introduce your public broadcasting radio station5 and the social media page that you intend to analyse. Note: Mention the name of your selected public broadcasting radio station along with the social media platform you will be analysing in your topic, introduction, body and conclusion. Attach the screenshot of the first page of the social media platform as an addendum. 1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM STATEMENT/MAIN ISSUE [5] Formulate a research problem statement/main issue of the study. Ensure that your statement identify the research design, time dimension, action(s), issue, method(s). Read your prescribed book and study guide for guidelines on how to formulate a research problem statement. 1.3 SUBPROBLEMS [5] Identify three subproblems of the study. Ensure that your subproblems are researchable using the social media analysis. Read the prescribed book to learn more about the subproblems in research. Also read the research scenario in more detail to identify the possible subproblems. 1.4 LITERATURE REVIEW [10] By means of a literature review (suggested reading material for literature review), identify what other studies reveal about how radio stations engage their audiences/followers in South Africa or other countries around the world. You are expected to read the suggested reading material. Read your study guide and prescribed book to learn more about a literature review and its importance. Please note that no marks will be awarded if there are no cited sources in your literature review (at least three sources should be cited in this section). You may consult other academic sources other than the suggested readings. No marks will be allocated for copying and pasting from recommended readings or any other sources. You need to paraphrase what the articles are saying to demonstrate your understanding. The same principle applies to the theoretical framework (next section). 1.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK [5] Present a theoretical framework of the network society theory. Briefly narrate the history of network society theory; in other words, when was the theory conceived? Who are the key scholars of the theory? Provide a definition of the network society theory, key theoretical tenets (areas) of the theory, and the arguments of the theory under scrutiny. 1.6 RESEARCH DESIGN [20] Under the research method framework, you are expected to explain to your client, Karibu Media Strategies, how you will conduct the research; in other words, explain to the client, the type of research design, the population of the study, the sampling type and size, unit of analysis and data collection instruments. • Briefly describe the different characteristics of qualitative and quantitative research designs. • Explain why your research design is both qualitative and quantitative (mixed methods). • What is the data collection method in this study? Also explain the process of collecting data. Indicate which social media platform you will collect data from and justify your selection. You should attach a screenshot of the first page of your selected social media page as an addendum. • What is the target and accessible population of the study? • What is the sample size of your study? • What is the unit of analysis of the study? • What is the data analysis method used in this study? 1.7 CONCLUSION [5] You are expected to conclude your research proposal with a brief paragraph. In other words, briefly remind your readers of what has been discussed in the previous sections of the assignment.