Dissertation research on Playboy?

Question

Hi everyone,

I have asked this question before and although I only got a few replies I found them very helpful so I wanted to elaborate again and get some more feedback from you! :-)

I've decided to do my dissertation on "female perceptions and attitudes towards men's lifestyle and soft core p**n magazines". I want to have an all-female focus group to discuss differences between the two kinds of magazines, the women's views on the images - such as if it is empowering or oppressive to pose in Playboy/lads mags and just their general feelings regarding these publications. I will also conduct around 10 interviews with various women (Hopefully including some who have posed in some of these magazines) to gather similar opinions and feelings.

The reason I've focused on all-female's is because women's perspectives have been neglected on this issue, so I could say I am adopting a feminist approach in order to explore their feelings on this issue. It would also be interesting to have male opinions but I think this would produce too much data and also not allow me to say I am adopting a feminist approach.

Do you think this is a good idea? Is all females a good idea too or should I include men? Do you think I would be able to gather a lot of data using these methods? Perhaps I could interview of different ages to see if it produces different results?

If you can see any flaws, any ways this can be improved, angles I could take when exploring the issue or just positive comments would be great :-) thank you! x

Answer 1

i am a women and i think soft core p**n is lame. i like hardcore p**n but softcore is stuff for when you are in your early teens not for grown adults.

my husband agrees he watches p**n with me and doesnt care about softcore its more a really young lad thing.

Answer 2

Aren't you jumping the gun!   A dissertation is done at the end of a PhD program.  Your questions indicate you are just graduating from college.  I doubt any committee would pass on this idea anyway.  

Edit:  Are you in the US if so the term dissertation is reserved for PhD's.   For undergrad its usually called the senior thesis as opposed to thesis for masters programs.  

As dissertation has five chapters: introduction, lit review, methodology, results, and findings.  Mine was 243 pages.  

A proposal is the first three- and you have elaborate on what method you are using- qualitative; and the focus lived experience, grounded theory, interpretive, focus group, interview, observation, etc.    How are you going to find participants, get IRB approval, fund this, word your informed consent.   The proposal has to outline all of these.

Answer 3

(FYI I think maybe Prof is in the US and you are not? Dissertation in the US refers only to PhD)

You can leave the men out. Your topic becomes waaay too broad if you try to discuss male opinions. Where do they fit into the thesis? They don't. You have the problem of whether or not comparing male and female opinions is feminist or sexist. Remember, it's often possible to interpret feminism as sexism (since some definitions of feminism include an unadmitted assumption that women are inferior or secondary). I think you are safest to bypass that issue and make the paper specifically about women, and not bother claiming to be feminist or not. If it's a feminism course, you don't need to say it's a feminist approach. Let your audience decide.

I'd recommend doing a couple different focus groups of 4-5 women, with different mixtures of old and young, majority and minority ethnic backgrounds, and models / non-models, married and nonmarried; and interviews with a variety of different women. Every social situation will produce slightly different answers from the same people. You run a risk of making conclusions based on nonscientific research, so I think you should not even pretend that it's informative in that way, and just report the attitudes you found in the particular subjects without drawing conclusions about women generally. Leave that to your audience too.

Also, when you interview women, don't ask leading questions like "is it empowering, or is it oppressive." Make sure your questions are always open-ended, like "What did it mean to you as a woman to pose for the mag?" and "What feelings do you have when pornography is mentioned in mixed company?"

Answer 4

I did my senior thesis on slasher films...stop laughing!