Rock and Roll Research Paper

Write a research paper that consists of an empirical exploration of some aspect of rock and roll music through a critical media literacy lens. The paper should entail: 1. a thesis [one or two paragraphs]—introducing me to the thesis or main point of the paper. What element of critical media literacy will you be using and what aspect of rock and roll music? Will you be exploring the political economy or zeitgeist of the roots of rock and roll or some other era within rock and roll history such as the British invasion, or a textual analysis of representative bands within a musical genre such as punk or rap, or an audience reception analysis of representatives of some rock genre, or will you taking on all three elements to analyze some aspect of rock music like women in rock? Whatever you choose, make sure you introduce it here. This section can be as dramatic as you’d like and include personal insight. Pick a topic that is connected in some way with your core self—make it from the heart and it will come across much stronger. 2. a body [four pages]—this entails your logical and thoughtful exploration of your thesis. If you have chosen the political economy of punk rock, then make a case and stick to it. This section will likely look something like this: During the time that Madonna rose to stardom, America was living through the Reagan era. It was a time of cultural shifts in values and thinking from politics to boardrooms to MTV. Let me elaborate…. OR The writing of punk rockers easily lends itself to multiple forms of analysis. This semiotic analysis will focus on themes emerging in the lyrics of a representative sample of punk rock bands to highlight comparisons and contrasts in the work of punk rockers. These themes include… OR A dominant reading of punk rock largely turns the world on its ear, since punk rock was meant to clash, no pun intended, with mainstream thinking and values; while an oppositional reading of punk rock would question the value of this rock music genre and its meaning for generations. Let me begin with a dominant reading of punk rock through a look at the work of some representative bands… OR Hip hop emerged within the disenfranchised inner-city neighborhoods of the South Bronx, New York. This political economy or zeitgeist will foreground a content analysis of lyrics by Tupac Shakur, Mos Def, and the Roots whose work I will argue from a dominant reading of their texts. So to begin… 3. a critique or evaluation section [one paragraph] this section can be as dramatic as you choose to make it and must entail a personal opinion of the task--it is not meant to be a summary of what you have already written. 4. a bibliography for the citations used. All papers will require some degree of research with citations. Make sure you use 3 citations beyond Wikipedia or websites. Look at books and journal articles as well.