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Hello everyone I am back with another blog post! I have finished completing my data collection and am in the process of analyzing my research. For those of you who may be joining me for the first time, my research question is, ""Which demographic’s narratives are most prevalent in recent films about World War II from the major countries involved?" To answer this question, I conducted a conceptual content analysis of 12 WWII movies from 6 countries, quantifying the characters that fall into 3 main categories: gender, race, and occupation.
Since my last blog post, I haven't had any major problems, but I have had to change my research slightly. I changed two of the movies that I watched. I realized that one of the "Italian" films, Miracle at St. Anna, is actually American made, so I found a better option, El Alamein: Line of Fire. I also found a better option for a German movie, 13 Minutes. I was going to watch Land of Mine, but it largely takes place in the Netherlands, which isn't what I was looking for. After making these slight adjustments, my research went much smoother.
With these foreign films especially, I sometimes struggled to find movies available to watch in the U.S. I had to do a lot of digging to find versions available for streaming, or I ordered DVD's from Amazon. This whole process made me a little crunched for time near the end of my research, but I was able to complete my data collection with some time for analysis.
These past couple weeks, I have focused on watching the movies from Italy, Germany, and Japan. I watched The Duck Hunter, El Alamein: Line of Fire, Downfall, 13 Minutes, Hanagatami, and The Fighter Pilot. I noticed trends in the second half of my data collection that were similar to the trends I noticed in the other movies I watched earlier. The most common categories are still "male" and "white." I'm also noticing some differences in how other countries are portrayed. This is not necessarily a large part of my project, but I have noticed that the movies in each country portray their home country as superior and express negative opinions about other nations, even those on their "side" during the war. This is also not surprising, but nevertheless, it's very interesting to see all of these different perspectives.
Now that I have my data, I am working on completing my statistical analysis. I am completing a chi-square test of homogeneity. This test will help me prove that there are differences between my categories. My first step is to use my marginal totals to find an expected value, which I will plug into the formula: (observed-expected)^2/expected
This will give me a test statistic that I can then use to find the probability of a difference between the categories appearing.
I have begun calculating these values for my categories and once I finish, I will be able to interpret them and use this data to answer my research question.
This is me setting up my formulas for my statistical tests.
Obviously, I can't do any statistical tests with my qualitative data. I am struggling to find the most effective way to compile all of these observations for my presentation and paper. I am experimenting with different tables and formats, but it is difficult to fit everything because there are so many qualitative notes. I will continue to work on compiling and analyzing my data as I transition into my preparing for my oral defense and writing my paper.
Here is a photo of the chart that I recorded data on for El Alamein. I took notes of characters in a notebook, and then transferred the totals into a digital data sheet. I make sure to list the characters and make not of which categories each one falls in, so I don't accidentally tally any characters twice.
In the next couple weeks, I will present my research and begin working on my academic paper more rigorously. Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me and supported me through this process!
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