Describe discuss and evaluate the research methodologies you used to investigate your question

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KUMARAN SARAVANAI-PRABU 13SMP

Describe discuss and evaluate the research methodologies you used to investigate your question

My chosen topic was Women and Film and I undertook research, which focused upon how the representation of women in James Bond films have changed over the course of the franchise.

I thought the Internet would be a good source as it is reasonably reliable, up to date, allows me access to a wealth of information although you have to refine your search to gain access to information appropriate for you. I decided the most efficient way to browse would be using various search engines. By refining my search to “representation of Bond girls/women in Bond” I found a number of useful sites, which discussed the topic I was focusing on fairly well. I found an extremely helpful article in the online magazine on the Ian Fleming website (). Entitled “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” by David Morefield (November 2002) it gave a very good insight into how the changing roles of Bond girls throughout the franchise have impacted on Bond’s character.

I also found a written piece by Michelle Adams entitled Bond Girls: Gender, technology and film (March 2003), which I found very interesting as the writer had used a large amount of American newspaper and magazine articles as sources and offered a lot of critical commentary on the analysis of representations of Bond girls. There was a bit comparing the girls in Bond to the roles of women in society at the time, which I found extremely interesting, although the article did not discuss this topic as much as I would have liked.

Based on Adam’s article I decided that I should consider the social roles and values of women in contemporary society during the Bond franchise. I could then see if there were any significant changes and see if this in fact had an impact on the Bond franchise. This was a difficult task as I the Internet provided me with an endless number of sources and information to browse through. Ultimately I did gain a lot of the information I required through a combination of the website  and the sociology book “Haralambous and Holborn ‘Sociology’. These sources did offer me some of the information I required into how the roles and representation of women in society had developed. The Sociology textbook talked about important turning points in society such as the Equal Pay Act in 1970. These two sources did have limitations. They were very generalised and didn’t specify much on how roles of women in contemporary society affected their depiction in media and film as much as I would have liked.

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The Internet was also a valuable source for retaining newspaper articles, which I believe are an excellent resource as they offer reliable, academic input with usually unbiased views and journalist ethics. I found  very useful. I knew the Guardian would be one of the best newspaper sources, as it is known for its credibility and reliability.

They also discuss contemporary ideas e.g. comparing Bond girls with the denotations of women in many modern films – “Girls, girls, girls” by Jeanette Winterson.

I discovered useful articles such as “Oh James…” by Shawn Levy and “Girls, girls, girls” by Jeanette ...

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