Select a movie, short story, or tv episode, through which you can explore the topic.

For example, Monsters, Inc could explore Max Weber’s characterization of life within a bureaucratic organization as a “gilded cage.” You could also use a specific scenario or even the underlying theme of the entire movie to examine Marx’s claim that divorcing the worker from owning the means of production causes alienation. Either would constitute an excellent start!

But you must range beyond simple definition. Use the context to evaluate and offer an informed analysis of the concept. Integrate external scholarship into your research. For example, what does the context suggest about the tension between symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict theory? Should sociology stress structures and macro theory or is the science optimal when focusing on individuals and micro events? Ought sociology be prescriptive and seek to drive positive change or must a science be the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, i.e. is the field tainted somehow through application?