Term: Spring 2024 (Soc 320, Section 036)
Status: CLOSED
Contact: Please contact Chloe Hart chloe.hart@wisc.edu to apply for this position. See details below. It is available for 2 credits.
Description: Flirtation – expressing romantic or sexual interest in someone – isn’t a skill that is formally taught in schools or workplaces. Informal sources of information like films and television series, then, play a particularly important role in how people understand how to go about initiating romantic or sexual relationships. But how is flirtation actually characterized in popular films and television series? How do these characterizations convey the line between flirtation and sexual harassment? How have these characterizations changed over time, if at all? And what messages do media depictions of flirtation send about bigger ideas like gender, sexuality, power, and consent?
Duties: Undergraduate assistants will watch and systematically analyze a subset of the highest-grossing films and television series of the last century. They will be asked to 1) apply a comprehensive series of codes to each piece of media; and 2) attend biweekly meetings with the research team to discuss the project.
Requirements: The research assistant should:
- Have taken at least one sociology class, preferably more.
- Feel comfortable watching popular media that may depict sexual content and/or sexual violence.
- Have a good command of spoken and written English.
- Have strong time management skills: able to reliably submit weekly tasks on top of other ongoing obligations.
To Apply: Please contact Chloe Hart at chloe.hart@wisc.edu. Applicants should submit a resume and a short paragraph indicating why they are interested and well-suited for the research opportunity. Available for 2 credits.