Select an example of a medium of your own choice. This may be a narrative taken from a novel or movie, an article from a magazine, a documentary news report, an autobiographical or personal experience, or any other fictional or non-fictional account of a particular set of social relations. Using Ralf Dahrendorfs social conflict theory, structural functionalist theory or Evering Goffman’s dramaturgical theory, analyze your example in terms of the key concepts, basic assumptions, and underlying arguments of the theory of your choice. Try to show how your sociological analysis adds to our understanding of the topic. You may use either a macrosociological or a microsociological framework of analysis.

Examples of topics might include such novels as: The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood; Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley; or Nineteen Eighty-four, by George Orwell. Examples of movies might include Crash, Natural Born Killers, Taxi, Pulp Fiction, American History X, or The Piano, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Wolf of Wall Street, or any other movie that you think can be analyzed using a particular theoretical perspective. News events might include media coverage of politics, wars, media celebrities, for example. Personal experiences might include work, home, college, social events, sporting events, social media, or other situations.

The important thing to remember is that you need to choose a theory that is compatible with your topic. You also need to have some documentary content for your analysis. If you are analyzing a movie, you will need to reference the dialogue. If you are analyzing a set of interpersonal relations, you will need to document the details of your encounter, or to record and analyze some conversation.