How did we arrive to the research question?

When we started trying to figure out what should our research question be, we were very confused because there were a thousand different factors we could research about, however, once we completed our annotated bibliography, we analyzed the data and conclusions of several peer reviewed articles, and realized that there is not only a large pay gap between male and female workers in the television broadcasting industry, but there is also a large employment gap between men and women. Due to the difficulty in finding accurate statistics of employees of an entire broadcasting channel, such as ABC, we will be sampling from the 5 longest running and currently airing television shows across their many season spans. To do this we will study the credits for episodes randomly selected from each season and determine the ratio of male to female workers in the industry.

Why does the research question matter? 

With the rise in television shows with more representation all around and more public demand for representation, it is become important for broadcasting services to reflect such demand. Through our research question, we can see how ABC has or has not responded to such demands or pressures in their longest currently shows. We can analyze this by taking into account the ratio of women to men employed for several jobs such as main writers and actors in Grey’s Anatomy, General Hospital, Modern Family, Agents of Shields, and The Goldbergs. This information would definitely matter as it would allow us to see if whether the increased demand for representation diversity has actually changed the gender employment in the inside of ABC’s shows or not, and what could we do with the data we collect.

ABC’s diversity of shows