need a few ideas for english research paper>_<

To keep this as short as possible... frankly the homework forums have dissapeared :P so i was hoping people here could give me some ideas for a english research paper. Ive chosen the topic as media.. but really i dont have much direction. I know there are lots of possible topics to do with the media however... it needs to be slightly older news as i NEED to cite sources. talking about sources.. i need 10 total minimum. 5 of which MUST be periodicals/books which is the main reason why i cant get a thesis statement down >_< all the ones i want to do are fairly recent/havent had alot of attention drawn to them in the respect that books and articles have been written. it also means my main source of information - the internet, isnt as useful because i MUST include books/periodicals.

anyone know of any periodicals that cover contraversial stories availble in libraries in the US?.. I'm really stuck and would appreciate any help anyone can offer.

btw.. im currently looking at things along the lines of the affects of media in the change of public opinion towards religions... (i think thats a bit too complex, would take too long and i would lack sources tho) another idea i was toying with was the use of the media by governmets to support war (like the former and current iraq war)

Please don't double post, use the edit button. ~Gau

How long is the piece? If you want to talk about Propoganda then I will pm you loads of books about propoganda. Dunno whether they will all be available in U.S libraries but most should be. For more recent wars you may have to cite newspaper publications, i'm not sure. Well let me know if you want the list and I will send it to you.

that would be most helpful! thanks. if you could.. post here or pm me. thing is.. i lost internet at home so i cant even access the stuff from there :( its gonna be a 10 page essay ish. i expect once i get stuff to write thats easy enough since ive done longer papers.. just not as .. undefined... and my other papers i had the internet to work off... now they restrict half my research to books >_< im pretty sure i could find info from just about anywhere on the net... but lack of books to help means ive got no real topic till i get books to work off :(

anyways.. thanks alot

No worries I will PM it to you tomorrow. Gotta siphon out the totally irrelevant from the list first. Should be in the next 24hrs.

ahh.... thanks alot man. im gonna start the internet side of the research then. :)

If you're stuck for ideas about a topic, you might want to consider something that'll be easy to research - like looking at how the media in different countries and cultures react to important events, e.g. natural disasters, acts of war or terrorism. There'll be profound differences in how they all view the same event; it'd be interesting to see what those differences are and how they change over time.
A good library, especially a university library, should have old periodicals from all over the place. Time magazine, newspapers, that sort of thing.