“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days...But let us begin."

What are you aiming to find out?

In short, I am aiming to find out whether Kennedy deserves his reputation as "the best US president" or not. 

What topic area are you planning on researching?

I need to do research into the life, achievements and downfalls of Kennedy both as a person and a president, in order to attain some knowledge to base my opinion on! I would then like to go on to find and analyse different interpretations of Kennedy to try and form my own judgement on him, as well as comparing his achievements to those of other successful presidents in order to decide whether he truly deserves this title of "the best". I would also like to research Kennedy's use of propaganda in maintaining his image and the effect of his assassination on how future generations perceive him.


What are you planning on producing i.e. what is your final product?

I will most likely produce an essay, on which ever aspect of my research on Kennedy I find to be most relevant/interesting. I'd like to do something more creative such as some form of documentary type thing, but I'm not sure how realistic that would be along side managing a presentation as well!

How will you go about doing this?

I intend to do a lot of research via the internet, books and watching films to see how Kennedy have been portrayed. I want to analyse different opinion polls which include Kennedy, those from educated sources and less educated sources, to see whether Kennedy's popularity is partly down to a celebrity type culture in which people like him because they know his name but little about him, or not.  I'd like to try to include some form of primary sources, of my own data into the project to make it more my own, however I'm not yet sure how I would do this.

Why are your interested in this project?

I have always loved history, and in particular American history after visiting the East coast with school in summer 2009.  The JFK Presidential Library and Museum is possibly the most glorifying and have every visited, yet I still have very little idea as to how or why he has obtained such a sterling reputation (from what I can tell anyway!). Also I love looking at different propaganda techniques and their effectiveness (it's all so clever!), and I am hoping that Kennedy will be an interesting figure for this, particularly as I know he made some controversial decisions so there must have been some form of propaganda used for him to retain a good image. Finally, I am still struggling to choose between studying History ( + potentially American studies) and Maths (which annoying dont seem to combine well!) at university, so I am hoping that focusing entirely on one subject without a cross over will help to confirm my decision either way :)