6. Keep a log of TV dramas and sitcoms for a week (here’s your chance to veg a little for science), and count the appearances of minorities, smoking, guns, thin fit people, and/or any other variables that are of interest to you. (Make your list of variables ahead of time.) After a week, tally the variables on your log and search data sites (like the Census) to see how TV compares with society. (A specific form of this that could probably produce publishable results would be to limit the input to TV reality shows.)