The semester-long activity described herein uses an integrated instructional approach to media studies to introduce students to the research method of qualitative content analysis and help them become more critically vigilant media consumers. The goal is to increase students' media literacy by guiding them in the design of an exploratory qualitative content analysis that targeted expressions of a dominant political discourse (neoliberalism) in the lyrics of a popular genre of contemporary music (rap), the final project being the collaborative creation of a valid and reliable codebook. The qualitative approach to content analysis is best understood as the systematic coding of text in an effort to make inferences about meaning that connect material content to contextual considerations (source, audience, historical era, etc.; Krippendorff, 2004; Mayring, 2000; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). By helping students to recognize the interplay between media content, media sources (owners and medium), and anticipated audiences, the author hopes to cultivate in them a more critically vigilant perspective on media consumption.