Research Daily 1

“Radio, television, film, and the other products of media culture provide materials out of which we forge our very identities; our sense of selfhood; our notion of what it means to be male or female; our sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality, of sexuality; and of "us" and "them." Media images help shape our view of the world and our deepest values: what we consider good or bad, positive or negative, moral or evil.”-Douglas Kellner said. Nowadays, media becomes part of our daily life, we cannot live without the media, which has we always saw the advertising when we go to work or school, and we always using the social media on the smart phone in anywhere and anytime. We need to do academic research is important to this modern world is non-stop to changing. Media like a socially driven to drive human the life to having changes, even the language or technology produces.

We can use two research methods: Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research.

For qualitative research, the strengths are that researcher can easy to gain clearer understanding about the targeted market for the reason that the types of questions asked during the process starts with “Why”. Moreover, the data in qualitative research depends on human experience and this is more compelling and powerful than data gathered through quantitative research, and the direction and framework of research can be revised quickly as soon as fresh information and findings emerge. On the other hand, the weakness is that the quality of research is heavily dependent on the skills of the researcher and can be easily influenced by personal idiosyncrasies and biases of researchers.

For quantitative research, the strengths are that study findings can be generalized to the population about which information is required easily and quickly, and it can clear documentation can be provided regarding the content and application of the survey instruments so that other researchers can assess the validity of the findings. On the other hand, the weaknesses are that this research method is inflexible because the instruments cannot be modified once the study begins, and many kinds of information are difficult to obtain through structured data collection instruments, particularly on sensitive topics such as domestic violence or income.

At last, I suppose to use qualitative research method for my research paper of online communities. I would like to interview 10 of 20 years old to 40 years old the users of golden forum, which is the most famous digital sites in Hong Kong.  I would like to find out how the online platform to gather a group of people to form a community in cyber space and why the users love to go to this kind of online communities.

Reference

1. Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture (Citations: 47) Douglas Kellner

http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Publication/2915287/cultural-studies-multiculturalism-and-media-culture

2. Strengths and Weaknesses of Quantitative and Qualitative Research, Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain, September 3, 2012

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/09/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-quantitative-and-qualitative-research.php

student name: Ip Man Yee

Research Diary 1

The media and culture are so much a part of our days that sometimes it is difficult to step back and appreciate and apprehend their great impact on our lives. Think of your typical day. If you are like many people, you wake to a digital alarm clock or perhaps your smart phone. Soon after waking, you likely have a routine that involves some media. Some people immediately check the smart phone for text messages. Others will turn on the computer and check Facebook, email, or websites. Some people read the newspaper. Others listen to music on an iPod. Some people return home and relax with video games, television, movies, more Facebook, or music. You connect with friends on campus and beyond with text messages or Facebook. Media for most of us are entwined with almost every aspect of life and work. Understanding media will not only help you appreciate the role of media in your life but also help you be a more informed citizen, a more savvy consumer, and a more successful worker. Media influence all those aspects of life as well. So we need to do some academic research to realize that how deep are media influence us. And how different are we after contact media.

In an academic research, there are two methods that we can use: Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research.

In Qualitative Research, we can understand the view of homogeneous exploration and raise more issues through broad and open-ended inquiry. Also we can understand behaviors of values, beliefs and assumptions in the research. However, there are no objectively verifiable results and skillful requirement for interviewers. Time consuming during interviewing process and intensive category process also is the weakness.

In Quantitative Research, the strength of this method is reliability by critical analyzed and Short time frame for administered survey. Also it can facilitate numerical data for groups and extents of agree or disagree from respondents. However, no human perception and beliefs and lack of resources for large scale research and no depth experience description are the weakness of this method.

Last, I suppose to use qualitative research method for my research, as I seek to realize the online communities about the mainland people and the Hong Kong people, try to understand the different of the culture between those two group people. So I will do some interview to get more useful information form different social media user.

Student Name: Ma Shun Hei

Research Diary 1

Technology develops very fast nowadays and currently we are influenced by media in our everyday life that people in different background are clustered in different ways, cultures are formed differently, becomes more virtualized. Many unknown incidents are happening or will be happened that academic researches are needed to perform to help people to understand what have been happening through human behaviour in the digital era, asking questions and developing answers through serious critical thinking and thoughtful reflection. Researchers can share their ideas and findings. Thurs, the professionals can take those as results to make certain respond or solve problem. It could bring the media into next level or solve the crime brought by the internet. Quantitative research and qualitative research are the common methods of research. Both research methods contain data collection and analysis, but the aim and type of data are totally different. Quantitative research is based on theory to prove the hypothesis by the collected data which reduced to number and analysed by statistic. Generally, it is to look into the relationship of variables. Measurement of reliability and validity and causality are important. It is good for a large number of subjects, the design of research can eliminate the influence of many variables to be more accurate and research results are relatively independent of the researcher. However, there is the assumption of variables that measurement process possesses an artificial sense of precision and accuracy. Qualitative research is gather all data which usually are words of description of feeling or phenomenon, then categorize, organize and formulate a theory. It is to explore experience, culture or particular issue. It is good to provide in-depth case information and describe complex phenomena. However, massive time of collecting and analyzing data is crucial and the results are more easily influenced by the researcher's personal biases. Imagined communities are newly formed in the century and fascinated me a lot. I am going to study how the cyber space, virtual culture and imagined identity formed under global and local cultural context. In my research, mixed research will be performed to get a more accurate statistic result with credibility and validity, but also obtain in-depth discussion of emotion and experience. A timeline of history, the origin culture, textual analysis, survey and interview will be conducted. Name: Chan Nga Yin

Research Diary 1

Research Diary 1                                                                                                                                                                           Gloria Lo

When we working on the media and culture , we will get a lot of information of our topic in media and culture . And how we find out which information is our need and accord the data match in the generation . Because every year the change have been updated so when we want to get the accurate and the newest information we need to do the academic research to make sure our information get right .

We have quantitative and qualitative versus , and these we usually used in marketing , sociology , psychology , public health and various . I think the most different way to apart is qualitative versus is to explain and gain the information and detailed description from the data gathering instrument . And when we get the data is in the words , pictures , objects . And qualitative data usually spending too much time and less able to be generalized and tends to become subjectively immersed in the subject . ‘ All research ultimately has a qualitative grounding ’ by Donald Campbell . And quantitative is to explain , predict , and control the phenomena on collection of numerical data . We know quantitative data based on the numbers and statistics and the data is more efficient to able to test but probability miss the detail . It tends to keep objectively and separated the subject . ‘ There’s no such thing as qualitative data . Everything is either 1 or 0 ’ by free Kerlinger . i think Mr . Campbell and Mr. Kerlinger are sum up these two research characteristic . Both research have the weakness and strengths . Because these research are spend tie to set up the question , target , and the center . And need to sure the research are not out of subject . But we need get the exact information so it good to finish our topic when we use it . 

My general research topic I have few ideas . It based on my life , because i think i get lot of knowledge from the tv show and the drama I watched . Topic direction it from when people watch the tv , can learn in the show ? And why the show or the drama can attract to watch ?What channel can so useful and easy to learn . What they think of the tv show and they believe the show or the drama they told . But I not so sure i should choose tv show or drama to talking about . And because i still in the direction and not shorten my topic so i still not sure what research mode i should use . But i think use qualitative is better to quantitative in my topic .

Research Diary 1

Quantitative VS Qualitative 

To do a academic research need many steps, collecting data, analysing data, setting mission statement, setting target group etc. In a academic research, research method is important for the following up. There are many method to do a research. The most common way are quantitative and qualitative research method. In this blog, i would like to point out the weaknesses of these two methods and give the positive advice for my later academic research. 

Quantitative research method is usually involved large amount of the interviewees, survey would used in this research method. This research method would misleading the interviewee by using different word on the survey and make the wrong decision to finish the survey. Besides that, quantitative method would hardly to distinguish people and social institution. Survey question would be randomly send to different people to finish. The background would affect the result of the question data. It would mainly affect the data analysis and the suggestion of the research. Also, this method have high costs for setting questionnaire, distributing the questionnaire, collecting the survey and the data analysis, it cost manpower and the technology helping. So the cost would be higher than quantitative research method.

Qualitative research method is specified the target of the research target. A deep, depth interview would be use in this method. To have a precise opinion and answer of the interviewee, the question would set ‘yes/no’ question. So the interviewer need to set the question not to embarrass the interviewee and get the positive respond to the question and interviewer need to have good social skill to build up a good relationship with the interviewee. Although, qualitative method can get detail data, there are many factor would affect the answer, such as the bias of the interviewee. Also that data of this method have a lot of heavy message involved, so the data analysis would take long period of time.

For my own academic research, i would do the relationship between propaganda and the influence of the nation identity of Hong Kong citizen in Hong Kong. With this mission statement, quantitative research method would more suitable than other because influence of the nation identity cannot judge by serval people. Also bias would easily occur in such topic. Random sampling method would more buy in this topic.

Student Name: Li Tsz Ching

Research Diary 1

Media and culture is different with other subjects, because technology is keep improving and the usage of in is changing by the transition of time. The media that everyone use in their daily life would be different, such us teenager would access to the Internet but elderly would not. Also, everyone may have different bearing and notion for media, so that is why there are no any absolute true for this subject. Therefore, for a deeper study in media and culture, academic research is needed to fine the scholar article and theory which is fitting with our topic, and also get the firsthand data from interviewee.

There are two ways of finding information for academic research, qualitative research and quantitative research.

1. Qualitative Research

            Having penetrate deeply interview with representative individuals, and analysis some scholar article are the ways to do qualitative research. The target people in the research would be little, usually would be one to several individuals. The advantage of qualitative research is the study can be deeper as we can know more about the ideas and notion behind of the target. Although the range of the study would be slender but we can do it more focus. Unfortunately, the notion of the representative individuals may be different to masses people, the reliability of the research may not be high.

2. Quantitative Research

            You will see lots of numbers and chart in a quantitative. The data is usually collected by questionnaire. The target of quantitative research would be tens to hundreds of people. Studying the numbers can know the trends of the masses clearly. The advantage of quantitative research is the actual numbers have high reliability. And the range of the research can be wide. However, the research cannot be deep, as normal interviewee of questionnaire would leave the survey if the questions were too hard to answer.

            To compare these two research methods, there are not any one method is better the other. It is because they are setting for different kinds of research: Different the topic, the path of the research, the situation, and different research methods has to use. And the two methods can be use together in a research.

            For my own research, I am interested to study on the TV show in foreign, to know more about the transnational consumptions behind. For having a comprehensive study, I would like to use both the two research methods in my study. Having questionnaire with people in different age groups, and pick 1 or 2 participants from every age group to have a short interview with them. Furthermore, I would search some scholar article to support my study. For making my research can be trustworthy by the numbers, and also can be deeper as details can be got from the interviewee and scholar articles.

Student Name: Tsang Cheuk Wah, iCa

Research Diary 1

Just as much as Media and Culture influence society, it is also strongly influenced by society, in other words, they are socially driven. Also, Both Media and Culture are in constant need of updating due to the many changes and evolutions. But with these many changes, there also comes the need to validate information that due to the overload of information we are able to access these days and this is where academic researches comes in. Academic researchers have rather strict requirement of reliability and validity, and give rise for seemingly mundane ideas to show how much potential they have and can be used to the fullest extent.

For Quantitative research the strengths are that data can be analysed quickly and easily and can be used to generalize the population. Also, it is anonymous for any sensitive issues making participants more willing to speak their mind without the desire to hide their true opinions. On the other, the weaknesses are that it is not cost efficient to print questionnaires while participation cannot be observed and confirmed when using online surveys. Moreover, more participants needed to answer questionnaires while answers are limited to very general responses.

For Qualitative research the strengths are in-depth, personal and detailed data that can be obtained in a naturalistic environment with less participants needed. While the weaknesses are the smaller sampling size which leads to difficulty in obtaining solid statistic as the findings cannot be generalized and there is a high chance of biases occurring.

My tentative research topic is “The use and occupation of imagined space in the table top Role-play game subculture of ‘dungeons and dragons’ in Hong Kong” and the ways that the role-play subcultural identities are influenced with the imagined space in the game.

I believe this research will yield interesting results as the role play game Dungeons and Dragons is not one of the more popular online game like DOTA or League of Legends, with exquisite graphics and characters readily designed for immediate use. The players are forced to use their collective imagination as the game master tells the story and build their own characters with different races, languages and skills and form a party in which they are made to go on an adventure either finding treasure or killing monsters while working effectively as a team.

For this research I believe that a suitable research method would be qualitative instead of quantitative as the game of “dungeons and dragons” is not very widely spread throughout Hong Kong. I plan on getting in touch with any dungeons and dragons community that I may be able to find in Hong Kong and sit in on game sessions as my field observation/ ethnography on a weekly basis as well as conduct informal interviews with the participants of the role play.

Student name: Harina Rachel Anne Aristan. 

Research diary 1

Doing a academic research is one of the way to find out a social issue and also it’s the way to make our research more credible and reliable. There are two main method to help us doing the research, it is Qualitative way and Quantitative way.



First Qualitative is focus on finding the reason why people acting in a specific action. This method is more focus on the reason more than the number of people or things. So those researcher will use the other way to connect the data, for example, interviewing a small group of people or make a Questionnaire with some opening question. In the Questionnaire, those researcher will use “why”, “what” or “how” as the beginning of the question. When people answering the questionnaire, they will give more specific detail to the research. Then those researcher will analysis those data and find out the reason. At the least of the research, those researcher will according the data and emphasizes the content of the research, then they will launch a whole new theory or using one theory to explain the result.

On the other hand, Quantitative is focus on the number more than the reason. Simply specking, quantitative method is connecting the data form the large group of people for measuring study. This method was used for doing some biggest social issue research, like population research. Or when there are different people, those researcher will using information graphics to separate those data in a few groups. This method will show us the main direction of the whole problem, not just depend on one or two opinion. In this method, those researcher will not using interview as the way to connect data, they will create a questionnaire with close ending question, for example, “Yes”, “No” question, or rating question. This method is also the way could connect large data as fast as possible.

Each method have different strengths and weakness. Quantitative can connect a large data in a short time and it’s also can help the research separate in few different groups, but those data can not show us the specific reason in the research result. Those data can only tell us how many different group of people in the research and make the result more clearly. And there also too many audiences may reduce the reliability and validity. So researcher must choose the audiences randomly. It will cost so much man power in the research.

Qualitative is the opposite of Quantitative. Qualitative method can tell us the reason of those target audiences behavior. But it’s also cost too many time because of analysis each different data one by one. Those researcher had to focus on one specific group and analysis the data which connected form the group. it’s may inferred the reason but it cannot tell us how many target audiences were joining the research.

Yuen, Hoi Wang Patrick

Research Diary 1

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them (Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics).

Self-reliance and self-learning are your greatest assets (Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of WisdomL Great mind).

Research; the quest for in-depth knowledge and wisdom (Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of WisdomL Great mind).

We ought to do academic research on media and culture since we are willing to learn and understand the cultural Globalization and the idea of Westernization. Throughout the upcoming three months, I should be capable of working out the research questions that are closely related to my topic of the individual research essay and they are essential to the aspect of Media Culture 2 (Media and Cultural Studies). Besides, adequate approaches and resources (Primary and Secondary Resources) should be involved as one of the important part / area of my research project/essay. Also, I would ensure that the sources (e.g. Textbook and Online / Electronic Article) are scholarly acknowledged. The tools I would like to make use of them are HKU library and Google Scholar etc.

There are two research methods, which are qualitative research and quantitative research. In regard to the qualitative research, it consists of ethnography and participant observation. Moreover, narrative, discourse and semiotics analysis should be included. Reception Analysis needed to be established, such as interviews and surveys for the focus / specific groups of people (e.g. age, gender, behavior). In regard to the quantitative research, it is simpler from my point view since it requires to conduct a simply constructed survey / questionnaire and content analysis that associates with the selected research topic.

Strengths of qualitative research:

1.   Beneficial for describing complex phenomena

2.   Offer in-depth / individual case information

3.   I (Researcher) would have a chance to study dynamic processes

4.   Data and materials are usually collected in naturalistic settings

Weaknesses of qualitative research:

  

1.   Knowledge produced might not generalized to other people or other settings

2.   The results are more easily influenced by the researcher’s personal biases

3.   It basically takes more time / effort to collect and analyze the data / material

Strengths of quantitative research:

1.       The researcher’s design can eliminate the influence of many variables

2.       The research results are relatively independent of the research

3.       Research findings can be generalized with random samples

4.       It is advantageous for studying huge numbers of people / subjects

Weaknesses of quantitative research:

1.    The measurement process possess an artificial sense of precision and accuracy

2.    It fails to distinguish people and social institutions from the world of nature

For my research topic, I am still deciding between proposed research topic 5 (Spaces of subculture) and proposed research topic 7 (Media ownership and media content). In regard to topic 5, it is possible to select Eastern and Western restaurants (茶餐廳) compare to the others (e.g. Chinese / Japanese / Taiwanese / Thai food)?

References:

Media Culture 2 Powerpoint Week 1

Media Culture 2 Powerpoint Week 2

Student Name: Chu Chi Wai (SID: 10550989)

Jazz Chung Research Diary 1

(Image Source- https-//s1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/a8tGRVkp45_QcpgjEpilUg)

In the dictionary, academic research mean careful study of a given subject, field, or problem, undertaken to discover facts or principles. Because our world have difference culture and media, it might never change or change by time. Our lifestyle and value are affected with nation culture and media. We do the academic research on media and culture can focuses on the creation of new ideas, perspectives and arguments. The research process is about inquiry-asking questions and developing answers through serious critical thinking and thoughtful reflection. Also, need reconsiders and refines the research question, topic, or approach. Below will introduce the basic research methods and simply analysis their strengths and weaknesses.

There are two research methods, one is quantitative and the other one is qualitative.

Quantitative research

Strengths of quantitative research:

1. Studying large numbers of people

2. Random samples to generalize the research findings

3. The research results can be quantified

4. The research approach answer can eliminate the influence of many variables

Weaknesses of quantitative research:

1. Issues of reliability and validity

2. Random samples might not cover all target generation

3. The measurement process deviation

Qualitative research

Strengths of qualitative research:

1. It is useful for describing complex phenomena

2. It can study dynamic processes

3. Data are usually collected in interviews (focus groups and multiple people) and observations.

4. Provides in-depth or individual case information

Weaknesses of qualitative research:

1. Generally, it takes more time to collect and analysis the data

2. The research results are more easily influenced by the researcher’s personal biases

3. The research results produced might not generalize to other people or other settings

In my mind, I want to do about Hong Kong impression of my research project. In last few years, Hong Kong experiencing a lot of matter, such as umbrella revolution, Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 (internet) and Causeway Bay Books disappearances. Most of us are afraid or confuse our identity, freedom and future. At this time, more foreigners are visit or stay in Hong Kong with different reasons. The interesting point is why they still choose Hong Kong as their travel place or live place. Moreover, what is the imagined community of Hong Kong nowadays. "No one is wise in his own affairs." (旁觀者清 當局者迷) So, seeing Hong Kong through foreigners eyes can rediscover characteristics of Hong Kong.

Qualitative research is better to use on my topic. It will interview some foreigners, the content is not only ask question and answer. It is possible to draw and choose some colour. Because of the time limit, it might a bit adjust the content.

Student name: Chung Ka Lok, Jazz