Research Diary 1 (Sample)

The world is currently in the midst of cultural mixing, with different cultural ideas, values and practices are transmitting worldwide. This is regarded as cultural globalisation, and some critics contended that culture of dominant nations will transfer to the “weaker” ones. It is also argued that globalisation will destruct local culture, and ultimately result in cultural homogenisation, which means there is only one-way cultural flow. There is no better example than the diffusion of American culture. When talking about coffee shop, most of the people will firstly come up with Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee shop chain. It can be seen that Starbucks has dominated the coffee market in the entire world.

Although people usually link up globalisation with Americanisation, other foreign culture like Japanese popular culture is also worth to be studied. Television drama is a part of popular culture which has been largely consumed. Starting from the 1970s, Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) imported a lot of foreign television dramas. This made American and Japanese television dramas gain popularity in Hong Kong. There are a variety of genres, however, previous research on foreign television dramas in Hong Kong mainly focus on romance genre. Other genres such as horror and comedy are rarely being investigated. Hence, detective genre will be analysed in my research and I aim to examine whether foreign television dramas will lead to cultural homogenization in Hong Kong under the process of globalisation.

In my research, primary and secondary sources will be used. Primary sources are of paramount importance because they increase the credibility and validity of the research. Firstly, textual analysis of detective television dramas produced in America, Japan and Hong Kong will be conducted. Examples include CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Lie to me from America; Kindaichi Case Files and Galileo from Japan; as well as The Mysteries of Love and Every Move You Make from Hong Kong. Comparison of the similarities and differences among these dramas will be carried out. The content, the dialogues, the dressing of the performers and the settings of the television dramas are categories for judging their level of similarities and differences. In other words, semiotics, narrative and discourse analysis will be conducted. After that, I will inquire whether there are any cultural reasons behind the similarities and differences. Moreover, survey will be executed in this research in order to gather information and data. 50 copies of questionnaire will be delivered to Hong Kong audiences who had watched those selected television dramas. The interviews are forecasted to have different ages, backgrounds, and education levels. To make the questionnaire more convenient for interviewees, a combination of close-ended questions and open-ended questions will be adopted in the survey. Since respondents are expected to choose the most appropriate answers in close-ended questions, a certain number of responses will be provided. While for open-ended questions, there is no any specific answer provided, therefore respondents can answer whatever they like. As listed above, this study will consist of quantitative and qualitative data collection.

Books, journals, newspapers and academic papers are secondary sources I will consult as they help me to gain greater insight into the issue and help build up the framework of the research. For instance, there is a book called "The history of Hong Kong TV" (Wu, 2003), in which the author argue that the importation of foreign TV programs into Hong Kong led to cultural imperialism. He further claimed that the popularity of Japanese, and Western television dramas emblem the lives of Hong Kong people are japanized and westernized. By consulting primary and secondary research, I will be able to discover whether local cultures can survive under cultural globalisation and how does the local culture interact with foreign cultures.

Reading list for cultural globalisation
Allen, Matthew and Sakamoto, Rumi. (2006). Popular culture, globalization and Japan. Routledge.

Hang, W. C. (2009). From "V is the sign" to "Love generation": how the production, circulation, and consumption of Japanese TV dramas have changed in postwar Hong Kong. Hong Kong.

Lustig, M. W., & Koester, J. (2010). Intercultural Competence: Interpersonal Communication Across Cultures. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Wu, H. (2003). The History of Hong kong TV. Hong Kong: Subculture.

Name: Au Hiu Yan, Nicola