Blog 5

1. Progress report - How many interviews did you do so far? And/or how many materials (i.e. media texts) did you research, and how did you research on the texts – textual analysis, genre study, etc.?

Up to now, I have interviewed two female and two male teenagers on the 4th April 2016.  They are aged between 18-23 years old.  The interviews hold around 20-30 minutes.  

In the interview, I have asked about 4 main questions: 

1. Why do you like playing GTA 5? 

2. Which past/ section in GTA do you like play the most?

3. Do you think that GTA 5 is a violence game?

4. How often do you play GTA?

Then they had an small discussion after each question.  I jot down their key points and find out some resources are useful to answer my research topic.  Moreover, there will be another two interviews on 10th April 2016.  I will interview a female who aged 21 and a male who aged 20.  

Besides, I have researched some materials that related to violence video games, the players' review about the GTA 5 and Hong Kong teenagers' attitude toward violence.  For example, I found that there is a game call "Sleeping Dog".  The playing method is similar than GTA 5.  As in the interview, an interviewer has mentioned that he loves playing different kind of violence video game, but GTA 5 is the most favorite game for him.  Therefore, I tried to research the game that he has played and see the difference between those games and GTA 5.  Also, there are some articles about the Hong Kong youth violence, it is useful for my research because I discover that there are some similarity reasons they play violence games and be violence.  And I will continue to find some related and useful materials as to enrich my research.

2. Preliminary findings – What do you discover up till now? (For example, what are the commonalities amongst the texts/interviews?) How do your findings help you answer your research question?  


After the interview, I discovered that they think that GTA 5 is a violence game but it is acceptable for them.  Although there are many shooting, killing scenes in the game, they still love playing the game.  Also, GTA 5 caused great excitement for them because they can do what they like to do in the unrealistic would such as make a tattoo on their body and steal a luxury car in the street.  These behaviors cannot do in the real world.  Therefore, GTA 5 can fulfill their desires and wants.

Furthermore, I noticed that there are some difference reasons on playing the game between male and female.  For the male, they love racing car in the GTA 5 as they cannot race car as fast as possible in the real world.  And they will die when they have a car crash, but in the game world they have unlimited life, they can race as fast as they can.  No matter there is a car accident, they can still race the car.  It shows that the male hope to experience the exciting things, for example, catch by the police, kill the people to get back money.  On the other hand, for the female, in the GTA 5 they can choose the gender of the character, most of them like choosing to be a male.  As they wish to act as a male in the game and hide their exact gender, they think that male is more powerful than a female and hope to use a male angle to see the world.

The above findings are the basic findings and I will analyze the data more deeply as to find out more information.

Student ID: 10585161
Student Name: Tang Yee Ting

Blog 4 - summary of an articles

Article: Grand Theft Auto V and the Culture of Violence Against Women

Writer:  Malika Saada Saar (Executive Director, Human Right Project for Girls (Rights4Girls); Special Counsel on Human Rights for The Raben Group)

Summary:

The article states that GTA 5 includes a continuation of the violence and sexual denigration of women.  In GTA 5, a player can purchase a woman and girl to fulfill his sexual desire that he experiences in first person.  After purchasing the woman or girl, the player can choose to kill her to get back the money. Up to now, GTA 5 is one of the most popular and money making video game.  In addiction, the writer cites that GTA 5 be choosy for actually causing gendered violence, for example, if GTA 5 launch the video game in Cambodia, India or Nigeria, there would be global indignation.  It would serve as unequivocal evidence of their cultures in which female are systemically raped and murdered with impunity.

In my research, I decide to compare the interpretation of violence about the video game –GTA 5 between male adolescent and female adolescent.  Therefore, I will have interview two focus group, one is three male adolescent and the other one is three female adolescent.  Though the interview, I hope to find out whether their interpretation of violence in GTA 5 are different or they are the same.  According to the above article, it seems that women think that GTA 5 is a gendered violence video game, so they hope that GTA 5 should not launch or sell in their city.  Therefore, I can set the interview questions related to this article, for example, “do you think that GTA 5 should not sell in Hong Kong?” or “What do you think about gendered violence?”.  Also, I am going to invite my friend as my interviewer and the interview will be done within next two weeks.

Name: Tang yee ting
ICID: 10585161

Blog 3

1. What is the refined research question that you are setting out to answer? (Please be specific in your research topic)

- What is "GTA V" about?

- How to define teenager in Hong Kong?

- What are the teenager’s perception toward media violence?

- What is the  role of media in the lives of teenager?

- How do teenagers think of the degree and type of violence exhibited by the video game “Grand Theft Auto V”?

2. How does this develop themes and debates explored within the lectures of this module?

These days, many media contents contain the sense of media violence such as film, TV drama and video games.  The range of media to which teenager have access has grown rapidly in this generation.  As there are too many media that contain media violence, it is hard for me to do the research in a short time.  Therefore, I would like to narrow the choice of media, I will focus on a video games that have media violence that is Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V).  It is generally acknowledged that the game is media violence and influence people’s behavior.

This project aims to find out the teenager’s perception toward media violence, to understand the role of media in the lives of teenager and to analyze the degree and type of violence exhibited by the video game “Grand Theft Auto V”.

3. What critical methodologies are you going to use? How are you going to produce the evidence you’ll need to answer your research question?

1) In-depth interviews with three video game players who have play GTA V

2)In-depth interviews with three video game players who are the first time to play GTA V

3) give a Violence Quiz to the players

4. Short Reference List:

- 'Sexually violent' GTA 5 banned from Australian stores

- Grand Theft Auto V and the Culture of Violence Against Women

- Is GTA 5 Too Graphic And Violent?

- Violence in the Media —Psychologists Study TV and Video Game Violence for Potential Harmful Effects

- Media Violence- Councilon Communications and Media

- The Influence of Media Violence on Youth

- The Effects of Media Violence on Society

- Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents

-The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence

Name: Tang Yee Ting, Stephanie

HKU SPACE Student Number: 10585161

Research Project: Statement of Intent

In this project, I would like to find out the people’s perception of media violence.  These days, many media contents contain the sense of media violence such as film, TV drama and video games.  The range of media to which teenager have access has grown rapidly in this generation.  As there are too many media that contain media violence, it is hard for me to do the research in a short time.  Therefore, I would like to narrow the choice of media, I will focus on a video games that have media violence that is Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V).  It is generally acknowledged that the game is media violence and influence people’s behavior.  It should be easy to find the interviewer as the game is popular in Hong Kong. 

               

My research topic should be “How “Grand Theft Auto V” affect the teenager’s perception about media violence in Hong Kong?”

This project aims to find out the teenager’s perception toward media violence, to understand the role of media in the lives of teenager and to analyze the degree and type of violence exhibited by the video game “Grand Theft Auto V”.

               

I would like to interview two groups of teenagers around 3 teens in a group.  One of the group is the first time player of GTA V and the second group is the continuity GTA V player.  I will give around 30 minutes to let the first time player to try the game and give comments after playing.  Then they will have an in-depth interview about the GTA V and discuss feeling after playing GTA V and share about their perception towards media violence.  After their discussion, I may understand more the role of media in the lives of teenagers and what the degree and type of violence the GTA V is among teenagers.  Also, in their discussion, I may find out what the teenagers’ perception towards media violence in Hong Kong and can compare and contrast the level of violence between first time player and the continuity player.

Moreover, I will make a level of violence quiz refer to the online popular violence quiz.  The quiz can determine the levels of violence of them.  It may help to find out their inner and outer part of their perception about media violence.

Student: Tang Yee Ting

SID: 10585161

Research Diary 1

Since the emergent and development of media in 20th century, it becomes part of our daily life.  For example, we watch TV at home when we are bored, we surf the net with our smartphones while we are waiting or walking and we use the computer when we are working.  Therefore, media brings a big influence to our society and we cannot live without media.  The media leads a change to the traditional culture in our society.  Because of these changes, an academic research can help us to find out the answers as to solve the questions that in our mind such as the relationship between the society and media and the problems of over rely on media. 

If we need to do an academic research, there are two research methods that we can use: quantitative research method and qualitative research method.

Quantitative research method is to quantify data and generalize results from a sample to the population of interest.  Also, it can measure the incidence of various views and opinions.  It is good for studying large numbers of people and the research results are relatively independent of the researchers.  It should be more objective when we are doing the research.  The researcher’s design can eliminate the influence of many variables.  However, it fails to distinguish and social institutions from the world of nature and the measurement process possess an artificial sense of precision and accuracy.

Apart from quantitative research method, qualitative research method can be used.  Qualitative research method is to gain an understanding of underlying reasons and motivations, provide insights into the setting of a problem, generating ideas and hypotheses for later quantitative research and uncover prevalent trends in thought and opinion.  Although it provides in depth or individual case information, useful for describing complex phenomena and the researcher can study dynamic processes, it generally takes more time to collect and analysis the data and t should be more subjective when we are doing the research, thus the results are more easily influenced by the researcher’s personal biases.

Up to now, in the seven topics that have been provided, I prefer to choose the topic of media and violence.  As violence is a big issue that discussed among the world, it has a big impact to the society.  Moreover, we can noticed that many video games which are widely claimed to be violence, is it one of the reason that people in the society become violence due to the video games.  I have a big interest and curiosity on it.  I hope to explore more on this topic and to find out the answer in my research.

For my research, I suppose to use the qualitative research method because I seek to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior on violence and the reasons that govern such behavior. I will focus on two or three people that love playing violence video game and have an in-depth interviews with them as to get the primary information.  Through a deep observation on their behavior, I can get more useful information for the research.  Also, newspapers, books and researches will be the secondary information for my study.

Student: Tang Yee Ting, Stephanie