Blog 5

As my search topic was Pornography, I did ask over 25 person to help me to do the interview. but only few person would help me to do it. So, for now, i have only did 3 interview with those interviewees.  

In those interview, I did ask each one of the interviewee the same question, like how did you defend “Pornography”, How they feel about “Pornography” and asked some of their Background information. I believed that their background will be the key of how they decode the Pornographic media. 

In my research, I would like to find out how people think of pornographic media. Different people will have different point of view to that. So I defined that as a “decoding research”. The way how those interviewees think of Pornographic media is the matter of my research. According to an article which called “Encoding/Decoding” form Stuart Hall, He thought there are three hypothetical position of decoding message. The first one is “ Dominant-Hegemonic position”, the second one is “Negotiated code” and the last one called “oppositional code”. I believed that these three hypothetical position of decoding message will help me to find out how those interviewees consume the pornographic media. 

On the other hand, three different interviewees were mention same topic coincidentally. It’s about rape porn video. They did have different point of view about rape, but when I asked their opinion about pornographic media, they just carry out this topic. I believe that must be meaning something or there is connection between Pornographic media and media violence. That’s why those interviewees are mentioned that topic coincidentally. One of the interviewees was talking about how he despise any rape porn. He thought that sexual behavior should be mutual consent. If not, that should not regarded as normal and it will become a crime. 

After I did the interviews with these three person, I didn’t expect that they will mention about rape porn. Therefor I will search some articles about media violence or any reading had mention the relationship between pornographic media and media violence. 

Last but not the least, there are few more interviewees will help me to do the research, maybe they will mention the same topic about pornographic media, or they will cary out another whole new topic. So I decided that when I was interviewing them, I will use recorder to record the content they had mention. If there are any new topic comes out, I can use those record as a basic information and search the supporting article to do my research. 

Student: Yuen, Hoi Wang Patrick 

Student ID: 10643061

Blog 5

Progress report - How many interviews did you do so far? 

So far I have conducted 4 interviews on players of the table top role play game of Dungeons and Dragons. The interview consists of 10 questions.

The questions include;

1.    Do you believe that your dungeons & dragons character represents you?

2.    What aspects do you usually take in consideration when choosing creating your character?

3.    Do you pay attention to how your character is represented with the equipment or attitude that you give? 

4.    Do you believe you will be able to get along with a person in real life if you’re in-game characters’ work well together?

5.    Does it reflect your relationship with the party members in real life?

6.    What do you think attributes to the identity of the team as a whole?

7.    How important is D&D to you?

8.    Do you change yourself to fit your character? How?

9.    Do you think people play rpg to compensate what is lacking in real life?

10. Would you cosplay/ act out your character in real life? Solo/group.

As of yet, most of the interviewees have opposing ideals and tend to answer the questions vaguely. Therefore, interview questions may be further refined to better communicate with the interviewees. And 4 more interviews have been scheduled for 9^th of April, 2015.

For the literature review, I have only found 1 that relates greatly and directly to my topic. The book is called Shared fantasy: Role-playing games as social worlds by Gary Alan Fine. As this book seem to be very compatible with my research, I have chosen it to be my primary source of information for my literature review.

The data is continuously being compiled and have yet to be completely analysed.

Preliminary findings

A few parallels and commonalities have been observed thus far.

From my weekly observation of the game of Dungeons and Dragons so far, it seems that many of the players take the game personally to a certain extent. For example, many of the players would sometimes call each other by their real name rather than their character’s name while playing the game. It seems from the examples that most players do not realize that they take the game so seriously, sometimes forgetting that it is all just a game. Another example is when a player accidentally kills a side character in the game and gets angry at the game master for allowing his death.

A few preliminary findings from my interviews include the fact that the players do agree that to some extent, their characters are a representation of themselves as a lot of personal interest parallels with the characters they play. And most interviewees, even casual players of the game, consider Dungeons and Dragons as a means to socialize with other gamers.

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.?

I have finished all the interviews already. There are 4 interviewees having different employment status and gender, but all of them are ages in 20-24. I have totally asked around 14 short questions in each interview (7 of them are about the feature of the ways of interviewees in the Korean wave, another 7 are about the trend of them to purchase Korean products.) The findings from interviews had been noted clearly by writing an exhaustive table. A simple rating has been done for separating the extent of interviewees addicted to Korean wave.

A preliminary analysis have worked, an obvious purchasing pattern have shown in two exceeding results from the two male interviewees. Now, I am working with the genre and contents of the Korean shows that the interviewees have watch, to find the ‘frameworks of knowledge’ in decoding of them. After that, the prices of the product that the interviewees have / wanted to purchase would be found for studying the purchasing state of their different economic status.

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?  

The first finding is the frequency of females to watch Korean drama is obviously higher then males. From the result of the interviews, girls spending more time to watch Korean dramas (watching around the clock at holidays or watching at every working day) while boys watch them passively (watching only while extremely bored). In addition, girls are always focusing on the latest Korean drama while boys only know some extremely hot drama, such as ‘My Love from the Star’.

Secondly, the extent of touching Korean wave is influence the level of teenagers to purchase Korean product directly. One of the male interviewee loves Korean entertainment show, K-pop music and follow all the news of his idols. He shows his deep love to Korean culture from his way to purchase Korean product, also the desire of him to visit Korea and learning Korean. Another male interviewee knows nothing about K-pop, and he watches Korean dramas and entertainment shows rarely. He shown his lack of interest to Korean products in his speech, ‘My old Samsung smart phone is the only one Korean product I can come up with.’

Student number: 10585624

Student name: Tsang Cheuk Wah, iCa

Blog 5

Topic: How and Why teenage in Hong Kong enjoy playing the series of Resident Evil (Biohazard)?

           I have changed my topic and i will only focus on the series of Resident Evil. It's because of the result come out will more accurate and clear. If I do not change my topic and I will focus on all the violence game, because of there are many kinds of violence game and the result come out will become inaccurate. That's the reason that I change the topic.

Questionare: 

1) Which series of Resident Evil you have played before?

2) Why you enjoy to play Resident Evil?

3) If you are free at this moment and you are playing the Resident Evil, How many hours do you want to play?

4) Do you have any friends also enjoy playing Resident Evil and will you usually play with him or her together?

5) Do you think you are fans of Resident Evil?

6) If there is a new Resident Evil released, will you buy it immediately?

           I have interview a teenage aged 20 and he is a fans of Resident Evil. He has played 5 series of Resident Evil. The reasons of he played 5 series of Resident Evil are because he enjoys the story of the Resident Evil. Also he think the pictures of killing zombies are exciting. He thinks he will play the game until he finishes the game if he is free. He has lots of friends also enjoy playing this game and lots of them are his classmates from secondary school. He thinks he is fans of Resident Evil but he will not buy the game immediately if the new series release because he thinks the game are boring if the game do not improve.

          And the preliminary findings are that the fans of Resident Evil is one of their childhood memory. The first game of Resident Evil was released in 1996. And the first game of the interviewee played was Resident Evil 0 and that is the fifth game of Resident Evil. And he was played with his classmates. And until now he is still playing with his friends in secondary school. But he has graduated already. And i think that is a linkage with his classmates. 

          This is a new point of view that i think the teenage enjoy playing violence game. I think teenage enjoy playing the violence game is because they enjoy doing something they cannot do in real life or to release their pressure in real life before the interview. So I think it will provide a new perspective to me to finish the research.

Blog 5

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

Interview questions:

How long have you been listening to K-pop?

What are the charming part of the singer/group you like?

Which you think is the most important thing that makes you get into K-pop, idols or songs?

How much you put on K-pop?

Do you think it is worth it to pay those prices on K-pop?

Do you think the K-pop culture can affect last more longer?

I have done three interviews in the past two weeks, and the last will be next Monday finish.

Done

The first one is my friend (girl, 22 years old) that listen Korean music for about 5 years and her basis is the idol group BIGBANG. She will buy their CDs and go to concert when they came to Hong Kong.

The second one is my cousin (girl, 18 years old) that listen Korean music just 2 years and her basis is the idol group EXO. She will buy CDS, photo book, or whatever the product produce by the official entertainment.

The third one is my friend (boy ,21 years old) that like to listen and dance Korean music, always go out performance. He don’t have any basis idol group but he like to listen Korean music and think it is fashion.

Going to interview

The last one is also my friend (girl, 22 years old), that listen Korean music for 5 years and her basis group is Girls’ Generation but will also follow other girls groups. She always goes to Korea or other country to watch their concert and like to buy presents to her idols.  

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

As I have interview three teenagers, I discover that when I ask them about what is the charming part of the singer they like, they immediately tell me that “the face”, they think the idols is so charming, so they can have energy to follow their news.

Although they think they don’t get understand about the language of Korean music, they still get enjoy it. The melody like them easy get into the music, match with the music video, it is perfect to them.

Their interviews let me discover that how the entertainment put such effort on the idols group to get attention on people, their face, the melody of music, and the music video.  

Blog 4&5

1/ Field observation on 27-Mar, 2016 The number of visitors: ~450 Activities in CDAV: 90% art event 10% historical building experience The number of exhibitions and performances in a day: 2 exhibitions & 2 performances Social group: 20% Individual: 80% Specific gender: More Female than Male Age group: the most: 21-30 years old; 2nd: 31-40 years old; 3rd: 11-20 years old; a few: below 10 years old Ethnic group: Local, Chinese, Taiwanese, European, Black Specific fashion style: Simple, causal, decent with sneakers or flats Behavior pattern: Most of them were with mobile phones on their hands to explore around and take shots. Some of them were with notebook for drawing.

2/ 8 visitor semi-structured interviews onsite: What bring them to visit CDAV? 80% Exhibition/show 20% around the neighborhood How do they feel about the reason which brings them to CDAV? Explorative, enjoyable, entertaining Do they have any unforgettable experience in CDAV. Work at CDAV, remarkable show How often do they visit CDAV? When there is a show they would like to join, work Do they join different events held by various organizations in CDAV? Yes Do they like CDAV? Yes Do they love art? Specifically, which type of art? Dance, music, media art, visual art What can art bring to them? Knowledge, entertainment, peace, an unspeakable feeling What do they usually do in their daily life other than work/ studying? Galleries, PMQ, JCCAC, home, travel What would they identify themselves? Most of them answered with their occupations. What is “art geek” in their perception? Quiet, love to go to galleries and cafes, take a lot of selfies Do they think they are one of the art geeks? No, they just do what they like and want to do Do they have any friends act like an art geek? Similar thinking of the above, yes, but not “art geek” What do they usually do together relate to art? Where do they usually go to seek for art? Galleries, organization office/ center, K11

3/ 2 organization interviews: What is the mission of their organizations? Promote their interests and contribute to communities What do they do to achieve the mission? Experimental performances, exhibitions, fairs, festivals, workshops, artist residency, dramas Do they think that what they have been doing can gather audiences together? Yes Do they think that the standard of quality of works increase by audiences’ expectation throughout the years? No What do they think of art geek? Same as the one described by media Do they identify their audiences as art geeks? Some of them yes, some of them are in this field Do they think that the increase of standard of quality of works caused by more audiences became art geek? Not sure Any facing issue which limits to archive their mission? Financial difficulties, HR, location

4/ Detailed description of the subcultural group by focusing on a single event: to record environment, behaviour and my feeling before the event, during the event and after the event. I have joined a sonic art performance called Spaces, Traces, Places organized by The Modern Academy on 27-Mar-2016 from 3pm to 4pm. It was an event explored indoor and outdoor spaces, mixed-media experimentations and specialized musical works which visitors can freely enter or leave the venue anytime. Before 3pm, there were lots of visitors in CDAV, walked around, took photos and entered to different units to join the different exhibitions. Some of them peeked the performing venue to take a look of preparation of the performance. At 3pm, the behavior of some of the visitors got my curiosity up that I entered to the performing venue with them.  In the beginning, several musicians were playing some sound from unknown instruments. There were footstep stickers on the floor which shown the best-listening-spot. Then, I entered to another space in the venue where performers were playing songs with their instruments: cello, violin. The lighting of the venue is quite limited, only spotted on the performers and the wall to show the relationship between performers and the internal space. And other lights were spotted on the wall to allow audiences to pay more attention to this historical building and sound. The looks of audiences were focusing and feeling the sounds/music quietly. Within this hour, there were over 100 audiences and 90% of them were individual and 10% of them were with friends or family. Local female aged from 20-30 are the majority. At 4pm, some of the audiences left the venue and CDAV, some of the audiences stayed and talked to the performers or other audiences, the rest of audiences went to other units for exhibitions. There was no specific fashion style, causal dressing it was.

Progress report:

8 Interviews with visitors were conducted, 2 interviews with organizations in CDAV were conducted, 2 performances attended.

Detailed description of the subcultural group by focusing on a single event: to record environment, behavior and my feeling before event, during event and after event. I went for a drama show called “Kassandra oder die Welt als Ende der Vorstellung” on 2-April-2016 from 4pm to 6pm.   Audiences simply went straight to the venue after entering to Cattle Depot Artist Village. There was a portable bar outside the venue and audiences mingled there. When the time came, staff invited us to get in and get ourselves settled. Everyone was very quiet and focusing on the show even the staff mentioned that we can freely get in and out of the venue. The ratio of male to female was equal. Compared with the sonic art performance I attended earlier, audiences dressed more casual. Locals aged from 20-30 are the majority. After the show, some of the audiences stayed outside the venue to have food and mingle while some of the audiences went for exhibitions nearby.

Findings:

-       - 90% of interviewed visitors came to CDAV because of interested event, so CDAV can help to form the subculture of art geek.

-       - Female interested in Arts more than Male.

-       - Locals aged between 20 and 30 years old are the most active in Arts.

-       - Interviewees doesn’t think that they are art geek, but just do what they want to do and go.

-      -  Most of the visitors came alone and some of them like to meet new friends if there is a bar or mingle area.

-       - Most of the visitors came to CDAV because of 1 particular events. Since they were at CDAV, they would walk around and seek for other ongoing events.

-       - There is certain fashion style of visitors who aged below 30. Wearing eye-glasses and sneakers, with a small purse.

-       - Some parents treated it as a family event.

-       - Some visitors think CDAV is not well promoted.

-       - The location of CDAV is inconvenient.

-      -  Opening time of the units is limited to daytime, weekday.

Reference:  

Grodach, C. (2009). Art spaces, public space, and the link to community development. Community Development Journal, 45(4), 474-493.

Grodach argued that the ability of art spaces to realize such outcomes in linked to their role as a form of public space and that their community development potential can be expanded with further attention to this role at first. Throughout the research and interviews, he proved that art space is a public space and connected with community development by looking into the organizations’ missions to see how they engage communities by activities and service, analyzing the art space and surrounding, exploring the content of events by those organizations as the public spaces roles. Although his argument is proved, there is room for improvement that he listed the strength and weakness of art space as public space and proposed adding childcare service, understanding their visitor demographics and better marketing and surveys.

Grodach and I shared similar idea, but different direction that he inspired me to look more into the events by organization (in term of content, frequency of events held throughout a year and opening time) and analyze the location of CDAV and surrounding which allow me to have information about if they are one of the key point which make CDAV a subcultural space. According to the field observation and my past experience, the outcome is unexpected as there was always fewer visitors in CDAV during weekends.

Student Name: Chan Nga Yin