My updated proposal for my final in T&P II
After sleeping on it and waking up to some good points made by a reader, I have reevaluated my proposal (which is due as a part of my midterm today) to narrow down the focus and make it more doable within the amount of time I have both in the semester as well as in real life to get it done.
Midterm question:
Write on your proposal for a term project utilizing theories and experience.
My Answer:
Theoretically I intend to take a structuralism approach to symbolic/interpretative anthropology to uncover the underlying structure of how people view the Internet in politically symbolic terms. Also, to understand how people give meaning to the cyber-political world around them as well as how they then express this meaning through their own cultural symbols within online communities. To do this I propose to do a short quantitative and qualitative study investigating how people view the Internet in politically symbolic terms, what meaning they give those terms, and how they use those terms within the online communities they participate in.
March 6, 2008 @ 11:47 am
Well, good luck with the midterm then! I am sure your prof will give further constructive feedback! It seems like an interesting topic, and given that it’s an exam assignment, you probably won’t have the chance to do surveys or interviews with users (unless the class has ethics approval). if i were you, i’d identify some particular locations (e.g. one particular online forum, or the comments section on BBC – some news are stirring hundreds of comments, or a particular Facebook group, or a couple of blogs), and i’d work on those. please post the outcome of your research!