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Hey, fellow graduate student here. Have you done any literature reviews on your subject yet? That's generally a great way to know what others in a particular field of study have done so far. There's tons of psychology databases that many universities subscribe to, and that's a good place to do your searching.
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Why exactly would anyone want to hear or read a thesis on retards yelling at each other through the safety of their computer screens? Not only is your topic immature, it shows signs of an isolated academic experience. Do you really expect me to believe a thesis on starcraft is more important than child abuse, rape, verbal abuse, etc?
I mean, did you really pay top dollar to have your thesis made on such a mundane topic?
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
So being a total jerk is actually "expressing masculinity"  That's a nice point of view. However I don't really see what interesting things you could say on that topic. I mean the context of a video game does not change much, it's like any other competitive activity in this aspect. "Males" in general just hate losing.
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Does a female rager have high testosterone levels? Or maybe a penis? O_O
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On February 12 2011 01:43 Rev0lution wrote:
Why exactly would anyone want to hear or read a thesis on retards yelling at each other through the safety of their computer screens? Not only is your topic immature, it shows signs of an isolated academic experience. Do you really expect me to believe a thesis on starcraft is more important than child abuse, rape, verbal abuse, etc?
I mean, did you really pay top dollar to have your thesis made on such a mundane topic?
I
You obviously don't know the world of academia if you think his topic is the most mundane/boring/useless one you ever come across.
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Canada13431 Posts
On February 12 2011 01:50 Rotodyne wrote:
Does a female rager have high testosterone levels? Or maybe a penis? O_O
No and I don't care my interest is in why males get aggressive not females. Female ragers would have different reasons and experiences for their raging. Men and women are not both the exact same and the reasons for males to do some things are different than girls. Girls play GTA too but they go and kill prostitutes for different reasons than guys other than fun. When there are two reasons both might share "for fun" but after that there is a change.
On February 12 2011 01:43 Rev0lution wrote:
Why exactly would anyone want to hear or read a thesis on retards yelling at each other through the safety of their computer screens? Not only is your topic immature, it shows signs of an isolated academic experience. Do you really expect me to believe a thesis on starcraft is more important than child abuse, rape, verbal abuse, etc?
I mean, did you really pay top dollar to have your thesis made on such a mundane topic?
If you had to do something all day every day for 3 years and study it and examine it would you like to read about Rapists and their personal accounts of their actions and reasons for 3 years or would you rather do something you enjoy? I have studied tons of terrible crimes and read ridiculous transcripts and I personally will probably go into a serious depression if I read about that every day for a few hours.
Hey if you want me to send you some chilling stuff about rape and the detailed accounts of it sure. How's about I send you 10 articles about child pornography? When you consider I need to write 100 - 150 pages about a topic and I need to have a literature review (which I already have most of) consisting of 200 academic articles, again, I need to do something I like or this money I spend on my thesis will be waste if I decide to stop because of it.
Also, there is so much on rape, verbal abuse etc etc that it will be difficult for me to do something new or innovative. If i choose a mundane topic (which you suggested in criminology crimes are mundane and highly studied) it will be harder for me to get my degree because I need to do something new and make 0 mistakes or anything at all wrong. If i make one tiny mistake and an expert notices it I have to work another 3 - 4 months to get my work fixed, re-reviewed then redefende. If I fail the review/defend process 2 times I fail and all my money is wasted.
I wanna do something new and interesting to show a video game related research interest is pheasible and can avoid the games cause violence thing.
Starcraft is an example, the issue of aggression and games is big topic in academia. The problem is the research is 90% in the favour of psychological testing sayig that video games casue violence. I want to look at the issue from a different perspective. I am only doing a masters I can't examine all video games and I don't actually have any money given to me to do this or facilities. I have to out of pocket pay 10,000 of my own dollars in tuition for the opportunity to do what I want for a piece of paper.
/end rant
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You seem to be equating "masculinity" with "aggressiveness". Interesting. I would think your thesis would be an attempt at quantifying how they are linked, but it looks like you already made up your mind on how that works.
Anyway, as a previous poster said, do your lit review. Once you've done that you'll have a better idea of whether or not this is a viable topic. That said, you probably going to have a hell of a time designed a study that is at all reasonably controlled... You aren't going to wind up with very meaningful conclusions about "how men enact masculinity" by running statistical analysis on the outbursts of a bunch of dudes playing Starcraft.
Edit: based on your last post maybe you only want to be looking at aggression in video games... that's a much more reasonable goal than looking at aggressiveness and masculinity. Maybe your OP was just oddly phrased.
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For option 1, it should not be limited to games, because that goes on in virtually any sporting capacity. Unless you are trying to say that it happens more online, and my hunch would be that it is not the game that causes this, but being anonymous online and the lack of physical reprecussions for the 13 year old dork. Furthermore, people certainly aren't cocks only when they lose a game.
your second option is too vague I think. It's also still boils down to anonymous vs not anonymous. Plus, short of getting real interviews with players, it's a waste of time. You miss so much from replays. You can actually talk with passive aggressive nerds at a lan, which will make your points that much better
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Canada13431 Posts
Well we need to keep in mind I am doing qualitative sociological style research. I don't want to concluisvely prove something just examine it and see if I can come up with something. I mean the concept of hegemonic masculinity is important to me and it involves the "ideal" male and masculinity in North american culture.
And again, I don't have the scope to examine everything but I want to look at aggression as it relates to video games but not video games causing aggression. I will look at winning and losing equally but my example involved losing.
I've done a lit review and it can apply to both.
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Are you going to somehow incorporate smack talk in sports with this, or is it specific to anonymous video-game interaction?
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Canada13431 Posts
On February 12 2011 03:34 bonifaceviii wrote:
Are you going to somehow incorporate smack talk in sports with this, or is it specific to anonymous video-game interaction?
I would relate it to findings of research looking at smack talk in sports as well yes. The reason I want to try looking at pc cafes/lan routes is to examine if they use the games as a vehicle for smack talk or not? Interviews could help me see if anonymity is what allows them to smack talk more or less. In a shared space is anonymity still a factor in smack talk or not? is one of my potential questions.
hmm maybe i should keep on the pc cafe/lan centre route
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I would go for the thesis focused on video games in general, not just SC2. The latter seems to have very limited applicability, whereas video games in general have a much broader presence in society, by definition.
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EPT
