Lead My Life

• -Aimed Social Media Tool-

In the final project, I would like to select BLOGGING as my research object. According to my objective of this research, which is to compare the use conditions under the two different culture backgrounds and furthermore  to attempt to make constructive suggestions for the connection of the social media.

• -Contexts and Problems-

Historically, the article “What is Web 2.0?” by Tim O’Reilly was published in September 30, 2005. And in November 22, the journal of Chinese Internet Weekly translated and copied it. However, as for myself experience, in China, the current application of the social media, such as blogging,  is quite different from in the United States.  As so far, social media has become the important part of American’s individual life and business, but not of Chinese’s.

Especially for the individual blogs, which are most close to a student, differences are obvious and influential. The differences could be formulated for several reasons, such as the country developmental status, the politics, the tradition, etc. Thus the research attempts to compare the differences in the purpose of the blogging usage and find out  the primary reasons. As the first step of improvement process of the social media globalization, it is necessary to develop this research.

• -Research Questions-

1. The comparison of use purpose of the individual blogs between China and US.
2. The reasons of the differences which based on the comparison.

• -Methodologies-

For the  investigation of American’s blogging behavior, there is plenty of information from the class discussion and the course literature reviewing. Hence, the research method for this part will be literature reviewing.

For the investigation of Chinese’s blogging behavior, especially the purpose of blogging, I would like to make a survey among different people groups in the two or more cities in China. The topic or the questions in the survey will be around the blogging usage, emphasizing the use purpose. The groups will cover the people who are working or studying in institutions, business, and universities. For analyzing the collected data, I prefer using the quota sampling. I will get an official report about the proportional distributed rates of the amount of Chinese netizen or blogger by gender or age or academic qualifications. Then I will sample my data by these rates and analyze.

After the comparison, it is assumed that differences will be obtained. The research will continue to find out the reason of the differences by analyzing from the perspectives of politics, developmental status, culture, and historical tradition.

• -Presentation Format-

The project will be presented as a research paper in APA format.

• -Timelines-

Oct, 7  Project proposal due

Oct, 8 – Oct, 28  Review of the exiting research

               Oct, 8 – Oct, 28  Literature of American part reviewing

               Oct, 14 – Oct, 28 Survey in China

Oct, 29 – Nov, 11  Analyze the collected data and continue the literature reviewing

Nov, 12 – Nov, 17 Combine to the first draft paper

Nov, 18 – Dec, 2  Modify the first draft paper and check the APA format

Dec, 3 – Dec, 16 Continue Modify the research paper

Dec, 16  Project due