Author: carlquerin1

Research and Ethics

As we fall into the fourth week of the semester we have cleared through some research and pulled out resources that have shown to have factual assistance for us and our media niche research. We too are at the stage where we must consider ethical issues that may arise from our research findings and the way we do so. Ethics are a moral principle that in turn governs a person’s behaviour whether it be in general or through an activity. This is something that can cause extremely backlash and harm to both an individual or community if broken. As a researcher it is extremely important for them to consider ethics when conducting a research project no matter what scale of research it may be. As I myself am a researcher in this subject I must too consider the ethical issues that I could potential cause harm to if not properly assessed.

I first wanted to better grasp an understanding of paradigmatic or theoretical frameworks so that I could better my knowledge on what type of research framework would best suit me for my research data and field notes as well as allowing me to get some general direction to how to convey my research. I found two sources that really informed this better for me…

For me I felt as though I currently had a rough understanding of dance music as it was the project I was creating prior to this subject but I felt as though I definitely could learn more so therefore I did some research into the genre which is key to being able to even talk about dance music because each sub genre of music has its own world. I found one really informing article that looked at dance music and the history of the genre. It takes a timelined sequence of events through the evolvement of dance music which really showed how much things have changed in the genre.

Another key consideration I had to make sure of which all researchers must consider is the importance of ethics. Ethics as mentioned earlier if not considered or carelessly considered can cause harm to yourself or another person or community. Ethics for me will be extremely important to consider and the issues in which I have identified are; not display names from private messages without consent from the opposite party, I identified that I cannot use comments on social media posts as quotes of someones speech nor can I label their names. I must consider the risk of showing faces of other users without consent. These are all extremely important ethical standards to consider throughout my research and I will adhere to not breaching these throughout my research by referencing this blog if I feel as though I may be crossing some ethical issues or consult with teachers or peers.

“What Is Dance Music? – History & Types.” Study.com, 12 September 2015, study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-dance-music-history-types.html

Libguides.usc.edu. 2020. Research Guides: Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Theoretical Framework. [online] Available at: <https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/theoreticalframework#:~:text=A%20theoretical%20framework%20consists%20of%20concepts%20and%2C%20together,theory%20that%20is%20used%20for%20your%20particular%20study.&gt; [Accessed 28 August 2020].

Libguides.usc.edu. 2020. Research Guides: Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Theoretical Framework. [online] Available at: <https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/theoreticalframework#:~:text=A%20theoretical%20framework%20consists%20of%20concepts%20and%2C%20together,theory%20that%20is%20used%20for%20your%20particular%20study.&gt; [Accessed 28 August 2020].

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Ethnographic Research Methods and Methodologies

As we further delve into what a media niche is, what media niche we want to further investigate we now have reached the next stage of the media niche investigation. This being problematisation essentials meaning finding a problem which requires a solution that is unknown. Firstly to begin this stage I problematise my media niche meaning understanding what the key issues are that are crucial in understanding our media niche better. As you know by now I have decided to investigate my own media niche and this being my music production project and exploring how the project has grown over time and the marketing strategies as well as target audience in order to get your name further.

To answer this first step it is crucial that to further understand my media niche it is essential to research who is currently in the dance music industry and understand the process it takes to become a successful artists. This new investigation will be to analyse artists and the ways they market themselves across all social platforms, gaining feedback from current artists in the industry and learning the process in the industry from a primary source.

This new trajectory of research will be beneficial for myself as well as others that want to learn more on the dance music industry. This leads me to identifying who my audience is being participants interested in making their own career out of the industry through my research this ranging from almost any age because age doesn’t matter in the music industry! Through my research I found that 49% of EDM listeners are female. This research will guide me to speak to future employers such a record labels and managers.

To begin this stage although it is crucial that for myself as a researcher I understand the methods of observation and autoethnography. For me these two are both something that fall hand in hand to create a reflective research task. Observation is the action of properly and closely observing something or someone. I will use this method to observe artists in the industry and see how they got to where they are a good way of doing this is through one of my personal favourite artists Flume who documented his career from beginnings to now on a series of YouTube videos. Autoethnography being a form of qualitative research in which is where I reflect and write on the explored experience. I will do this method by taking notes on each factual research matter I gather. I will use this research to take on myself and use the knowledge I find in putting it into play with my music production project (media niche). This therefore will help me to build my career up to the professional standard I investigate. In regards to recording these field notes I will note them through documentation on my laptop, audio/video recording for any face-to-face information I am able to gather. I will take pictures (screenshots) for visual evidence too. I will use paradigmatic frameworks to help me understand the human experience as this research method allows me as a researcher to fully submerse myself in viewing the investigation from a different point of view.

In order the understand how i am going to conduct my research I need to create a timeline or sequence of events to understand what I will research and when. This therefore allows me to maintain a ethnographic research investigation. (weeks 4-7)

  • week 4: Begin research on the dance music culture (target audiences, who is in the industry, how do you access the content, is my experience of listening to the genre altered in different environments)
  • week 5: I will find someone in the dance music industry that has really made a big impact to the genre and how their following has risen so much, how their listeners are streaming them (best platform), how many listeners they have (monthly, overall)
  • week 6: Analyse their marketing techniques they use i.e what socials they are on, how often they post, what content they post, whether they have merchandise business as well, how much they release albums/singles
  • week 6: Discover various record labels and managers in the industry and find out ways artists connect or get their music known (using primary research)
  • week 7: Discovering one more artists in the industry and compare findings to see if this is the common strategy in which artists are taking to reach fame and success in the music industry.

This research task will overall enable to me break down all the key steps and elements an artists must take to reaching success in the music industry and how they built up their profile. This will ultimate allow me to properly explore a new experience with my media niche and put it into tuition with my own music project.

Reference:

https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1589/3095

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FIELD NOTES

As week 2 commences and I was ready to present my desired idea as written in blog post 1 I was able to propose my idea to the class in the Tutorial class for this week. This as written in Blog post 1 is a media niche of mine that is actually my own and that is my music business account. I am currently 1 part of a producing duo called RÃœMA. We produce music in the future bass genre and is something i love to do hence why it has become my media niche because behind all the music making is too the marketing and social media identity creating on all social platforms.

My field site in which my media niche is heavily present is social media as a whole. RÃœMA was created in the back end of 2019 and therefore due to recent world issues have been able to put their work into full practical work i.e gigs or shows. This means their best/only way at this present time is to be marketing and interacting themselves with audiences via the online world. This field site map includes Instagram/Facebook as these are their best avenues in engaging with an audience. We have currently grown from 50 followers to 1.1K in just over 4 months now and as they continue to release this number is growing. We market our business by making engaging content such as interactive stories or posting photos in which invite the audience to engage and comment as well as of course posting previews and official releases on the page for the audience to see first. For us we are marketed soley from Wollongong region and this is so that record labels or followers are able to see where we are from for future gigs and shows that may arise and enable us to get local work. We offer our music across almost all streaming services which opens up to the next field site and these are the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Tidal and many more for users to purchase or stream our tracks! screen-shot-2020-09-03-at-10.35.09-am

Through researching further into my own media niche I will be able to in a way sit back and take a thorough look at the strategies I previously was undertaking to market my music and get the RÃœMA name out there into the world. Information such as statistics of how well my profile performs in the online spectrum through for example amount of weekly page vists the RÃœMA site engages. I will further develop my own knowledge on not only the best strategies other influential music artists use to promote themselves but too learn more about the makings of music as well.IMG_5900

I look forward to delving deeper into my media niche and learning more ways that I can help improve my digital footprint with the association of RÃœMA.

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Media Niche

Media Niche’s are all around us. They are what we like to view or do during our spare time and we are extremely invested to. Whether this be Youtube videos or your favourite channel doing re-actions to, beauty tips, sports videos, DIY’s and further more to the various platforms such as podcasts on Soundcloud or Spotify about our favourite crime investigators. For me my media niche is something that is actually my own. This is my music project which I created on the back end of 2019. This niche is something that like many others to their favourite media niche am extremely invested to and am super excited to further research for this major project. This Niche is an always on-going development because with time comes change and my music or platforms are always changing over time.

My media niche is across all media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Soundcloud, Spotify to name a few under the stage name RÃœMA. This project consists of two members being myself and my close mate. We proud ourselves on our music and the enormous connections we have created along the way. We create future bass music which is something that is evolving in the dance music genre with names associated with it such as Flume, Martin Garrix, The Chainsmokers, Marshmellow and many more. The presence outside our media platforms is to create an persona and presence of hardwork, motivation, friendliness, laid back, welcoming people that are trying to achieve their goal. For me I believe that we balance the platforms such as Instagram and Facebook well and do not completely saturate our platforms with musical content for example posting pictures of ourselves which allows the audience to see who we are and what we are about individually rather then just the RÃœMA name. We constantly create interactive elements on our platforms such as the ability to comment on posts, replying to DM’s, interactive stories on our platform for audiences to contribute to such as questionares, polls, stickers etc. As mentioned my niche has various platforms such as Spotify, Soundcloud and YouTube for live shows that may arise especially during the COVID19 phase such as mix’s we have created and recorded. Our target audience overall is anybody! but particularly our target audience is younger generations between 16-35 years of age and/or those that love dance and future bass music as a whole.

This ethnographic research task will be great to research further into not only for myself but for others to learn about how I can improve the ways in which I run my RÃœMA project across its media platforms, expand my target audience and too expand my followings at the same time as researching further into the project.

https://www.instagram.com/ruma.music/

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Research Reflection

For the BCM212 research task it was key to gather as much information as possible as well as using the most reliable sources to do so. This mean’t undertaking lots of hours of research all up to finally be able to find a conclusion to the question of my choice… “How does extra-curricular activities help a university students well-being and academic life?” The conclusion in which I was brought to in answering this question involved academic sources such as journals or texts as well as primary researching through undertaking surveys to a target population as well as interviews to my specific target population.

 

This entire research project was extremely helpful for my future projects of research as it taught me many things about researching methods and especially the considerations that are key to research prior to actually undergoing it. This was factors such as ethical considerations that you must think about that could harm or offend a participant when taking primary research as well as the time management and risk planning that is involved. This was something that I learn’t throughout week 4 phase of the research project of the semester learning the industry truism of research that “if you fail to plan, you’re really planning to fail”. This was something that stuck in my mind the entire time during this research task and helped me to keep on track of my time management plan as well as always referring back to my risk assessment. Through week 5 (Research methods and planning – samples and surveys-) I too learn’t something that to I thought was easy and I could do already and this was properly writing out surveys questions that were actually good and engaging as well as being shown examples of surveys that are too bias in their questioning. I feel as though this definitely helped me in getting more survey interactions and finding the proper data I needed to answer my research question. This then led me also learning further about how to properly conduct an interview for my research task which falls in hand with my knowledge on research communication. Ways that I can conduct a qualitative research interviews and get the data I need whilst also conducting it respectfully and ethically. These three weeks were extremely pivitol for my research task as they guided me in a professional and knowledgeable way of collecting research for future projects or works.

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Can you think of a scene from a film or television series you watched when the human voice is used in a film in a way that is unexpected?

For me when I think of this question it throws me into a a deep thought of all movies where you are watching a scene and the voice you were expecting to come out of the character, that being human verbals is in fact completely unexpected making it such an intriguing and unique moment. A great example of this idea of the unexpectedness of a human voice in a film or television series is from the “Coopers dream” from the twin peaks.

In the opening scene of the film we see a man and a woman sitting in a setting of a tv set or casting coach. The man is sitting there very still and proper in his suit directly opposite to the woman who is too dressed in a formal suit shirt and dress to depict this idea of formality i.e. a tv set. Unexpectedly a midget man comes in on a pole of sorts, expecting a small male voice to come out of his mouth instead we are taken back by a man that in fact talks in reverse, accompanied by subtitles. This moment of unexpectedness too happens again when the men asks the woman if she is Laura Palmer which she too replies in reverse after being told she was infact cousins with the midget.

The scene then finishes with the midget walking off to a song being played in the background as the woman who is suspected to be Laura Palmer gets up kisses the man and then whispers in his ear as the scene comes to a close. This scene of the film is an extremely unique form of acting and makes the viewer confused as to what is actually happening due to the unexpectedness of the style of verbalisation.

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WHERE I’M FROM

 

Lumiere Film is the idea of roughly 1 minute videos shot using a stationary camera on a tripod. I chose to represent home and where I am from. As I have moved away from my home town I decided that I would create shots of these memories of home. InitialI had a trial an error as there was so much I wanted to include in the film to represent home but when I really thought about it I realised that Bowral is a cold place and about family and my pets, for me so I wanted to grasp this idea. I used Premier Pro to edit the video, Nikon D5200 Camera to film on with a Feiyutech tripod. In all thsi is my final product of my Lumiere Film of home.

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TASK 1 BCM 212

As the unit for Semester 1 BCM 212 commenced we were outlined with an assessment task brief. This task asking us to outline a topic that applies to University students whether this be their way of lifestyle on campus, a university students eating habits and how that may affect the brains ability to learn, what it is like to study in a foreign country and so on. For me I brain stormed these many potential ideas of study but one that stuck out for me above the rest was the question

  • How does doing extra-curricular activities help a university students well-being and academic life?

I believe that this question is a timely research idea as its something that can span across all university students and does not single out a certain target in a university making it highly relevant to all students as extra-curricular is a huge part of university life and too is students well being. This research question too is worth exploring as from experience of myself I noticed this change and affect on my well-being. From research I have gathered thus far in the semester I have been able to find thorough research on the matter and how extra-curricular activities both positively and negatively affects a university students well-being and academic life.

For my initial research on the matter I both used social media influence as a way of reaching out my question, in-person conversation (questioning) as well as overall internet research allowing me to broaden my research further then just UOW but instead nationwide. This left me with 4 research evidences’ upon the idea from my three techniques of research gathering. I began by doing some internet research once our task brief was assigned to assist in the brainstorming process which led me to two resources which I found through the Universities library. The first one being (

The Effect of Time Management on Academic Performance among Students of Jazan University.

) an academic journal that was conducted on a certain University by accumulating statistical data on the research question. It found that students that have exposure to extra-curricular activities adapted the skill of time management and therefore faired better academically due to this rather then those that did not do extra-curricular activities. My second evidence towards the research question was an academic article published by The Conversation. It explores how physical activities in Australian educational systems affect and help to prevent the well-being of students across all learning levels. It proved that physical activities is an effective control and assistance in reducing harm to a students well-being throughout their education and more importantly in secondary school to University education. My third research evidence was a physical conversation in which I conducted myself with my peers of my university. I asked the research question I am conducting as well as what they are currently apart of to my peers and gathered their feedback responses to the question. My first person was Lillie (19) at UOW in which she replied “I feel as though it is both positive and negative, I currently am involved in poetry and writing groups which help me to manage my time effectively because we are constantly bringing new works into the group and the deadline being the following week but it also means that I can sometimes forget or put off university assignments or readings that I am supposed to be doing”. Ethan (20) responded with “I’m in the AFL team for UOW the Bulldogs and we train every Tuesday and Thursday so I find that those days I completely put off for doing any homework as I am tired from Uni that day and then training but it has definitely helped my mental state during uni because it takes my mind off the stress of uni workloads and allows me to connect with mates”.

The final piece of research evidence was a Twitter poll which I put out. I asked the question with the response options of “It helps a lot” or “It does not help” which i had 14 votes on and gathered the data that (64.3%) believed it does help your well-being and too way of life at uni and the (35.7%) believing that it does not help a students well-being or wayof life. Screen Shot 2020-03-29 at 11.28.33 am.png

In conclusion this research question has a lot more exploring to be done towards and backs up with some relevant feedback and research data. I believe that extra-curricular activities helps a university students well-being and academic life. I am excited to delve further into the idea and find out more on the topic.

 

 

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WEEK 2 IMAGE ANALYSIS

Image 2:

The first image depicts a black and white plain photo of a shop with no effects used on it

Image 3:

Second photo uses a lot of colour saturation. The focus of the shot is the trolley which is on an island isolated to the black road.

Image 4:

This shot is split into a rule of thirds where the landscape is split up. The soil, grass and then rocks. There is people split in each section where the man on the rocks is isolated.

Image 5:

The foreground is the ocean with the mountain in the background. It creates an isolation and cold feeling. The shapes of the mountain resemble to ocean waves too.

Image 6:

This image looks vintage. The contrast of the walls being stripie to the bleak brown carpet and leather chairs. There are lots of shapes and patterns in the image.

Image 7: Alan Sekula, Panorama. Mid-Atlantic, November 1993, from Fish Story 1989–95.

This image shows connection between containerised cargo movement. Its a depcition of the geographic state of these cargo ships. Shot in 1995 on the 21st of January. This image looks abstract and cold. The horizon line on the image breaks up the image into sections. The colour on the image is quite desaturated in colour giving it a gloomy look.

Image 8:

The last image shows old to modern look. The background is brighter and the city scape is bright where as the foreground and mid ground is darker colours giving it a mood.

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BLOG THREE

Now that our poster scaffold design was underway and confirmed with feedback from both peers and teacher review, the next two weeks (5 and 6) was to create the poster on Illustrator. This would give us our end product being the final project for submission. This stage was not an easy stage for me although but through assistance and YouTube research I was able to find solutions to overcome these issues. I chose a specific colour scheme of black to emphasis the darkness and evil that is associated with terrorism in creating a mood as the secondary colour and then accompanied with red representing bloodshed and evil that terrorism causes as the primary colour.

Screen Shot 2019-11-03 at 12.56.26 pm.png
Constructing my poster in Adobe Illustrator 

My planned scaffold for the poster was to develop a poster with a header and sectioned off thirds of the poster. This was the scaffold I wanted and did follow for the development of my poster. The first third being the geographical graph, a type of graph we learn’t out of many in the first two weeks of the project design process followed with short statistical information surrounding. That would then flow into the middle third of the poster and so on. I focused heavily on the specifics of attacks on population to begin. Locations in which are heavily affected around the world with a supporting statistic using type to emphasis this. The middle third would include two graphs, a pie graph and column graph. Both giving statistical information on populations affected by terrorism worldwide. This being the type of citizens most affected by terrorism represented with both a pie graph and shape built population of people for aesthetic, accompanied with the column graph detailing number of incidents, number of deaths and number of injuries caused by a specific terrorist organisation.

With the third section of the poster I created a bandana type of section to split away from the other two thirds of the poster. This worked well as I was able to not only section off those two thirds but it also made it flow into this section with my use of arrow type shapes on the top and bottom of the red bandana like bar. This flowed to further information but explored more into terrorist organisations around the world and most dangerous ones rather then populations of citizens affected. I created out of shapes men in balaclavas to emphasis this idea of crime of the organisational groups as well as icons under the red bandana bar so that the viewer is easily able to gather an idea of the statistics simply from viewing along with a typographic representation of data with an enlarged capitalised number.

Finalising my poster was difficult in the end and most challenging for my whole production phase as I was unable to print out my poster properly. At first it was found to be cut off so with adjustment settings on the size of the page I thought this solution would be fixed but then when I re-printed the entire poster came out extremely blurry, still readable but was not pristine as it should be when working with Adobe Illustrator. Unfortunately i was not able to find a solution and reprint due to lack of funds as each print cost $20 as well as time availability at the end. From this I would take away that test printing is a must and I will do so for the next projects to come as I will have available time left to adjust any issue that may arise for some reason like this situation and be people to overcome them.

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