I chose to use a gantt chart for planning my research as it underlines clear key goals and objectives and also clearly shows research deadlines.
Notes from research in ‘How to write a dissertation’
https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/abstract/
- An abstract is a short summary of a longer work (such as a dissertation or research paper). The abstract concisely reports the aims and outcomes of your research, so that readers know exactly what your paper is about.
https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/introduction/
- The introduction is the first section of your thesis or dissertation, appearing right after the table of contents.
- Begin by introducing your research topic and giving any necessary background information.
- After a brief introduction to your general area of interest, narrow your focus and define the scope of your research.
https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/methodology/
- Your research methodology discusses and explains the data collection and analysis methods you used in your research.
- Quantitative methods
- Qualitative methods
- you should indicate how you processed and analysed your data
- In qualitative research, your analysis will be based on language, images, and observations (often involving some form of textual analysis).
https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/conclusion/
- It should be concise and engaging, leaving your reader with a clear understanding of your main findings, as well as the answer to your research question.
- Your conclusion should begin with the main question that your thesis or dissertation aimed to address.
- Your conclusion is an opportunity to remind your reader why you took the approach you did, what you expected to find, and how well the results matched your expectations.
Academic Support Session Resources
In preparation to following academic support sessions, I gathered a list of potential thesis ideas.
It was agreed that cultural appropriation and appreciation in games would be the most effective.
Literature Review notes
Young, J.O. and Brunk, C.G. (2012) The ethics of cultural appropriation
The book refers to the Oxford English Dictionary for the definition of ‘appropriation’ which is “the making a thing of private property…; taking as one’s own or to one’s own use”. It explores appropriation within a broad range of cultural assets, helping clarify the types of cultural appropriation, making it easier to define and analyze. It finds that in every case, something is alleged to be taken and made use of (Young & Brunk, 2012).
Guo, L., Eyman, D. and Sun, H. (2024) Games & play in chinese & sinophone cultures.
This extract focuses on ideas surrounding cultural appropriation in games, in particular, the visual design and narrative elements in World of Warcraft and Genshin Impact.
It focuses on the Mist of Pandaria expansion within World of Warcraft which incorporated elements of Asian Culture, primarily ancient Chinese culture. Stating that the expansion was made to appeal to the growing popularity within China. The book highlights the Pandaren player race, which was originally designed with inspirations from Japanese culture, but the design was later changed to better suit to a Chinese audience. Players claimed that Pandaria relied on many insensitive clichés and engaged in surface level research. Although the book realizes that there is no official study of Chinese player’s response to the expansion to the date of writing, through self-study methods it can conclude that the expansion engaged in cultural appropriation through superficial design choices and the use of cultural elements simply for entertainment and increased engagement.
It also looks at an opposing example, Genshin Impact, which is a Chinese-produced game unlike World of Warcraft which was produced in the United States. It states that unlike World of Warcraft, Genshin Impact uses Chinese cultures more generally. It lists positive reviews from players expressing that architectural design elements and recipes within the game are accurate representations which have promoted cultural education. Based on the findings from the extract, Genshin Impact serves as a strong example of cultural appreciation (Guo et al., 2024).
Even though this study lacks academic or expert analysis, it aids in how to identify cases of cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation specifically within games.
Games for the Pluriverse: Exploring the Use, Opportunities, and Problems of Drawing from Local Cultural Heritage in Video Games
Article- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/15554120241234126
This section of the article focuses on how the use of local heritage can likely lead to stereotyping, underlining that while games may benefit from leveraging from these stereotypes, it raises concerns about misrepresentation on an international scale.
It questions whether games like Falafel King successfully engages with cultural heritage, an Israeli browser game that primarily uses common tropes and boldly portrays aspects of public and organizational life in Isreal. It focuses its discussion on Greek-inspired games such as Age of Mythology, God of War, Apotheon, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Hades describing them as unofficial ambassadors of what is perceived as Greek Culture. Despite Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s research, which involved sending researchers working alongside the Greek Government to study ancient manuscripts and in-game locations, the game faced harsh critique when it came to cultural representation. Similarly to previously mentioned games, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey reduced local cultures simply to stereotypes and “exotic” settings. The article argues that because of limited resources and marketing, games that showcase Greek culture and mythology that are created by native Greek developers are quite rare. It uses 1821: The Struggle for Freedom as an example, the game was made by an indie Greek studio named Icehole Games in 2001, however the game only received recognition mostly within Greece. The chapter closes by saying that culturally focused games face challenges when competing with mainstream games that promote the values of more powerful cultures.
Case study Research
I spoke with my Games Art lecturer and they provided a lists of potentially interesting areas:
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
- Chinese subtitles
- Over use of Sakura trees
- removed Yasuke splash on Japanese sites and removed his name as samurai and replaced with mighty warrior, but still samurai in west
- applied censorship to the game in Japan
- interview saying that they value and research and promote culture but contradicts
- Ubisoft and assassins creed every main character is always native of the region its based in, but in shadows this doesn’t follow the trend
- Complaints against RE5 but cant complain about ac: shadows
Ghost of Tsushima
- Developers made ambassadors of island
Reviewing
Before moving onto proof reading, I completed the thesis self-assessment checklist so that I could identify main problematic areas to look out for.
Main areas of improvements:
- format and title chapters better
- reword sub headings
- sort bibliography in alphabetical order