:: Research proposal ::

That's it -- I'm done! It's written, printed, bound, ready to hand-in. Wow! That was a more difficult assignment than it should have been. I guess the complete and utter lack of an actual written hand-out explaning the prof's expectations for the assignment could be the reason for the difficulty.

I mentioned in yesterday's blogpost that I was doing this research on digital appropriation. Current working title is Robin Hood or Captain Hook? Identity, Agency & Power Relations in Digital Appropriation Tactics". Yeah I know it's a bit cute but the prof insisted on a "catchy" title, so she is going to get one.

Since I had to do an asbstract as part of the proposal, I thought I'd post it here -- might come in handy at a later date. Here it is:

A review of social scientific literature reveals that little has been written about the cultural implications of the Internet practices of file swapping and downloading of copyrighted cultural materials, a practice I call “digital appropriation”. The focus of this topic in the popular media has been on legal, financial and ethical issues and has tended to vilify or sensationalize this practice. I therefore propose to do an ethnographic research project involving a small sample of young adult Canadian males, to discover how they have integrated their digital appropriation practices into their identity, sense of agency and power relations with society. I do not expect to discover signs of stigma or loss of face because of their practice. I expect other themes may present, related to deviance and the nature of authorship and cultural artifacts in our post-modern society. However, I intend to focus the goal of the project towards generating a more balanced understanding of the identity work of young individuals who engage in the practice, by grounding that understanding in sociological and cultural studies theory, rather than in political science and economic terms.

What do you think? Let me know.