I have a few ideas that I am tossing around...
The first one is based on JP's video game violence idea. But for my project, I would like to research the moral issues of video games. A couple weeks ago I was playing Modern Warfare 2, and the game goes back and forth between playing the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys'. When I am playing the 'good guys', I cannot hurt innocent bystanders (women and children), but when I am in the shoes of the 'bad guys' holy hell, I can blow up, shoot, stab, etc...anyone and everyone. Why is that? We know there is violence in video games, but there still seems to be a 'code of honor' when it comes to these shooter games. Good guys don't hurt innocent people? Or is it just the Americans?
The second idea, would be BPA...I know its a boring topic, but as a parent and consumer, this crap is in pretty much everything. I have done research on this before in a technical writing class, but I want to keep exploring what has changed if anything has changed.
A third idea would be to research drug problems right now in our armed forces. I know the Air Force has been dealing with soldiers "dusting" (a drug that doesn't show up in tests). The Army has faced major criticism from drug allegations. It is this side that I want to research to see if again, anything is being done to curb the problem.
The magazine that I would love to see this in...TIME!! (If you gonna aim high, shoot for the Moon!)
Kevin, good talk yesterday. I really liked that idea of the morality of video games. I think it has a level of complexity and edginess that would make it a really interesting piece. You could really get at some cool subject matter depending on which way your research takes you.
ReplyDeleteAs for BPA, that was a huge thing about 3-4 year ago. BUT it's been back in the news recently...I can't remember how. I'm sure there's some new studies out there that just got started around the time of the peak of the hysteria, so I would bet you wouldn't have a problem finding fresh info.
As for your shooting for TIME, I don't think that's a silly idea. I said the same about my piece. I'm not a magazine reader typically, so I'm kind of out of the loop as to the tone and content of a lot of these publications, but I suppose that's what the library's for! I'll be putting in a little research in that area I suppose before I get this party started.
Good ideas all around. There are a lot of angles and comparisons you can make with the video games. In the first Grand Theft Auto, you could do stuff like hire a hooker (some graphic stuff involved with that too), run over pedestrians. Most games seem to have cheats that unlock the "hidden" stuff, not just actual cheats, but things that let you do stuff that shouldn't be displayed in a normal mode of play. That could be an interesting angle: we hide that which we know is wrong, yet make it easily available anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnd to both of you, you never know, TIME might be waiting for your article. Best advice I've ever had (in my own words, though): If your goal is to be a writer, don't think of yourself as a student while at school, think of yourself as a writer. And in my opinion, both of you guys are great writers!
Kevin, we've briefly talked about video game violence in two of my sociology classes this semester. I know there's been a lot of research on the effects of video game violence and that there's some contention surrounding the topic. I'm not sure how much research there is that would address your idea specifically, but it's certainly a rich topic that should have plenty of information to dig through--there's definitely a story there.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of BPA, I'd be afraid of replicating what others have already written about since so much has been written already. It would definitely be a safe topic to explore because so much attention has been paid to it. I wouldn't do it unless you can find some crazy new information or something that's been totally ignored by other writers.
I like Kelly's advice to think of yourself as a writer though--writing about BPA might be easier and good practice at what we're doing here since you could easily compare what you've done to what's already been done, but picking a topic that hasn't saturated the media offers more of a challenge!
Drug use among soldiers is something I know nothing about. It strikes me as being something that might be hard to find research on though. I'm curious though. There might be some really interesting science behind what drug tests can and can't detect and how the government attempts to keep the troops "clean."