Research paper analysis

Research Paper Analysis Name Institution Research Paper Analysis In Victoria Jaynes’ article “The social life of screenshots: the power of visibility in teen friendship groups”, the author looks at how the practice of taking a screenshot has always been taken for granted. This article therefore focuses on the use of screenshots in the day-to-day lives of teenagers through examining ethnographic data that includes how screenshots among teenagers are taken, possessed and circulated. The author in this article defines the term screenshot as a duplication of the exact content appearing on a device’s screen and these devices could include tablets, PC’s, mobile phones and laptops. The author argues that screenshots have a powerful use and effect in the social lives of teenagers and have an important role to play when it comes to negotiating peer politics and popularity. With this in mind, the author therefore sought to answer three questions; what is a screenshot? What is the function of screenshots? and the question on the significance of screenshots beyond the teens. On methodology, the author used several methods that included audio recording of semi-structured interviews, focus group conversations and ethnographic participant observation. The ethnographic fieldwork was carried out at two youth centers in the UK where the social aspect of screenshots was explored among youths and how the use of screenshots is gendered. The article concluded that screenshots have great power in the communication among youths often shaping or determining the popularity, unpopularity and undesirability of individuals amongst their peers. Drawing from other feminist media studies, the article also concluded that the use of screenshots among teens was gendered. The author thinks that further studies should focus on the use of screenshots in teen group chats and how this affects the operation of power. I believe future research might explore the social aspect of screenshots among adult groups. In the second article “How do players understand video game hardware: Tactility or tech-speak?”, the authors Luo and Johnson (2020) explore the idea of how players understand the technological hardware used in playing video games. This focus stems from the fact that the games industry often tends to use tech-speak terminologies that are considered unclear and confusing in their efforts to communicate about the new gaming hardware’s value. The article points out that digital technology is responsible for the existence of video games, which are usually custom-built to enable the players have some particular intended experiences. However, it is noted that the marketing and advertising strategies used for this gaming hardware is rarely understood by the players leading to a disconnect between the industry’s tech-speak objectives and the players’ subjective experiences. The hypothesis was that tech-speak is responsible for the divide between industry objectives and players’ experiences. In their methodology, the researchers used the method of gaming interview whereby a semi-structured interview is conducted after a video play session. The semi-structured interview included discussions on various topics such as gaming habits, motivation for gaming and the understanding of participants’ gaming skills and the games they considered good or bad. From the interviews, the authors concluded that the existing differences in addressing gaming technology between the games industry and the players, is primarily due to the terminology or tech-speak that the industry provides, which does not paint a true picture of the real experience of technology use. While the technology suggested that all players would have similar experiences, the researchers confirmed that this is not true. The researchers believe that future studies should use their findings to understand the players’ purchasing habits. I believe future research could investigate the effect of tech-speak on the playing and purchasing habits of game players. In the article “Why do replies appear? A multi-level event history analysis of online policy discussions”, Zhang, Xi and Chen (2020) investigated the factors that affect people’s participation in online forums on policy discussions. Ideally, the authors suggested that it is necessary for motivation to be used in changing the participant’s response behaviors and their distribution of time on synchronous and asynchronous communication. In this article, online discussions were determined to rely solely on interactivity and participation, however, the communication flow could be disrupted by the time factor. Based on this, the researchers explored the effect of factors such as the environment and individual pos...