Purpose Statement

"To identify the correlations between visual literacy and Asian cultural characteristics like high context, high power distance and collectivism and so on, which leads to a conclusion about producing commercials in Asian market in comparison with American market."

Chapter 4 Describing the Current Situation

1. Effects Approach

In the case of thesis proposal, the effects approach tend to be heavily used, since the primary readers, the committee members, will be pretty clear about the causes of the phenomena to study. But they didn't conduct the research by themselves. And it is similar to readers in academia, such as the program director, the adviser, MAPC peers, the journal editors and potential readers from research institutions.

Therefore, the thesis proposal can be fairly direct. We can introduce the current research findings and build up the exigence of further research in the beginning.

2. Literature Review

This chapter emphasize about a significant function of literature review, that is, to "highlight the knowledge gaps and/or inconsistencies that exist in the published work" (68). It is especially important for me to keep that in mind when doing the lit review part. I used to consider it to be a part to show off the author's rich "knowledge" about the research topic. So sometime I tended to put everything in mind there.

However, to identify the gaps in previous research, and to establish the exigence of deeper research, it requires to state "need-to-know" information only, instead of providing "want-to-tell" information from the writer's prospective.

3. Assuming your readers don't know anything about the topic?

In the classes of TV program planning in college, the professor told us to treat the audience as "idiots," assuming that they have difficulties understanding the even easiest things.By doing so, we tend to produce a lot of idiot-proof TV programs which probably look somehow stupid as the experts see them.

That is actually a tendency of "reader-centered" composition. The professional writers explain things as clearly as possible, in order to make the audience understand and get attracted in a few minutes.

Since the primary readers of the thesis proposal are experts in that field, we don't have to write in idiot-proof way. But it is necessary to organize all "need-to-know" information in proper orders.

Executive Summary 2

Subject:
The utilization of long shots, medium long shots, writer-centered scenes and family themes in 50-100 Asian commercial reward winners (it would be better if they come with the counterparts in American market)

Purpose:
To identify the correlations between visual literacy and Asian cultural characteristics like high context, high power distance and collectivism and so on, which leads to a conclusion about producing commercials in Asian market in comparison with American market.

Readers:
Primary readers: Drs. Fishman, Holmevik and Sample.
Secondary readers: Peers in MAPC program, Dr. Taylor and graduate school.
Tertiary readers: colleagues in the field, journal editors, any future readers working in academia or industry
Gatekeepers: MAPC Handbook, Dr. Holmevik and myself

Context:
Physical:

• My committee grants a lot of patience and guidance to my thesis. And most of other MAPCers are supportive to my research.
• Dr. Taylor is also supportive, and she will be especially interested in whether that meets the thesis standard of MAPC program. The graduate school will be more concerned about the formatting and the academic branding.
  
• Journal editors and potential readers from academia or industry will be interested to see the theoretical values and practical benefits brought by the research.
  
• And the gatekeepers are likely to make sure my research be potentially rewarding, as well as be politically correct.

Economic:
I don't have any funds to cover the research expense except for my own money. So I will keep the budget as small as possible.

Ethical:
Some people may be sensitive about advertising western products to Asian market. In that sense, they may rejective to my study.

Political:
It may have some political issues if there is some serious conflicts between Asia and US.

Progress Report 1

Date: 05/29/2008
To: Dr. Holmevik
From: Jin Liu

Introduction
I'm writing a proposal for my master's thesis. The thesis is about visual literacy in the context of cross-cultural communication. It will summarize the correlations between Asian cultural characteristics and image reading habits by studying the utilization of long shots, writer-centered scenes and family themes in Asian commercial reward winners, which will lead to a series recommendations of advertising in Asian market comparing with American market.

Work Completed
By now, though I only finished a small part of literature review, I'm eager to read more about visual literacy of Asian audience due to their cultural characteristics, such as high-context culture, high power distance culture and collective culture, and so on. Additionally, I got Drs. Fishman, Holmevik and Sample to organize my thesis committee.

Next Steps
I think I need to do more literature review on the methodology of TV commercial research, the correlation between Asian cultural characteristics and image reading habits, and to specify the commercials as research subjects.

Conclusion
I'm glad I finally found a point between visual literacy and intercultural communication to begin my research, which has been my interest for a long time. In addition I will be able to utilize my experience in video editing as well. I started feeling excited about the research.

Chapter 3 Strategic Planning for Proposals and Grants

1. Subject: the “need-to-know” perspective vs. “want-to-tell” perspective

In this chapter, Johnson-Sheehan argued that writers should show things the audience has to know, instead providing any information collected. That is actually an important characteristic of the “reader centered” writing style. Filter all unnecessary information, and establish the arguments in the sequence appreciated by the audience.

It reminds me of a controversial question in journalism, that is, to provide “need-to-know” or “want-to-know” information to the audience. One side argues that media should give viewers things they are supposed to know, since media have the function of “educating.” The other side, who considers media more like an entertainment tool, contends that audience should get whatever they want to know through media. Here, it seems proposal writers granted themselves more privileges of choosing what to say than people working in media.

On the other hand, I’m wondering whether it is possible to create the exigency to make “want-to-tell” be “need-to-know” information. Except for those unrelated information, I think if the argument is properly developed, it is possible to advertise the “want-to-tell” in a pack appealing to the readers.

2. How to utilize readers’ emotions?

It says professional proposal writers should always take readers’ emotions into account. Take advantage of positive emotions, and avoid evoking negative emotions. But I’m not sure what that refers to. Can we find some specific examples of utilizing readers’ emotions to energize our proposals?

As I understand, it may include getting around the taboos in social custom. Or perhaps, most things related to Olympics will probably stimulate positive emotions among Chinese readers, since Beijing is holding Olympic Games in August.

3. Paying attention to the political context

I strongly agree that we should keep the political context in mind when constructing the proposal. I have a personal example of the loss caused by failing to consider the community political issues. When I was working in Beida TV Station, the college TV station of Peking University, my first TV program was postponed by the censorship.

It was about a novel named The Yin Yang Master, a work of Japanese fantasy literature, which had nothing to do with politics. However, there was a boycott parade for Japanese goods in Haidian district where the college was located. The gatekeepers, actually the station supervisors, thought everything related to Japan was too sensitive to bring on TV. So they asked me to hold up that program for more than 1 month to avoid having conflicts with the political atmosphere.

It took me 5 weeks to make the program plan, invite the guest speaker, videotape the interviews, and edit the films. I was so occupied by the program making that I paid no attention to the political issues going on in the community. I think it is really important to keep an eye on the political context when writing proposals, even the proposal has nothing to do with politics.

Proposal Opportunity Worksheet

Client:
Point of Contact (POC): my committee (I've got Dr. Sample and Dr. Holmevik, and I'm contacting Dr. Fishman in this week.)
Deadline for proposal submission: The first week of June
Address for proposal submission: Daniel 409

Summary of Proposal Opportunity:
This is an opportunity allowing me to “concentrate on the direct study of some issue of professional communication, rhetoric, or composition.” And the topic seems to be up to us, because we are allowed to pick up what we find interesting and rewarding.

Comments and Recommendations:
I think they need this work to see whether we are qualifed to get a master's degree in professional communication. So the proposal is supposed to convince them that we've acquired the abilities to accomplish research or projects independently.

Accept or Reject
Yes, of course, because I need to graduate May 2009.

More thoughts for the thesis

It seems my first thesis topic attracted more attentions from my classmates than the second one. And I also think that could lead to some practical findings. Here I would summarize my thesis topic as follow:

How to create global ads attractive to Asian audience in comparison with western audience?

It has been theorized that culture shapes the way people receive and interpret messages. Through eye-tracking experiments, Nisbett has proved that “the characteristic thought processes of Asian and westerners differs greatly.” (Nisbett 2003, 12) Frith and other scholars explored “how culture shapes what people see in global images,” by conducting an experiment among students from USA, India and Singapore.

I would like to explore which visual elements in global ads are especially appreciated by Asian audience in comparison with western audience, and how elements should be arranged to stimulate purchase behaviors or to establish positive corporate images.

I’m considering doing a comparative study between Coca-Cola’s websites in Asia and the western world. And I will try to identify the characteristics of the ads on the websites, and the differences in presenting the same slogan and logo.

Current sources:

Hong, Moonki, Intercultural Differences of the Web Marketing Strategy. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2007 Annual Meeting, p1-1, 1p

Mendelson, Andrew. For whom is a picture worth a thousand words? How does the visualizing cognitive style affect processing of news photos? Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2003 Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, p1-31, 31p, 3 charts, 3 diagrams

Xue, Fei, Zhou, Shuhua, Zhou, Peiqin. Visual Strategies in U.S. and Chinese TV Ads. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2003 Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, p1-29, 29p, 3 charts, 2 graphs

Zhou, Shuhua, Xu, Jie, Ye, Yinjiao, Zhou, Peiqin. Effects of Culture-Congruent Visuals on Affect, Perception, and Purchase Intention: A Comparison of U.S. and Chinese Viewers. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2007 Annual Meeting, p1-1, 1p

Chapter 2 Analyzing Problems and Opportunities

In this chapter, the author mainly introduced the key steps to follow when writing solicited proposals. Above all, it is important to read Request for Proposals (RFPs) to analyze the elements of the “writing situation” (14), that is, Five-Ws and How. It mentions that those principles also apply to writing unsolicited proposals. I’m not sure about these questions when it comes to unsolicited proposals, such as the MAPC thesis.

1. Who exactly are the readers, and who else might be involved?

The primary thesis readers would be the student’s committee members. And for the students who plan to use it to apply for PhD programs, another important group is the professors in the admission committees. Additionally, journal editors and journal readers can become the readers if the thesis is submitted to some academic journals.

2. What do the readers need?

I’m somewhat stuck by the questions which kinds of research topics will be attractive to my committee and the professors in the field. I think here the MAPC handbook would be a good resource to identify the Five-Ws and How questions. It says “the topic should permit you to concentrate on the direct study of some issue of professional communication, rhetoric, or composition. The research you perform should also provide you with an opportunity to study more fully what you find interesting and rewarding. Avoid narrowly mechanical research projects and topics.”

Therefore, it seems the topic is up to the students. The committee members will be satisfied by any topic, as long as it falls in the field of professional communication, rhetoric or composition. The point is the students themselves find it interesting and rewarding. Additionally, the students need to justify the soundness of the topics they chose.

3. Why the client or funding source looking for someone to do this project?

I think they want to get some evidences showing the students are qualified to get a master’s degree. So we have to write papers which exhibit our excellence in conducting studies independently. In my opinion, that mainly requires a relatively exhaustive literature review, logically reasonable experiments and analyses, and an inspiring conclusion.

Some ideas for my thesis

1. How do cultural backgrounds affect people's cognitive processing of visuals?

Previous research shows some interesting differences in the image reading habits of easterners and westerners. For instance, people from high-context culture pay more attention to the background elements and try harder to construct relationship involving the characters in foreground with the background. (Nisbett 2003) It is explained that “Easterners live in a more socially complicated world and have to pay more attention to the context of a situation.” (Frith & Karan 2007, 3)

I’m interested in do an experimental study to justify some theories about the relationship between cultural backgrounds and image reading habits. But I’ve not found a suitable theory. I’m now searching and reading literature on visual literacy and intercultural communication.

2. Compared with the western, does Asian pop culture prefer males with feminine appearances?

I found that the pop stars produced by Asian entertainment industry look much more feminine than those who were from the western. On the other hand, personally I prefer males with feminine looks. So I’m wondering whether Asian culture has different standard of what is beautiful for the male, whether Asians prefer men looking like women.

I may research in Second Life to see whether Asian players tend to make their avatars look more feminine or not. But I haven’t found any directly related literature yet.

References:

Nisbett, R. E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently…and why. NY: Free Press

Frith, Katherine. Karan, Kavita (2007). Global Visuals: Is A Picture Worth A Thousand Words? Conference Papers -- International Communication Association; 2007 Annual Meeting, p1-22, 22p