Progress Report 3

Date: 06/11/2008
To: Dr. Holmevik
From: Jin Liu

Introduction
This research is going to answer two questions:1) whether the high-/low-context culture of China and U. S. influences the visual strategies of their commercials; 2) whether the Chinese and U. S. audience appreciate the commercials customized according to their culture.

Work Completed
I made a big step forward last week while writing the first draft. First, I know better what I'm going to do. Second, I reduced the brands from 6 Asian and U. S. brands to be 3 U. S. brands. Third, I identified two kinds of important variables, including high-/low-context cultural characteristics and the related visual strategies. Forth, I raised seven specific hypotheses to examine.

Next Steps
The multimodal presentation for the proposal is due next Thursday, and the storyboard is due next Monday. So I will be working on the video this and next week. And I need to contact the instructor of ENG 103 summer class, and pick up 2-3 Chinese commercials for them to watch. Besides, I will continue the literature review, and keep on looking for the commercial samples.

On the other hand, I will try to find fundings for this research, which requires me to research the application process, and calculate my budget.

Conclusion
Things work much better than I expected this week. And thanks to Barbara, I will probably be able to conduct a preliminary experiment this or next week among the students in ENG 103. And it will be awesome if I can get funding for my research, and for the flying home this Christmas break! Now that gives me another reason for harder work.