SOCIAL RESEARCH DESIGN: DRAFT PROPOSAL Nicholas Sculthorpe

BACKGROUND  -Does Social Media affect how your daughter views the world?  - Do violent video games make your son more susceptible to committing violent crimes?  - For years it has been accepted that social media have engaged pre-teens and therefore the adverse attention from parents.  - In more recent times, the news and current affairs issues have been, thanks to social media, thrust into the public eye. This can be considered a social problem as recent events involving terrorists, riots and executions around the world has flooded social media resulting in younger pre-teens having access to information, videos and images of horrific acts of religious and political conflicts leading to judgement and premature opinions.  - Moreover, recent retail backlash over such video games as Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt 2 has led to the conspiracy that is child video games. Some entities believe that video games are the real reason for recent violent crimes all over the world.  - Key concepts I would like to magnify and discuss is the desensitising gaming and social media effects on pre-teens to young adults.

LITERATURE REVIEW - The first study was designed by the Australian Communications and media Authority in 2013 to determine the role of online interaction in the lives of Australian children and young people, in particular social media sites. This study was aimed at many facets but not including news and current affairs images being accessed by children and young adults. This study found that 34 per cent of parents have searched for information on their child online. 55 per cent of parents reported that safety was the most important issue for them. - The vast majority of 8-17 year olds are online and their likelihood of accessing the internet increases with age. The importance these young people and teenagers place on the internet increases with age also with figures significantly increased from 2009 to For most children the internet has had a positive effect on them, however, between 4 and 7 per cent of year old users have had a bad experience. While 20 to 26 per cent of users have seen something online that bothered them. - This study touches on the negatives of social media such as Cyberbullying, Sexting and ‘Risk Behaviours (adding random people to Facebook and sending images to people they have never met face to face) also the upsetting content its users have seen however, it does not go into further detail about the issue. There is no mention here about the news and current affair stories being portrayed all over Social Media. In general, there appears to be little if any studies on the current affair stories that are constantly ‘shared’ via Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets. - The second study aims to decide whether media violence and video games are a risk to the health and safety of the public. The effects in older children are less clear and no increase in long term aggressiveness or violence has been shown. There is no evidence to suggest that individuals exposed to media violence go on to commit crimes. However, it is not clear whether this largely experimental research can be applied to situations in everyday life as the experiments are so small with non-representative samples. - There was much debate over this topic that a formal commission was granted by the UK government in 2007, while the results of that commission varied, there was actually less relation to the standard legislative laws that are currently in place such as age restrictions on games and parental control software online and the restrictions of illegal content online. The shift now comes for the education and information targeting parents of children is crucial. - Where this study lacks is its relevance to Australia and the teens of this country due to this nation’s age and cultural differences. This could also be due to the nation’s lack of violence as a direct result from media or video games alike.

RESEARCH QUESTION - Does violence in the media have any correlation to violent behaviour or anti-social behaviour among the teens of Australia?  - Nominal definition: Violence in the media: This relates to any form of social media, television, video games or current affairs programs.  - Operational definition: This can be shown through teens watching TV and current affairs programs, regularly participating in social media and video games both individually and in groups.

METHODOLOGY  - All data in this research will be through use of survey of both parents and children participating in media exposure activities (i.e. playing video games, going on Facebook, YouTube etc...)  - All surveys will be through the use of or post, depending on availability.  participants will be selected. 300 parents will be broken down into 150 dads and 150 mums completing surveys about their children's behaviour before and after their media exposure. Furthermore, 150 males and 150 females aged between will be selected to participate in this study of their overall ‘emotion before and after media exposure.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS - Consent: no data will be revealed without the informed consent of the participant. - Confidentiality: No data will be sued with any names attached. All names and personal information will be removed post-retrieval of the survey. - The survey will be accompanied by an to discuss the nature of the results and what we will be looking for in particular. Ideally each parent will have a child completing the survey also creating no need for parents’ consent for the child. - Participants are not under any duress to complete this survey. - All participants will receive a copy of the findings of the survey.