Ethnography Proposal

1) What type of group of people are you planning to study?
Our group is planning to study the people that frequent the movie theater, in particular, the movie theater lobby. We will be observing groups of people and their actions in the lobby surrounding at two different movie theaters located in College station and Bryan. We plan to study the different cliques and groups that pass through the environment. We will study the people that frequent the area at specific times and the types of people as well. The pre-movie and post-movie habits will be observed and well documented as well.


2) What do you want to or expect to learn from these people?
We want to learn the types of interactions and activities that take place in the movie theater lobby. We expect to see a significant difference in the people in both lobbies. We suspect that the College Station movie theater will have more college students opposed to the Bryan theater which we expect to find a variety of high school kids, families, older folk, and locals. We expect to find more interactions in the Bryan theater because of the variety of people as well as the variety of foods and the presence of a small cafe. We hope to see what uses the lobby have besides purchase of snacks. 


3) How you are going to study them two hours per week?
We will go at different hours of the day on different days of the week to explore the environment. We will also immerse ourselves by observing in the lobby, seeing a movie, and study the crowd in the same particular movie after it is over. This will help us experience the full movie feel opposed to just observing in the lobby. Do the particular movies watched affect the interactions in the lobby afterword. We will also observe the groups of people that form outside the theater.



4) What quantitative data would you record?
We will collect the general number of people in the lobby as well as general age range, sex, group size, time of day, date, length of time spent in lobby, number of people buying snacks/eating, estimated amount of money spent.


5) What qualitative data would you record?
We would record the type of interaction we observe such as waiting quietly or talking in a group. If they seem lost in getting to a particular theater. Types of activities being observed. Uses people have for surrounding. If it seems the people enjoyed the movie they watched by their actions after the movie. Differences in interaction of waiting in lobby vs. waiting in line.

6) How are you planning to interact with the people you are observing?
initially we will take a sit-back-and-watch approach but overtime we may ask people for their opinion of movie, theater, differences between the theaters. We may also ask whether the services provided (XD,  3D, seating) influence their choice or is it location or a combination.

Paper Reading # 7 - Grassroots Heritage in the Crisis Context: A Social Media Probes Approach to Studying Heritage in a Participatory Age

Reference
Sophia B. Lu
April 10-15, 2010, Atlanta, GA

Summary

This paper talks about how social media technologies have taken a bigger role in understanding cultural heritage. Historic events produce memories that are valuable to remember and share with others in future generations. As technology evolves, people are finding new ways to capture and share memories about everyday life.  The author points out that she focuses on social and cultural significance. Lu uses a HCI design she calls "social media probes" to improve engagement of participants.
Discussion
This paper is probably the most boring paper I have read in this class. Throughout the paper, the author Lu seems to go back to the same points. Lu points out that the way people are capturing memories through social media affects the heritage, and she is proposing ways to improve this. As I was reading this I kept telling myself, "Oh yeah!, Facebook is already capable of that". Then I thought well maybe her research was before Facebook's popularity exploded but nope her research was amidst Facebook's growing popularity.

Book Reading #16 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 4: In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing

Summary
This chapter describes the works by psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané. They were trying to study groups of people in crisis and how individuals acted. Their study become of interest when in 1964 a woman by the name of Catherine Genovese was stabbed to death in Queens, New York. Her murder was of particular interest because it became famous as it was published in the NY Times. As the murderer was attacking Genovese, she was screaming for help and even though she was heard by approximately 38 neighbors, nobody came to her rescue. Darley's and Latané's interest started from trying to figure out the reason why nobody had come to the rescue. They set up an experiment to study what they called diffusion of responsibility.
Discussion
What I am about to write might sound absurd, but it is really the truth. I was reading this chapter in McDonald's on Wednesday before going to class. I had finished reading part of the chapter where the author talks about helping behavior in small and large crowds. As I was about to walk in to Zachry, I stepped on an icy stair and I feel to the ground and hurt my knee. As I was starting to get up, I heard someone offer me some help and I replied "Thanks, I am sure I am fine". As I answered to the individual who tried to help me, I immediately thought of the findings revealed in the chapter, it was true!!!! There was only me and the person who tried to help in this situation. Had I fallen in a place with more people, maybe nobody would have tried to help me.

Book Reading #13 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places

Summary
This chapter is about a psychiatrist called David Rosenham and his experiment to determine if psychiatrists could identify the "sane" and the "insane". He was able to recruit eight people including himself to lie and get admitted into a mental institution. Once in the mental institution they were told to act normal. The "disorder" they faked was to say that they were hearing a voice, specifically a thud. A thud was not an identified symptom for hallucination, so all eight volunteers were admitted to various mental institutions all around the nation. This chapter describes some of Rosenham's findings and how other psychiatrists devoted papers to criticize his findings.
Discussion
I have got to admit that when I read the title of this chapter I did not think it made any sense, but I was mistaken and it cannot fit the chapter any better. I found interesting how Rosenham was able to find volunteers to fake their way in to mental institutions. Furthermore, it was even more interesting that he himself was part of his experiment. I think that his findings about the admission tests to mental institutions not being very effective raises a red flag. There may be able thousands of cases where people that are "sane" taken for granted and taken to mental institutions without even needing it.

Week 1 Ethnography Results

My team is composed of Stephen Morrow, Alex Miguel Cardenas, and myself. Our idea for an ethnography is  Stephen Morrow's 3rd idea.

"Study of how campus common areas (The commons, the library, zachary lobby, etc.) are mostly used by students. Study? Sleep? Group Meetings? This would study students at Texas A&M that spend most of their free-time / time in between classes, on campus. From this I hope to learn how our campus common areas are being utilized, and if there are any deficiencies in them. To study them, I would visit different common areas around campus at different times of the day and examine what people are doing. Are they on a laptop, a cell phone, reading a book, sleeping, etc. Quantitative data would include the different activities of people in the common areas. Qualitative would be how many people are performing a certain action, and the time of day they are performing it. The interaction of this study would be minimal. I would simply walk around common areas observing people's action. If needed, I could ask a few questions about what they are doing and what they normally do in the common area. In the end, I hope this ethnographic research would allow common areas designed in the future to better meet the needs of the students. For example, do they need more couches for sleeping, tables for eating, or group areas for studying?"

The first observations made can be found here.

Book Reading #12 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 4: The Samoan Household

Summary
In this chapter, Mead describes the household hierarchy in the Samoan family. She goes on to describe that relatives are always expected to help out each other. Mead describes how there is a highest hierarchical title for both men and women. One of the well-defined titles is the matai.

Discussion
One would think that given a small civilization there would be a small amount of rules. However Mead's description of the Samoan culture, this is clearly not always true. There are many complexities in this culture. She does not clearly define relationships between families.

Paper Reading # 6 - Critical Point, A Composition for Cello and Computer

Reference
Roger Dannenberg, Tomas Laurenzo
CHI 2010 April 10-15, 2010, Atlanta, Georgia.

Summary
This paper describes a software called Critical Point which is used for real-time music compositions, in this case cello composers. This work intends to provide cello performers with sound extensions. This program allows the cello performer to express control of his sound textures. There are algorithms that allow delays and pitch shifts. In addition to Critical Point, the performance also includes animations and videos.

Discussion
Even though I have an appreciation for music, I have never practiced playing an instrument. This paper is interesting because I was able to learn a few things that non-musicians take for granted when listening to music. Some of these key issues include the limitation of sounds each instrument can create, the quality of the sound and its textures.