Learning Science
Research
For a Learning Science course at Northwestern, our final project involves conducting qualitative research on a cultural phenomenon by forming targeted research questions, designing research methods, and of course, collecting and organizing the results to form a conclusion in junction with course readings.
Final Project
With the option of creating a multi-modal form of presentation as opposed to a traditional paper, we chose to present our research findings by way of an interactive website.
Visit website >> here
Project Proposal
Our project looks at the online Facebook group “Subtle Asian Traits” which is dedicated to memes, jokes, and discussion revolved around the Asian experience in the West. The posts in the group cover a wide range of topics, a lot of which focuses on Asian culture experienced by children of immigrants. The group has now over 1 million members and has been featured in various major news outlets for the observation and insights into the Asian diaspora.
Preliminary Research Question
1. How does the group, as a large online community, create a space for cultural identification and appreciation, but at the same time contribute to exclusivity, division, and internalized racial and gender stereotypes?
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Exclusion in terms of non-Asian identity (discrimination against members who are full or partially White or African American, even if half-Asian), underrepresentation of smaller Asian subgroups (non-East Asian, e.g. South Asians).
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Stereotypes of international students (symbols of wealth and social-class), ABGs (sexualization of and reducing of identity to physical features)
2. How does the group demonstrate the negotiation of power in terms of the dominant culture or social perspective in the group? How do members from each of these different racial, gender, and cultural subgroups experience the group differently?
3. How does the usage of memes as the main medium of communication affect the cross-cultural and cross-language interactions within the group?
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Pictures/videos make it easier for those who don’t speak the same language to understand the goal of the post.
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Usage of non-English words such as Chinese or Korean characters may exclude certain audiences from participating in the joke or conversation.