Hello everyone! As some of you may already know from interacting with other fans on this website I am a massive Star Trek fan. Apart from joining this website as a fan to interact with other fans, I have seen most of the major series, TNG, DS9 and Voyager and most of the original series, including all the 11 films. I became a fan of Star Trek through one of my friends. The reason I suppose I love it so much when I reflect on it is because for me when I first watched it, it seemed like a whole new world with new ideas and possibilities about the future. I have always imagined what the future would be like hundreds, even thousands of years from now and watching Star Trek has made that imagining possible. It fired up my imagination as I am sure it has for all of you. In fact I enjoy it watching and immersing myself into the Star Trek world so much I am currently doing my third year undergraduate dissertation project in Sociology at my university on it. More specifically I am looking at how past academic scholars who have written about Star Trek have looked at gender, in terms of how the male and female characters are portrayed in the original series and to see how/if they have changed over the years from the original to The Next Generation through to Voyager. Another aspect of my project I am interested in discovering is what fans of the show think on the subject which is where I am hoping anyone reading this will come in. I am currently looking for the maximum of twenty participants to take part in my research, ten males and ten females so it is an equal sample and an age range of between 18-60.
You might be asking yourself right now what would the benefits be for myself in taking part in this research? The benefits would be apart from discussing your thoughts on the subject with other fans in an engaging and thought provoking way. You would gain a more in-depth understanding of the show from a gender perspective and you may find within yourself new thoughts and feelings in how you think about Star Trek and yourself as a fan. What the research process will involve is once I have gained your consent to take part is I shall put a series of questions up, four with a few sub questions, which are about my topic in a new thread on the same forum. You are then free to answer the questions and have a discussion with fellow participants in an engaging and mature manner. I myself will not be participating in the discussion, though I will check the thread every so often to keep updated. I am hoping to put up the questions by the beginning of January and leave them until at least the middle of February. Once the discussion is finished I shall collect the data you have provided in terms of your opinions and store them securely on a USB port on my computer. Rest assured no one but me will access to the data stored. I will use it to analyse and implement into my findings with the literature on gender and Star Trek academic scholars have written about. Throughout you may ask to look at my research findings in how I have presented your opinions in my research. I will try to present you in a objective and unbiased way so that my own thoughts/feelings do not impede in how I analysis the data collected. If you are concerned with how I have presented you in the research or you feel you may want to add, edit or for me to remove your contribution to the research you may do so. Throughout this process when I write up my findings I will anonymous your screen-names in the form of participant 1, participant 2 and participant 3 and so on. You are not obliged throughout the research to give me any of your personal details like where you live or your real names. The only thing I ask is that you state your gender (for my sample). Your privacy is very important to me and will be respected. At the end of the research the only other people who will see my research and hence, see the data collected (your opinions) are two academics, my supervisor for the project and an examiner.
Furthermore you can pull out of the research process at any-time without an explanation required. All I ask is that you email me to let me know you are pulling out, just so I am aware of it. If you have any concerns or queries or don't feel all your questions have been answered from this statement please feel free to contact me before you agree to take part in this research. I will not divulge to any other participants who email me what was exchanged in the emails to any other participant. I will also not reveal your email address to anyone outside of the research or any other participant. My email address is drawerscone@yahoo.com. I will check my emails on a regular basis at least twice a day even during the holidays and reply to any emails as quickly as possible. Thank you for taking the time to read.
All the best
metal gear 1.
(Please note I am looking for participants who are 18 years and over only)
You might be asking yourself right now what would the benefits be for myself in taking part in this research? The benefits would be apart from discussing your thoughts on the subject with other fans in an engaging and thought provoking way. You would gain a more in-depth understanding of the show from a gender perspective and you may find within yourself new thoughts and feelings in how you think about Star Trek and yourself as a fan. What the research process will involve is once I have gained your consent to take part is I shall put a series of questions up, four with a few sub questions, which are about my topic in a new thread on the same forum. You are then free to answer the questions and have a discussion with fellow participants in an engaging and mature manner. I myself will not be participating in the discussion, though I will check the thread every so often to keep updated. I am hoping to put up the questions by the beginning of January and leave them until at least the middle of February. Once the discussion is finished I shall collect the data you have provided in terms of your opinions and store them securely on a USB port on my computer. Rest assured no one but me will access to the data stored. I will use it to analyse and implement into my findings with the literature on gender and Star Trek academic scholars have written about. Throughout you may ask to look at my research findings in how I have presented your opinions in my research. I will try to present you in a objective and unbiased way so that my own thoughts/feelings do not impede in how I analysis the data collected. If you are concerned with how I have presented you in the research or you feel you may want to add, edit or for me to remove your contribution to the research you may do so. Throughout this process when I write up my findings I will anonymous your screen-names in the form of participant 1, participant 2 and participant 3 and so on. You are not obliged throughout the research to give me any of your personal details like where you live or your real names. The only thing I ask is that you state your gender (for my sample). Your privacy is very important to me and will be respected. At the end of the research the only other people who will see my research and hence, see the data collected (your opinions) are two academics, my supervisor for the project and an examiner.
Furthermore you can pull out of the research process at any-time without an explanation required. All I ask is that you email me to let me know you are pulling out, just so I am aware of it. If you have any concerns or queries or don't feel all your questions have been answered from this statement please feel free to contact me before you agree to take part in this research. I will not divulge to any other participants who email me what was exchanged in the emails to any other participant. I will also not reveal your email address to anyone outside of the research or any other participant. My email address is drawerscone@yahoo.com. I will check my emails on a regular basis at least twice a day even during the holidays and reply to any emails as quickly as possible. Thank you for taking the time to read.
All the best
metal gear 1.
(Please note I am looking for participants who are 18 years and over only)
