Smart Phones and Mobile Apps as a Tool for Public Health During COVID-19

DO NOT CARRY OUT THE RESEARCH. YOU CANNOT CARRY OUT RESEARCH WITHOUT ETHICAL CLEARANCE FROM THE UNIVERSITY. The goal of this is writing a research PROPOSAL.
This is a 2000-word submission in which you outline how you would go about answering a research question. You should provide a title for your research and then use these four subheadings, and answer:
AIMS AND BACKGROUND (~400 words)
What is the background to your area? What field are you researching? What previous work has been done in this area? What did such research find? What is the cutting edge of scholarship in your field? What are you aiming to do? What is your research question? What will your project discover? I suggest writing this as two paragraphs, the first being background, and the second being aims, which should be a logical extension of the background - you first tell us the current state of research in your field, and then you tell us what you propose to do.
SIGNIFICANCE AND INNOVATION (~400 words)
Why does this research matter? Why should anyone care? What will be the value of the findings? How and in what wayas wil your project be new? What pressing concerns will this answer? Will you be using a new methodology? Will you examining your domain in a new way? Will you be bringing new conceptual or theoretical material to bear? Why is your project not just a repeat of previous work? Why do your project now? Why is your project important? What will this tell us that we didn't previously know?
APPROACH AND METHODOOLGY (800 words)
How will you carry out your project? This splits into two parts, a) your conceptual or theoretical approach and b) your methodology. In the first case: how are you framing your work? What theories will help inform your method and help you understand your data? Why have you chosen these? Why are they appropriate? What tools do they give you for conducting this research project? What literature and what thinkers will you draw on? In the second case: what method(s) are you using? Why these methods? What do they offer you? How will you recruit participants (if relevant)? How will you narrow down the availability of online data (if relevant)? How will you secure informed consent (if relevant)? How long will your interviews be and what sorts of things will you ask (if relevant)? How will you distribute your survey and what sorts of questions will it ask (if relevant)? Etc etc. And: how will your chosen method answer your research question? Why are these methods the best possible choice for your research question?
ETHICS STATEMENT (~400 words)
How will you make sure your research is conducted in an ethical manner? What are the main potential ethical issues with your research project? How will you handle them? How will you prevent harm? Do you need to secure informed consent, and if so, why? Is your data public or private? What are the implications of this? What possible harms might arise? Can these be justified given the benefit of the project, or must they be avoided instead, and if so, how? What are the ethical implications of using data from interviews, survey, data analysis, etc? What materials will you provide participants (if relevant)?
Important: this module is about writing a research proposal. If you want to carry out your research - or another project - we suggest that you consider pursuing an Honours degree, which will give you a full year of time dedicated to carrying out an original piece of research with one of the Digital Cultures scholars listed below.
DO NOT CARRY OUT THE RESEARCH. YOU CANNOT CARRY OUT RESEARCH WITHOUT ETHICAL CLEARANCE FROM THE UNIVERSITY. The goal of this is writing a research PROPOSAL.
suggested topics:
Q1: What drives people’s online engagement in humanitarian activism? (BLM movement, #metoo movement. )Develop a framework and identify data sources to study people’s behaviours around helping others in need (including, but not limited to, crowdfunding). Your exploration may be site-specific (i.e., focussing on a humanitarian crisis) or platform-specific (Facebook, weibo, instagram).
Q2: What is an example of a ‘smart technology’ that has been introduced in a city and how does it contribute to the datafication of urban space? Is it offering public benefits or create new risks for urban citizens?
Q3: How have smart phones and mobile apps been used during COVID-19 as a tool for public health? What has been the public and media response to their use?
Q4: How are disparities of digital access and literacy experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic? Who are the groups affected and what is the impact of these disparities?
Q5: How has the experience of real estate marketing changed with the adoption of digital media (e.g. real estate portals, listings databases, videos, VR walkthroughs etc) for agents, buyers and sellers?)
Q6: How can we control online hate speech in the Asian region, when there are few explicit hate speech laws and some governments incite or condone political, race or religious hate if they know it will damage their political opponents? What actions could social media platforms take to better control digital hate? What would be useful steps for NGOs or civil society to take to mitigate this problem?
Q7: What is meant by ‘platform governance’, and why has there been growing interest worldwide in questions of platform governance?
Q8: What are the new forms of regulation of digital platforms being proposed in different countries? In what ways are they similar/different between nations?
Q9: To what extent are the problems of misinformation and ‘fake news’ reflective of a wider crisis of trust? Are platforms able to deal with such misinformation by removing it from their sites, or are there other issues at play?