Webcomics survey for my M.A.

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Poziom
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Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Poziom » Mon Sep 15, 2014 2:27 am

Hello,

I'm asking for your help to complete my M.A. in Sociology by filling a survey (it's only 29 questions with only two short open questions) about webcomics. Those who don't want to read why I'm conducting research on webcomics and want to fill the survey it's right here --> http://www.interankiety.pl/interankieta ... b86bcd4ced

I was a webcomic reader for almost 12 years and I was always interested in the history of webcomics and how people gather around them on forums or go to special events (like Comic-Cons) just to meet with each other and with their favourite authors. That is why when I had to choose my M.A. topic I choose without hesitation Webcomis. In my country (Poland) it's hard to get proper bibliography on this subject so it took time to get to the right books. This left me with almost no time to conduct a research. So please, take 10 minutes and help me complete my M.A.. Thanks for all your help!

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Krulle
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Krulle » Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:06 am

Done, but I don't really see the relevance of most of these questions to research.....

Good luck!
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Poziom
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Poziom » Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:46 am

Thanks for completing the survey!

Which questions to you think are irrelevant to the research?

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Krulle
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Krulle » Mon Sep 15, 2014 6:10 am

to "the" research depends on other factors, which I don't know.
It's your research, and therefore your questions.
you will have to defend their scientific relation and usefulness.....

But part of science is admitting that the result shows that other questions might have proven more useful, and that a follow-up on the research might be advisable.
;)

For research in general I find any conclusions drawn from some of the questions to be so general that I doubt that science would profit from it.
Can't have another look at the questions, though, as the site gives me someone with a cowboy hat (Chuck Norris?) shaking his head No-No....

Poziom
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Poziom » Mon Sep 15, 2014 6:34 am

I've changed the settings in the survey so you can take another look at it. I'm really interested which questions you have in mind.

The whole idea of this research is about few things:
- communities around webcomics- modern tribe - don't know if i translated it correctly. Definition created by Michel Maffesoli describing new form of communities formed via Internet)
- webcomic reader profile to comparison to normal comic reader from before Internet era
- Webcomic as a medium
- Strength of the Webcomic influance on reader - if webcomics afe free then is the reader willing to pay for products related to webcomic (if so then how much?) or go to special events to meet the author and other readers.

I think that I wrote down the main areas of research. As I'm at work right now and didn't have any decent sleep for past two weeks I could miss something out.

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Krulle
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Krulle » Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:00 am

Okay, now I remember the first thing I missed:
a separation of pure webcomics and syndicated comics also published online (e.g. Dilbert, KevinandKell, Garfield,... which are made for newspapers, but also published online)... "Webcomic" is maybe not defined sufficiently.

I, for example, have several Garfield articles, but Garfield is not a traditional webcomic, although I only read it online nowadays.
I use it as if it is a webcomic, but be stricter definition it's not.
So, I do own webcomic-related articles. But are they according to your definition webcomic related articles?
This relates also very much on question 2:
"2. Besides webcomics do you also read standard comics?*"
Standard comic like "Donald Duck", which are not online, or is "Garfield" a standard comic, which I'm reading online but does not count for your purposes?
How much (money) did I spend on them? - Again, depends on the definition of webcomic...

How much time do I spend on the internet?
A damn lot, because it's part of my job. But not the webcomics, as they are private. And there I do spend a considerable amount of time on the 'webs too, but it's neglegible compared to the working time. What do I count then? Do you want only private time, or my job-time too? (BTW: During job I do read comics, as breaks. Together with this forum and skimming two news sites).
Poziom wrote:- Strength of the Webcomic influance on reader - if webcomics afe free then is the reader willing to pay for products related to webcomic (if so then how much?) or go to special events to meet the author and other readers.
I do not spend money on webcomics drives/shops for the main reason, that instead of paying high fees for donating money via Paypal or similar, I donate via my bank account directly. As this is not possible in most cases, I donate to a similar goal here.
And the international order shipping from the other side of the Atlantic is ridiculously high when compared to the price of the article I am interested in. So I don't buy from the online webcomic shops.
(Plus I refuse to have paypal or any other purely online company from the USoA have my banking data. The NSA has it (likely - SWIFT and EU be thanks), but I don't want the US-companies with their lax personal data laws transfer any of this data from Europe to the USoA, which is against our laws here, while not transferring the data is against USoA judge orders (Microsoft case - they have to transfer data from Europe/Ireland to the US, in direct contradiction to the Irish/European laws, just because the USoA court judge decided that as an USoA-based company they have to give all data to the USoA authorities. Poor MS has to decide on which side of the Atlantic they will break the law.).)

For the rest, it will work out.
An if the conclusions are not clear:
Krulle wrote:But part of science is admitting that the result shows that other questions might have proven more useful, and that a follow-up on the research might be advisable.
Last edited by Krulle on Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Guus
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Guus » Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:02 am

I was filling in the questions, but I don't feel like telling some survey my monthly income, so no submission from me. Sorry.
I feel smart, but I'm pretty sure I'm an idiot.

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Krulle
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Krulle » Mon Sep 15, 2014 7:08 am

Guus wrote:I was filling in the questions, but I don't feel like telling some survey my monthly income, so no submission from me. Sorry.
it are broad brackets, and I am not sure whether my conversion rate EUR<->USDollar is correct. I might fall in a different bracket if calculated correctly.

My father always chose the physically lowest bracket, whether he was currently unemployed or not.
If anyone asked, always the physically lowest / last bracket.

With something like this, I do not see a real correlation of answers to income, but with services from ferries or airplanes, this correlation might make the difference in the results from a survey.

Poziom
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Poziom » Mon Sep 15, 2014 10:30 am

Guus wrote:I was filling in the questions, but I don't feel like telling some survey my monthly income, so no submission from me. Sorry.
The survey is anonymous and as Krulle mentioned the brackets are broad. Anyway thanks for taking you time to (almost) complete the survey.
Krulle wrote:Okay, now I remember the first thing I missed:
a separation of pure webcomics and syndicated comics also published online (e.g. Dilbert, KevinandKell, Garfield,... which are made for newspapers, but also published online)... "Webcomic" is maybe not defined sufficiently.

I, for example, have several Garfield articles, but Garfield is not a traditional webcomic, although I only read it online nowadays.
I use it as if it is a webcomic, but be stricter definition it's not.
So, I do own webcomic-related articles. But are they according to your definition webcomic related articles?
This relates also very much on question 2:
"2. Besides webcomics do you also read standard comics?*"
Standard comic like "Donald Duck", which are not online, or is "Garfield" a standard comic, which I'm reading online but does not count for your purposes?
How much (money) did I spend on them? - Again, depends on the definition of webcomic...
This above, is very good point. I can see how the term Webcomic is not sufficiently explained. Thanks. I hope you don't mind if I'll use this (your post) in my work? For the sake of how you wrote it:
Krulle wrote: But part of science is admitting that the result shows that other questions might have proven more useful, and that a follow-up on the research might be advisable.
;)

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Krulle
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Krulle » Mon Sep 15, 2014 11:32 am

I specifically included that, as it was part of my second study work, where I pursued the wrong questions.
I was able to narrow down the questions I should have asked and tried to answer, but had to leave that open, besides a first, cursory probing...
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ChroniclerC
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by ChroniclerC » Wed Sep 17, 2014 8:44 am

You might want to tweak your question about attending events to include an option for those who have wanted to go, but haven't or couldn't, instead of making it a binary yes-or-no answer.

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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Gryphonic » Wed Sep 17, 2014 9:31 pm

I agree with Krulle on clarifying this:
*My* internet time is almost purely recreational, but I know others use it a lot for work, or both at the same time.
This isn't at all important to the survey, but to Americans it looks a bit odd to put the $ after the numbers. I understood it fine, but we put it before the dollar amount.
Also, I might read syndicated comics if I had a newspaper subscription. I don't. When I see one lying around I'll read some, but I don't go out of my way to keep up on any particular strip. Then again, that might be a sign that I'm not as interested in the newspaper comics at all, though I blame that more on the changes in lineup that have happened since I was younger. The ones I cared about are hard to find now.

I had a hard time answering how much I valued each of the listed strengths in the webcomics I read, because I looked at the options and I could name at least one example for each where I had a favorite comic that was much better at that thing than the others. It's connected to the many genres of comics we could select above. I felt like I could mark 5 for each of them, though I don't ever expect, or even want, one single comic to do all of them well. I read [A] for the best-written plot, for beautiful art, [C] for humor, etc.

At best I could break down my usual choices into rough categories of "frequently updated clever or funny strips, usually without any overall plot or continuity," and "well-written, well-drawn stories that cover a wide range of topics." I like both, but it would be misleading to answer that question as though I was referring to one theoretical uber-comic. I finally went with the kind that I think about most between updates, which is naturally the story-heavy ones.
I don't know how you can put all that into the survey format, but it's some individual feedback to consider.

*Gets all the way to the end* Well, I could have saved myself the long response here. Derp. Do you want me to abbreviate this and copy it over to the survey? There's a few other points I'd make about webcomics as a medium. I will when I'm more awake. :roll:

ChroniclerC wrote:You might want to tweak your question about attending events to include an option for those who have wanted to go, but haven't or couldn't, instead of making it a binary yes-or-no answer.
Also true.
Image Joiiiiiin ussssssss.....

Poziom
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Poziom » Tue Nov 04, 2014 3:35 am

Thanks for all your comments. I couldn't answer for the last few but I puted them in my M.A. as self criticism of my work ;) It worked suprisingly well as the Profesors were very pleased with the whole work. I passed with the higest marks :) Thank you to all of you who took time and helped me by filling the survey and to those who gave me pretty good advices :) Below is the link to the results if anyone is interested:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4nm4g8ljd6zw6 ... s.pdf?dl=0

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Krulle
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Re: Webcomics survey for my M.A.

Post by Krulle » Tue Nov 04, 2014 5:03 am

Thanks for giving us the results.
I was hoping for a copy of your thesis, but then your university might not want that being published (some do, some don't, some don't care and leave it up to you and your prof)

Congrats for the good grade, though!
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