28 Nov 2013

Participant observation and activity theory - Call for applications: PhD at CityU

The School of Creative Media of the City University of Hong Kong is now accepting admissions for the Doctor of Philosophy in Creative Media. Deadline for all uploaded documents December 4th 2013. Applicants are strongly advised to submit draft applications as soon as possible so they can get feedback before final submission.

School of Creative Media (SCM), founded in 1998, is Hong Kong's first institution committed to research across art, computing, technology, animation, music, sociology, and engineering.

Candidates will have advanced knowledge of media art, art history, arts institutions, and curating, or relevant fields of inquiry. They are required to hold a minimum four-year Bachelor's degree with Honours, and a research Master's qualification in a relevant discipline. Candidates should apply with a research project relevant to SCM's research foci and PhD supervisory expertise. Given the very nature of creative media and media art, interdisciplinary projects as well as those with an element of practice-based research are encouraged. Numerous scholarships covering the cost of PhD studies are available at the governmental level as well as at the level of the City University of Hong Kong and are awarded after assessment of the academic merits and artistic potential of the candidates.

Please visit the link below to see more about the wide range of subjects covered by our full team of PhD supervisors. This announcement highlights the research expertise of one of SCM's PhD supervisors.

Dr. Yong Ming Kow

Yong Ming Kow is interested in activities, practices, and social-technical structures of online communities developing digital media artifacts. He has previously examined such online communities in the contexts of computer game modding and electronic sports movements in the U.S. and China. Due to differing Internet environments in each case, their online communities developed different cooperative practices and contradictions as part of their social ecologies. He has published papers discussing peer production and learning in these online communities.

His theoretical orientation is centered around Activity Theory and some other pragmatic paradigms that derive theories from concrete observations. Kow's research methods are centered around participant observation, but supplemented with quantitative methods. In terms of research contexts, he is interested in research work examining use of peer-supported emerging technologies, e.g., digital currency, with high potential of social-economic impact to both civic institutions and companies.

Area of supervision

Study of online communities
Social sciences approaches to video game study
Participant observation
Activity theory

For details on other research fields: www.scm.cityu.edu.hk/programmes/postgraduate/research-degrees/