Research Project Topic Ideas

Picking a topic has always been hard for me, probably because I am very indecisive person. So I found the past topic section on the e-rhetoric site very help. After noting some areas I might enjoy, I picked a couple topics I was interested in exploring:

1) Gaming issues: women and gaming. It would be so interesting to research how the number of women playing video games relates to the number of men and if certain genres of game are played more by a specific gender. Obviously, many games aim at a specific age group of males, with their "largely endowed" female characters and prevalent violence. However, does this prove men would be more likely gamers than women? Or is the "stereotypical gamer" not necesssarily a man? These types of questions I would like to address in my project if I chose this topic. This article I found is fitting for the type of research I would like to do. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3615278.stm.

2) Media issues: digital photography and digital art. I would actually love to learn how to do this type of art (graphics and such), so researching this topic would be interesting as well. Several issues I could explore stem from this topic, such as the (much too broad) question "what is art?". How does digital art distinguish itself from other forms of art and is it any less than the others because of its use of computers? It would also be interesting to explore how digital photography affects the media and advestising. If ads can digitally enhance their products, is the marketing world further exploiting consumers? So overall, aside from learning about how digital art is made, I could also research the issues surrounding this medium. Here's an website that reviews one digital artist's work. It's pretty neat. http://www.sherryart.com/newstory/dotan/dotanreview.html