Blog Post 10: Research Topic Difficulties – Ahmad Woods

The biggest issue I had with my research topic proposal was aiming it into the scope of this class. I feel like the best papers you can write are the ones you are actually passionate about and one thing I’m really into anime and other aspects of Japanese culture.  From the beginning I set out to write an academic paper on otaku culture once I was aware of the assignment.  The trick was figuring out how it fit into the class topics and at that point I had no idea how it could be done.  I even put aside a backup topic that had a higher chance of working in this class but one I was less enthusiastic to write about in the case this proposal fell through.  The discussion we had during class and the articles we read on social media however gave me some ideas.  A good portion of the discussion was focused on the negatives of social media but I wanted to make the case for the positives of it.  Then my topic idea hit me in the face; what if I can write about the positive effects social media has on niche cultures such as otaku cultures?  Of course I needed to flesh it out a bit more and the professor really helped me arrive at a proper sounding topic.