Superstitions in MMORPG: An outline

I'm thinking about a possible outline for my Superstitions in MMORPG paper for Dr M's class.

Introduction
I will possibly start with a brief history to show that humankind has held numerous epistemological and ontological assumptions since the dawn of time. I'll talk about the forces that shape belief. I would divide this brief history into "Long view" and "Short view". Long view will cover everything before to the advent of positivism philosophy and modern science. Short view will concern with post-positivism and social sciences. I feel this brief history is important and will help me situate nicely my introduction to social scientific inquiry in MMORPG.

Theoretical framework
So I'll talk next about MMORPG and social science research in MMORPG. Here I will argue why epistemology has to be seen from social constructivism lens. I will take symbolic interactionism and Lave and Wenger's Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP)as theoretical perspectives. I will highlight research from the literature that make use of these perspectives.

Now I am not sure whether to bring in here cognitive constructivism as the other epistemology lens to understand social phenomenon in MMORPG. Or should I complete my analysis using social constructivism first before moving on to cognitive constructivism. I'll ask Dr M what he thinks. Anyway, if I decide to bring in cognitive constructivism here, I will talk about cognitive psychology (theoretical perspective), phenomenology (methodology) and discourse analysis (method) which go well with cognitive constructivism as epistemology.

Literature review
So far I only know Nick Yee has written or talked about superstitions in MMORPG. While the focus is on MMORPG, I will also look at this phenomenon broadly and beyond MMORPG and discuss how it is studied by other researchers. I may also adopt, if deem appropriate, coding found in the literature for my discourse analysis.

Data
The artifact I will analysis is a short interview data. I will describe the context of the interview (including the background of the player while not compromising his identity) and how the phenomenon is situated in the larger MMORPG environment and the player real-life.

Data Analysis
I will start analysis the data from social constructivism lens. I will add input from other interview I have with the research subject and from my own observation while playing the game. Then I analysis the data from cognitive constructivism lens through discourse analysis. I will look at cognition as mental process that can be separated from socio-cultural influences.

Results
I will compare and contrast results from both analysis.

Conclusion
MMORPG is a social world and social scientific inquiry in MMORPG needs to view social constructivism as THE EPISTEMOLOGY in order to fully understand how social phenomenon is impact by complex social relations, cultural and practices, historical and political workings found no only in MMORPG, but also around it (the practices players engage in outside the game world like fanfiction, cheats, etc). And finally, real world socio-cultural influences where game playing is situated.

This ought to do it. I got a quarter of the paper done already and will continue working on it this weekend.