Airsoft community social research

[Airsoft-Ed]

Some of you may be aware that I'm a Sociology student at Sheffield Hallam Uni, at the moment I'm in my second year.

But in my third year, my only assessment will to be carry out a social research project on a topic of my choice and then write a dissertation on it.

Naturally I'm going to try my damnedest to base my research and dissertation on airsoft and the airsofting community, so I thought I'd come to you guys for research ideas.

What do you think I ought to look into? Obviously it has to be social research, I can't do something based on the physics of BBs in flight, unfortunately.

I'm struggling to think of any concrete ideas, so just fling suggestions at me and hopefully I'll be able to piece something together out of some of the suggestions.

I thought it'd be good to use some of you guys as research subjects if you wouldn't mind? Obviously it won't be until around September next year, but I'm just testing the waters.

Let me know what you think, you ideas, opinions etc.

 

[TPI]

How about something along the line's of the connection\mentality of those that are Force's and those that are applying or are to young to apply?

I alway's feel their's a connection their but I dunno if it's just me and the way my brain connect's thing's =d.

 

[Alexb111]

Got a few ideas that may be worth editing to sound better but may help:

Team vs solo communication and how well team dynamics work within a military based sport (No commanding officer etc - radio, hand signals etc).

Ability of communication through accepted concepts and general knowledge (from films, games etc)

You could always do comparisons between playstyles and game modes, sniper teams of 2/3 communication vs a large strike force all with AEG's. Or compare effectiveness of a command structure vs free-form radio communication.

Or if anything changes between friends before and after they've shot hundreds of tiny plastic balls at each other.

 

[TheFull9]

I don't know the first tiny thing about sociology or any of that type of science to be honest. Would it be possible to get an explanation of the kind of topics you'd potentially be considering? Only to me, 'social' covers a very wide range of possibilities, is it just about the ways in which people interact with each other?

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

Well the subject is essentially a combination of history and politics and looks at how humanity has structured itself over the last 5000 or so years, there are a few fundamental theorists that look at how the different things people experience as individuals can effect how people act as a whole, as a society.

In a nutshell, the subject is the study of societies.

One big theorist is Karl Marx, who most people will undoubtably have heard of. His theory is that the ruling classes have always taken advantage of the lower classes in order to simultaneously keep the rich in money and the poor out of money. The rich have used religion, rigged the education system and blocked political and scientific knowledge from the poor to keep them in their place through various stages in history etc etc.

There are theories about what religion is, Emile Durkheim for example has the idea that religion is merely a collective experience, when people come together and share common values and feeling, they get on together because of it. That feeling is religion, in his eye. So from his perspective, one could argue that religion is society and vice versa. Without one, the other could not exist. That's not to say that without Christianity, our society would not exist, because religion can be perceived in many forms, even Apple products have a cult following of weird people that buy everything that could be considered a religion...

But those concepts are just a small part of it, the subject can pretty much cover absolutely any type of human interaction, whether it be on a low key, personal level, or a massive national scale.

I just wanted to give you a rough idea of the more basic subject content, what I've said above doesn't necessarily have anything at all to do with what I'll be researching. I'm literally just scouting for ideas. Alex's suggestion is intriguing. I could look into whether people think someone could become as efficient at playing airsoft via gaming and films, using them as training tools, compared to how effective an ex or current military serviceman could be at the same game.

Airsoft is neither real combat, or virtual combat, so people approaching from either end of the spectrum will have to adapt what they know to suit the game, so there might be a trade off in there somewhere. Perhaps a Battlefield or Arma2 veteran player, could be as good an airsofter, as an ex SAS trooper.

I think it's interesting. I'm not sure how I'd go about researching it yet, or if it'd be allowed, but it's a start, I love the idea.

Keep the suggestions coming guys. Try to pretend Alex's suggestion doesn't exist, I'd rather not revolve everything around the first idea.

 

[SooGoo]

How about the service or ex-service personnel who take part in airsoft as a way of coping with their PTSD i have seen

several guy's over the years and although to begin with they were loathe to talk about it too much eventually getting to

know them a bit more i could see how they were using airsoft to give them something not actually on the battlefield but

gave them something to put their minds too.

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

I could work that into it somehow.

The issue with this idea is that I'm going to struggle gaining access to service personnel to interview them, and if they're ex forces, it'll be hard to know if they're for real or not, without risking insulting them massively... You see the dilemma? I'd rather keep it strictly airsoft related.

My original idea was to try and raise the public's opinion of the hobby. Obviously there are a lot of stereotypical views flying around with regard to people who play with guns at the weekend. It's a bit of a stigma. So I'd like to try and find out precisely why people have that opinion and see if I could identify a way for us to come across better to the public without making any changes to the game.

I could ask people what airsofting means to them, see what sort of answers people come out with, then compare it to how non-airsofters respond when asked what they think airsofting means to its players.

I'd need to get some research aims/objectives though and try and distinguish what the point of carrying out the research would be, how could it be used?

 

[iAcorn]

You could try to incorporate the opinions of normal societies that have no idea what airsoft is, or those that think negatively of it because of its use of RIFs. You know the kind. People who dont see it as a hobby and more as terrorist training. Not really sure because this really isnt my area.

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

All good ideas.

Basically, if you were to have a conversation about Airsofting with someone who had/hadn't done it, what sort of things would you be interested to get answers for?

Interesting questions could be a good starting point.

 

[Richard65]

I believe that UKAPU were having discussions with sport England to raise the sporting profile of airsoft so might be worth seeing what is happening with that.

Maybe also look at why parents allow their kids to play (especially if they are not into it themselves) - much better for them to be out running around in the fresh air than sitting in front of the Xbox/ps3 playing battlefield etc. They also get to learn that even a small bb can hurt!

Found a couple of articles on the web:-

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/children-banned-from-shooting-events-in-2012-ticket-giveaway-6435847.html

http://www.luton-dunstable.co.uk/News/Luton-News/Licence-plan-upsets-the-anti-gun-lobby.htm

What goes through someone's brain to suggest that children should not be allowed to watch shooting as an olympic sport?

 

[Deva]

Does anyone outside of airsoft think the VCRA is good? Do they feel safer without it? Do they think it's right that airsoft has this restriction yet other weapons don't?

Not sure if this is what you're after, but are interesting questions imo. If the general consensus is that it's stupid..

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

All good suggestions. I'll take a look at the articles when I've got a spare minute Richard, thanks for digging them out.

UKAPU contacted me a while back about being their student representative, not heard anything on it for a while though, might have to chase them up on it, could offer me some useful contacts and get my research published. That'd give me a bit more motivation to be proactive about it lol.

 

[geoffreym]

how about the effectiveness of using airsofting as anger-management, or teaching better morals (honesty, discipline etc) and then maybe cross-analysing it with current anger-management techniques (e.g. going out clubbing)

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

I'd have to look into anger management programs to try and get an idea of what I'd be comparing against, but it's a notable suggestion, cheers Geoff.

 

[Gecko]

You could look at public opinion to firearms in life (sport and lifestyle) and media (film and video games) spanning different socio economic groups and generations.

 

[Airsoft-Ed]

Yes I could, that's a great idea, favourite so far.

 

[SpecialForce]

Hi mate, what would interest me are a number of things like how people get into airsofting(route via gaming, interest in weapons etc),what could bring a person whos got nothing to do with it to start getting into it, where they are located(uk), which social backgrounds and which ethnic groups are the majority and why.

 

["Banshee"]

You could do it on how a team communicates in different ways, like with hand signals/gestures and talking/shouting, because communcation in a team means a fully functional fighting force which, in essence, is vital for a victiory.

On the other hand you could do it on weapon versitility, where you could research into what are the most popular platforms to use eg. M4/AK. this would show you what players prefer to use and why it makes it (for them) such a great weapon of choice and what roles those weapons may play in a game.eg. support or a sniper rifle.

 

[ScoobySnacks]

I guess it's all about finding the right balance, between something that is wide enough to provide you good meat for a dissertation, and something that's so broad brush that you'd need several doctoral theses to treat it.

The interaction between the general public and firearms is a hugely important, and interesting area. Unfortunately any kind of treatment of it is unlikely to be covered in any depth in a dissertation length project. If you could bring it down to one part of the problem, for example (a pet hate of mine) media manipulation of public opinion to an anti-gun agenda (obviously you would word the title somewhat more neutrally) or perhaps comparing the opinions of the younger generation to the older generation with respect to firearms use.

Of course, if you really fancy a challenge, you could see if there is any data regarding the correlation of people convicted of firearms crime and those involved in airsoft, as a way of assessing if some training in the handling of firearms reduces the risk of offending with firearms. Perhaps not specifically the area you are looking at, but a hugely interesting, and important question for anyone involved in any sport involving guns!