Alongside data collection, I also continued to read through Weeks 3 and 4. This week, my reading took a different direction -- more so towards pure IR between China and the US (to better understand current diplomacy, events, and the history between the two countries for context). I read a particularly fascinating book in Rush Doshi's The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order, which described China's ultimate ambition for control of the world order as a project through coercive capability, consensual inducements, and legitimacy. China's investments into and strict censorship of the film industry make lots of sense through this lens. This manifestation of soft power however has not been limited to China -- the US had also very much so been guilty of using it as well (for example, currently through the State Department, and historically, during WWII).

            At any rate, all the additional reading was exceptionally informative. I also enjoyed spending this week thinking of how to best visualize and present my data as well as going back retroactively and working to document all the steps I'd taken to collect the data. Next week, I look forward to closing up some additional loose ends, drafting a working outline for my paper, and starting to put everything together for presentation.