Theme 4: Quantitative research [post 1]

1. Which are the benefits and limitation of using quantitative methods?

The benefits are that you can get a lot of data or information and in that way have a more solid background for your research. You can make analysis based on your data and so make discussions that can lead to answers. The limitation is that if you, for example, make a survey of some kind you will never be a hundred percent sure that a person is answering the questions truthfully. People have a way to be influenced by what they hear and see and so you must be careful when making questions etc. because you do not want to influence peoples answers.

2. Which are the benefits and limitation of using qualitative methods?

The benefits are that the quality is mostly good. You can make sure that what you get is for the most part the correct answer. The downside is that you

cannot get as much data as in a quantitative method because you focus on smaller samples than that of quantitative methods. In qualitative method you are more focused on the details and usually you try to understand the human aspect of the research.

Research Paper: Drouin.M, Vogel.K.N, Surbey.A, Stills.J.R, Let’s talk about sexting, baby: Computer-mediated sexual behaviors among young adults

1. Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? What are the benefits and limitations of using there methods?

In this research they used Surveys to get the information needed to answer their questions. This method is often used when you have a big group of people that you want to study without influencing their answers in any way. Therefor it is beneficial because you can get a huge number of data from the participants. The limitation is that even though it is a safer way to study people without influencing their answers, you can still influence them without you knowing it. For example, when you ask your questions you can indirectly influence what their going to answer and therefor it is important that you think your questions trough and form them in a way that makes sure you do not influence the answers. 

2. What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?

I did not learn much, because I have read a lot of papers with this kind of method. Had they had another method in this researched I might have gotten other information on it. But since they did not have another more rarely used method I did not feel I learned more than I already learned trough other papers. 

3. Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?

As any study that uses Survey as a method it is questionable if the people answering the questions answered truthfully. Sex is a very private matter and people might have exaggerated there answers just because the truth feels less true. These authors are very aware of their problems in this study which I see as a good thing. Though they say they where trying to ask more detailed question I had the feeling they could have been even more detailed. Also, another thing they could have done was to observe people sexting. Now I do not mean they should hover over people while sexting. I mean that they could have made profiles themselves or asked their participants to make profiles online and try to engage in a sexual relationship with someone and then write a dairy of their experience. This way you could see firsthand if people did what people in the survey said they did and get more ground for the research.

References: 

Drouin.M, Vogel.K.N, Surbey.A, Stills.J.R, Let’s talk about sexting, baby: Computer-mediated sexual behaviours among young adults. (2013) Indiana University-Purdue, University Fort Wayne, United States. Journal: Computers in Human Behaviour 29.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321200372X 

Swedens National Encyclopedia 2013-28-11: http://www.ne.se 

Theme 3: Reflection [post 2]

For this week we talked a lot more about theory and what theory is. We also looked into what different research papers each of us choose. It was interesting to see that not everyone had chosen the same journal(though some did) and it will help to know there are more journals out there with more interesting topics than that of the journal I selected. But I felt i learned more about other topics than of those I had searched on and I definitely started to understand that even though a title may sound very interesting it may not be at all what you thought it would be about.

During this week seminar it was very clear that a lot of us had different opinions on what theory is and how you should explain it to someone who does not have the same understanding as us. A lot of us argued about what makes something a theory. Some thought that when professionals have accepted the theory it is a theory. While others thought that it doesn’t necessarily apply to all kinds of research areas. I think that a lot of the opinions people have was good and interesting, though you cannot say who is right or wrong because no one really knows exactly what should be defined as a theory.

Then there was a lot of interesting articles, some had similarities and some where out of the box. Some had chosen an article not because of the impact factor on it but because it interested them, and even though they might not have always been so clear to the media technology subject it was something people where enthusiastic about. I felt like a learned a lot this week, especially when it comes to how to search for journals and papers, because a lot of people had a hard time doing it and I feel like we all could benefit from it and get tips on what to do for next weeks assignment. I know now that there are more journals to search from and more topics that actually interests me.

Theme 3: Research and theory [post 1]

Journal: Media Culture & Society, issue: January 2012; 34(1), Impact 

factor: 1.092

The title of the journal says “Media Culture & Society” and the title itself 

almost explain what the journal is about. This issue of the journal contains 

different articles that has different standpoint in media. But it also has a very 

strong standpoint in different culture and society and it talks about how media

in different ways has affected culture and our human behaviour. There was 

one article (research paper) that I felt was the most interesting to me, and I 

will talk about it more and analyze its theories. But this journal is not only for 

the authors it is for all and has different forums where you can discuss what 

authors have written and how they felt about it. They also provide major peer-

reviewed articles so they are of a high quality.

Article(research paper): The institutionalization of YouTube: From user-

generated content to professionally generated content - Kim.J (2012),

USA Collage of Saint Rose. 

As the title of the Article says it’s about YouTube and how the big companies 

like Warner changed the way it worked. This article had a lot of historical 

facts about YouTube that was interesting to know. Things that made you 

understand how much YouTube have helped the online streaming business 

as well as the online video broadcasting business. But apart from that there 

where some things I did not really feel was right. Some of the sentences and 

part of this Article felt unfinished, like there was something missing. I thought 

that the focus was more on statistic and revenues than the actual reason for 

YouTube’s changes. The author could have mention more technological 

reasons for YouTube’s changes and not only what the big media companies 

“made” them do. But over all it followed the topic well and I could see how 

you could make more articles from this article.

Briefly explain to a first year student what theory is, and what theory is 

not.

A theory is a confirmed idea, or as some say is an idea that is accepted in the 

research area in which the theory is presented. But there has been many 

discussions on theory and that a lot of people use hypothesis when they 

should use the word theory.  In the paper “Nature of theory” the authors have 

divided theories into different types that I think is useful. There are a total of 

five theory type and I will try to explain theory more by listing these five types 

and explain them briefly.

Theory for Analysis: What is it? Analyzes what is and does not explain 

causality or try to predict generalization.

Theory for Explanation: What is, how, why when and where? Tries to explain 

but does not try to predict anything in detail.

Theory for Prediction: What is and what will be. This is what “Explanation” is 

not, it tries to predict with precision but doesn’t necessarily have to explain it.

Theory for Explanation and Prediction(EP): Is almost a combination of the 

second and third types. Some say it should not be combined but these

authors decided to use it because of their papers focus.

Theory for Design and action: How to do something. Gives detail explanation 

on how to construct a specific thing or artefact.

Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected

paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or

theories be characterised as?

I cannot say that the paper I chose had a specific theory but if I would but a 

theory type on it, it would probably be Theory for Analysis. As explained 

above the text try to tell us about YouTube’s history and tries to analyze the 

changes that has happened and why it has happened.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or

theories?

The benefits are that you can control it and not be confused on what you are 

supposed to write. It will almost be a guideline for you to follow and even if 

your theory is not clear to begin with it will be in the end if you have selected

one to use. The limitations, as with almost everything, is that it is hard to

change theory when you’ve started to use on and if changed it could

complicated what you have already done and what you will do.

References:

Kim.J, The institutionalization of YouTube: From user-

generated content to professionally generated content (2012),

USA Collage of Saint Rose.

Journal: Media Culture & Society, issue: January 2012; 34(1), Impact 

factor: 1.092

Gregor.S, The nature of theory (2006) AUSTRALIA, The Australian national 

University

Theme 2: Reflection [post 2]

After todays seminar I had more to think about than last week. Today we talked not so much about the text itself but about what the authors presenter and their ideas and if they could be implemented in todays society. Is “culture industry” as described by the authors the same today as it was 50 years ago. Most of us agreed that it was and that mass media has grown larger and now have a bigger audience. 

We talked about censorship and how today we can access a lot of information anywhere we want to with little censorship(not in all countries but some). We discussed how some censorship not always is a bad thing and that for example, censoring child pornography is a good thing whiles censoring information(like Google in china) might not be a good thing. So who should decide what things should be censored? This question was hard to answered and there was a long discussion about it and no one seemed to have an answer to it.

We continued to discuss media, censorship and commercials. How do commercials look like today compared to 50 years ago? We talked about how commercials are more easily controlled today and focused towards a specific target of users(consumers). We also talked about how commercials, whether on TV or on papers, is more extreme today than before. It’s like they want us to react like this: “wow this product can’t work that good, but let’s try it to prove a point”. It’s almost like they want us to disbelief the commercials so that we buy the product to try it out, which in the end may not make us buy more of it, but at least the company had made a profit of our reaction.

But what interested me the most about this seminar was the last discussion we had. It was about how the authors of the text we read never discussed which media devices we used but more concepts. And here we started to discuss how different people use media devices differently. I for example do not watch TV for the programs but use it as background noise and instead what series on Netflix etc. While another guy used the TV for things he wanted to watch and used his computer as background noise with music etc. And I thought it was interesting to see other peoples choice of using media devices and how they differ from my own.

Theme 2: Critical media studies [post 1]

What is Enlightenment?

According to the authors, Enlightenment is in the sense of though that has

tried to make human beings not afraid of fear so that they can, as the authors

express, “install themselves as masters”. It also wants to make people

understand the untrue things about myth and make fantasy into knowledge. If

I understood it correctly we should not believe in myths and mythical things

because they are in fact untrue.

What is the meaning and function of “myth” in Adorno and

Horkheimer’s argument? 

Myth is here to make us believe in things that are not true. And we do this to

protect ourselves because we are sometimes afraid of ourselves and our

actions. And by believing in myth we put our consequences on our actions on

someone or something else than ourselves.  Enlightenment is trying to “get

rid of” myth, to make us understand that it is untrue.

What are the “old” and “new” media that are discussed in the Dialectic 

of Enlightenment?

Old and new media can almost be explained as convergence of media. That

the development of different media have made people use it differently. For

example, before you had conversations with, let say one person, but now you

can connect with more people trough internet the TV etc. reaching out not to

only one but hundreds.

What is meant by “culture industry”?

Culture industry can be thought of as the movie, radio industry etc. Everything 

that has something to do with what you today consume in your culture. 

Movies for example have a way of showing you a world where the hero 

makes something extraordinary, and when you walk out from the movie 

theater you probably have a feeling like, ‘it would be so cool to be that guy 

and those things’. And that will make you, let’s say for example buy a gun so 

you can try to see how it feels to fire one, so that you can connect with the 

movie even more. That makes us consume more because someone is 

“telling” us to do so.

What is the relationship between mass media and “mass deception”,

according to Adorno and Horkheimer?

For example in magazines like Elle, cosmopolitan etc, you can always see on 

the front cover a beautiful model or celebrity, but is that the true picture of

how they look? You can today se before and after images on models or

celebrities and it is amazing how much changes they make in Photoshop.

This depicts a very untrue picture of how models really look, because people

look up to celebrities and want to look like them. But since the picture of them 

are very “untrue” it will in fact be impossible to try to look like them. This is the 

kind of mass deception the authors talk about and it does not only apply for

the model industry, but all kinds of media, from news reporters, newspaper, ‘

TV shows to commercials. 

Please identify one or two concepts/terms that you find particularly

interesting. Motivate your choice.

The on thing that caught my eye when reading this was mana. Which if you 

look it up in the encyclopedia is a supernatural being which can be either 

good or evil. And I think it was a good way for the authors to expand the 

explanation of enlightenment and myth. It was something I thought was 

interesting so I started looking up the word myself to se how it is used in other 

ways. But to keep this about the text we read, I think this sentence made it 

very clear to me what mana and enlightenment had to do with each other.

“The priests have always avenged mana on any exponent of enlightenment 

who propitiated mana by showing fear before the frightening entity which bore 

that name, and in their hubris the augurs of enlightenment were at one with 

the priests.”

Reference:

Britannica, encyclopedia: http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/361194/mana

Horkheimer.M, Adorono.T.W, Dialectic of Enlightenment -Philosophical Fragments (2002) Stanford -

Stanford university press

Theme 1: Reflection [post 2]

I feel that after reading some of my fellow classmates bloggpost I have a better understand of the text we had to read and the question needed to be answered. I have never been good with philosophy and have always had a hard time, not necessarily understanding it but really believe or agree with what is said. Though it is hard to understand some points made in this text, I think everyone have tried their hardest to make out what we read from Russell.

I think this book was understandable but I had a hard time understanding why we necessarily had to read those text and not others. I feel that Russell made a good example when he talked about the table in his text and I think if he hadn’t mention it it would have been hard to understand what was trying to explain. But I feel, personally, that this theme was to philosophical and didn’t always give a clear point in what we should learn. Because even with the questions asked for the text, I didn’t think I learned more in this theme than I have done in other Theory and Method courses that I took in other schools i've studied at. I don’t mean to say I didn’t learn anything, because that I did, but I feel like there could have been other things or other text to read. Maybe text that gave us more examples or other authors point of view on this subject.

Now my thoughts on this theme might be because the guest teacher couldn’t attend on the classes. This might have made the content of this theme lacking, because maybe the teacher could have explained the text more and we could have had a better discussion on what the author talked about. Of course it was unfortunate the teacher couldn't attend and even though I think it effected this theme, I still think the problem was handled in a good way and thanks to other classmates the understanding of this theme was easier thanks to their bloggpost and input on the text.

So I hope in the next theme with the help of lectures and seminars,we will have a easier time understanding what we should learn from the text and actually get to discuss the theme to se what other opinions there are out there. Because this weeks theme was okay but in the end I didn't feel like I understood complete what the point of the text was and what we should have learned.

Theme 1: Theory of science [post 1]

What does Russell mean by "sense data" and why does he introduce this notion?

“Sense-data” is almost exactly what the word sounds like, the data in which we sense. Russell explains it like this:

“Let us give the name of ‘sense-data’ to the things that are immediately known in sensation: such things as colours, sounds, smells, hardnesses, roughnesses, and so on.”

He probably introduces this notion so that he more easily can explain to the readers why we se and interpret different things differently. I can se a valid point in using one name for all the sensations a person can feel because it would else be very confusing to understand , I think. Just take the example with the table, he explained that we all can se a table, but on discovering more things about the table the more we see the table differently. He also uses the term for when he talks about matter and how different philosophers talk about matter differently. Does it exist or does it not?

What is the meaning of the terms "proposition" and "statement of fact"? How does propositions and statement of facts differ from other kinds of verbal expressions?

Proposition is an actual thing, and object that can be either true or false, though can contain doubts while statement of facts try to eliminate that doubt or verify it. So to explain it more clearly proposition is a description of something while statement of fact is almost what is sounds like, its a statement where you take a stand on the fact, is it true or not. When I explain the next question I also mention part of this in that answer.

In chapter 5 ("Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description") Russell introduces the notion "definite description". What does this notion mean?

It means that when we talk about an object we can know it exists. Definite description is when we know something precise about for example an object. Russell explains it by giving an example in form of a sentence. “The man in the iron mask”. Here he says that we know the man and the mask but not who the man is. To be frank I have had a hard time grasping this concept and it took me several times reading it to understand part of it. But in the end, if I understood correctly “definite description” is when we can understand something by simply have it described without having actually experienced it.

In chapter 13 ("Knowledge, Error and Probable Opinion") and in chapter 14 ("The Limits of Philosophical Knowledge") Russell attacks traditional problems in theory of knowledge (epistemology). What are the main points in Russell's presentation?

The main points in these two chapters are “Knowledge” and “philosophy” . In chapter 13, Russell discusses whether knowledge is true and if all that is true is knowledge. He thinks that a thing that is true not always need to be knowledge and the other way around. If you got knowledge of ,let’s say someone wrote about someone dying, you can believe that knowledge, but doesn’t mean it is true, to know if it is true you need to actually see it. He also talked about how even if we know something it could actually be wrong, or and error. The last thing mentioned in this chapter is Probable Opinion, which is the thing that is not and error neither knowledge, it is the thing in between. Russell writes:

“…the greater part of what would commonly pass as knowledge is more or less probable opinion”

In chapter 14 Russell talks more about philosophy and different principles. He first talks about Hegel’s philosophy which as Russell explain is indeed hard to understand. Then he continues to talk about philosophy in nature and explained how things and nature and the nature of things correlates to each another. Russell wrote:

“…acquaintance with a thing does not logically involve a knowledge of its relations and a knowledge of some of its relations does not involve a knowledge of all of its relations nor a knowledge of its ‘nature’…”

He goes on by saying that the things Hegel believe, that the universe is a single harmonious system cannot be proven when we look at nature of things. He continues with space and time and how different principles explains it in different ways. He ends this chapter to talk again about errors and risk and how some risks are to small and can be negligible.

Reference:

Bertrand R, The problems of philosophy (1912) Oxford - Oxford University Press (Republished as ebook-2009).