Theme #2. Comments

Theme #2

1. http://oscarlimback.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-after.html?showComment=1443279922757

2. http://tamfmtol.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-post-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1443280368906#c1382797219061037931

3. http://theoryandmethodmediatechnology.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-after.html?showComment=1443281866927#c2813505212177825059

4. http://securepathofscience.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1443282810003#c8097246977580183286

5. http://thewind-egg.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflection-for-this-week-we.html?showComment=1443283343147#c4009106782036259310

6. http://paullinderoth.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-after.html?showComment=1443427419842

7. http://lard-have-mercy.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-2-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1443428275741#c8107277811271246906

8. http://reb2572.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-2-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1443429254703#c8616678738762727609

9. http://meglia.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-2.html?showComment=1443430974788#c3840845734415818919

10. http://mediatechmishmash.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-afterthoughts.html?showComment=1443431755710#c8259228033785523609

Seminar #3. Reflection

During the seminar we were trying to answer the questions “What is the theory?” and “What is the hypothesis”.

After discussion in group we made a conclusion that the scientific theory is based on observation and aimed to explain what had happened. The simplest example is theory of gravitation: first, it was observed that things all the time fall down and then explained how it worked.

There are philosophical theories based on ideas and scientific theories based on empirical data. The goal of creation theory is not just explain the phenomena, but find the truth. Even if we are talking about scientific theory, truth is always relative even if it used empirical data. So the truth can be find just through philosophical discussions and explanation of results.

It was unclear for me to understand the difference between theory and hypothesis and define what comes first theory or hypothesis. Hypothesis is connected with theory, but related to narrow subject. I can say that hypothesis is a guess how objects relate to each other. Basically, hypothesis is a statement that should be approved or disapproved by test or experiment. In group discussion we brought up the idea of “theory flow”: Theory →Brainstorm →hypothesis →methods/tests →discussion.

If I explained what theory is to first-year student, I would say that theory is framework or structured knowledge based on that framework rules that explain how and why processes or phenomena work.

After the seminar I understand better what the theory is and what the hypothesis is. I liked the definition of theory by our teacher “Theory is what practice is not.”

Theme #4 Quantitative research

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I have chosen the article “When Online Dating Partners Meet Offline: The Effect of Modality Switching on Relational Communication Between Online Daters” published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (Impact factor 3.117)

The aim of the research is to support the hypothesis of the correlation (curvilinear relationships) between virtual communication and perception of real communication in terms of intimacy, dominance, composure, formality and task-social orientation. The survey results support the point of the modality switching perspectives.

Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

Quantitative research is the systematic empirical investigation of observable phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. (Wikipedia)

Following examples of quantitative methods were used in the selected paper:

Statistical sample (men and women particular age, income, level of education, race, experience of using online dating websites)

Numerical data collected from online survey (participants were asked questions and use special scale)

Using control variables (number of photos in personal profile, amount of using social media channels, initiating the first contact)

Benefits of using these methods is opportunity to prove or reject the hypothesis (in this case the hypothesis was proved). Besides using numerical data in order to explain social issues allows to generalize answers (for instance, in this case using scales allows to generalize answers about various experience of online dating). Entering control variables targets to define the most influential factors for particular survey (number of photos and social channels in this case).

I think that limitations of using these methods are conditioned by are of the survey as it’s impossible to get 100% accurate date if we are talking about social or psychological issue. Subjective answers of each participant can give definite statistics, but anyway everyone concentrate just on very negative or positive experience while answering, so number of exceptions will be huge. However, the author says “…the present study differed in several notable ways that might limit their applicability.”

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

I have learned that that data collection and analyzing allows to support or disprove hypothesis. Goals of quantitative methods application is to adjust mathematical model to phenomena. Measurements are crucial and let’s say core of quantitative research since measurements present empirical observations as mathematical model.

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

I cannot define any methodological problems of the study. The survey shows following results: using greater number of communicational channels and posting greater number of profile photos are associated with positive future “offline” relationship; generally user of online dating website create idealized image of potential partner. These conclusions don’t seem questionable, so I can say the proposed methodology is reasonable for this study. Anyway there are exceptions as subject of study are humans’ relationships that cannot be described in one particular way.

-2-

The study conducted by Konstantina Kilteni, Ilias Bergstrom, and Mel Slater aims to prove the emergence of perceptual illusions of ownership in immersive reality.  During the experiment 36 participants were immersed in virtual reality and had casually dressed dark-skinned “avatar” (CD) and formally dressed white-skinned “avatar” (FL) appropriately. While participants played traditional African drums (they were free in their movements and play style), special sensors recorder their movement.

The experiment showed that those who had CD avatar had more variations of performance and higher frequencies of movements to compare with FL avatars. Besides, participants’ behavior “in virtual body” doesn’t depend on demographic or gender differences.

Thus, according to the survey results participants’ behavior changes correlates with experience of body ownership illusion.

The authors used qualitative methods such as observation and interviewing.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

I think that the main benefit of using quantitative methods is possibility to describe processes or phenomena by mathematical model thereby to get empirical support of hypothesis. So quantitative methods allows to get accurate and independent results. Besides, results can be generalized. Also quantitative methods allows to easily define influence of different factors by changing or entering new variables. Formal and standardized approach can be applicable for different cases.

Limitations of quantitative methods are impossibility to describe everything using mathematical formalism. When quantitative methods are used for sociological, psychological, etc. research it might be difficult to get accurate results as assigning variables and using scales are not always simple in that cases. Another limitation is that methods are not flexible and limited by mathematical rules.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

Qualitative methods are widely used to describe human behavior. Examples of qualitative methods are behavior observation, interviewing, and case study. These methods are limited by imagination of researcher and interpretation of the results can be subjective. Moreover, behavior of participants of survey is also individual and caused by different factors that quite difficult to consider. Qualitative methods allows to analyze in-depth the behavior of limited sample while quantitative methods allow to get general results. (The advantages and limitations of qualitative research in psychology and education, Christine Griffin)

Sources:

1. Wikipedia

2. The advantages and limitations of qualitative research in psychology and education, Christine Griffin.

Theme #1 Comments

http://paullinderoth.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and-theory_14.html?showComment=1442350796839

http://oscarlimback.blogspot.se/2015/09/after-thelecture-and-seminary-last-week.html?showComment=1442349836555

http://meglia.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-1.html?showComment=1442348837113#c7610290554563386459

http://tamfmtol.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-post-theory-of-knowledge-and.html?showComment=1442347823620#c3453985143497294007

http://denise-theoryandmethod.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and-theory_12.html?showComment=1442351546381#c731016183029461644

http://thetheoryabouteverything.blogspot.se/2015/09/post-theme-1-reflection.html?showComment=1442353288314

http://mediatechnologybycorinna.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and-theory_13.html?showComment=1442824657568#c587461280393148663

http://aris-totall-loss.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-in-retrospect.html?showComment=1442825974726#c7941988908164390014

http://cliodile.blogspot.se/2015/09/after-theme-1-theory-of-knowledge-and.html?showComment=1442827083099

http://vadfinnsegentligen.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-1-reflection.html?showComment=1442827641951#c2070130021660542143

Seminar #2. Reflection.

During the second seminar we discuss following topics: nominalism, enlightenment and mass media, and aura concept.
After the seminar I understood the concept of nominalism better and connection between nominalism, fascism, and enlightenment. The professor gave us an example of Plato’s allegory of the cave to explain the idea of Plato’s realism that is about considering the real world. According Plato people are “prisoners” of the cave and they don’t see real objects, just reflections. In order to see the real world we should get out from cave. Nominalism can be defined as anti-realism – the way of escaping of problems.
Fascism inherits tendencies of nominalism. Example is concept of natural order – German is the title nation, some people were born to be slaves, someone were born to be masters. This order of things form definite worldview and perception of things that is far away from real world.
The idea of enlightenment, in its tern, to allow people to see real world, escape from myths, and be masters of own life, destiny and nature. Mass media as tool of enlightenment should have to help to see the real world and change previous understanding of the world. The example of reaching opposite goal is stereotypical image of “young beautiful secretary” and “old rich boss” in American films in 40s.
Benjamin Walter Walter argued that art has revolutionary potential. Reproduction of art is a way of liberation or art and changing power relation as art becomes affordable for all instead of privilege of upper class.
The concept of aura can be explained very simple: “The old things has bigger aura than mass production.”
Some questions are still unclear for me. Coming back to example of “secretary and the boss” this stereotype was formed historically as result of gender inequality, but mass media as tool of enlightenment just shared and made this stereotype stronger. So enlightenment is unable to change already determined perception, isn’t it?

Theme #3

The Journal that I’ve chosen is calling Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, impact factor is 3.11. Publications mainly cover topic of media, communication, and focus on modern digital media technologies and their impact on society.

I’ve selected the research paper “The Rise of Twitter in the Political Campaign: Searching for Intermedia Agenda-Setting Effects in the Presidential Primary” by Bethany A. Conway, Kate Kenski and Di Wang. The aim of the research is to study reciprocal relationship between traditional media and twitter, show agenda-building effect of Twitter, and emphasize influence of social media on media output. Theoretical base of the investigation are agenda-setting theory, (McCombs & Shaw,1972), research of social media influence by Mayer & Cornfield, 2008, Shoemaker & Reese, 1996, McCombs, 2004, Denham, 2010. The research is based on data acquired from largest US newspapers articles and twits by candidates from Republican and Democratic parties during 2012 Presidential campaign. Particularly mentions of top-7 issues such as economy, budget, energy, employment, taxes, healthcare and foreign policies were gathered and analyzed.

Data was analyzed by using QDA Miner a computer-assisted qualitative coding program that coded and analyzed issues frequency within Twitter and newspapers. Mentions were summed to form newspaper index and Twitter index appropriately. The relationships between traditional media and twitter were defined by measuring correlation that was discovered by content analysis.

The research results showed that frequency of top-7 issues mentions in traditional media is higher than in Twitter that contradicts the research by Neuman et al., 2014 that found out Twitter mentions more numerous. Besides, the results showed that existence of correlation between all analyzed resources.

Authors made a conclusion that Twitter plays role as traditional media and is adopted to political podium to share information and grow audience. The relationship between traditional media and twitter are symbiotic. The difference between traditional media and Twitter is that newspapers and journals have leading position in covering top-7 issues while twitter is used for covering unobtrusive issues as well as agenda building that form the media agenda.

The research emphasized importance of new media in political campaign and its role in agenda-building process. In my opinion, the characteristics and specificity of target audience of different members of political parties should be taking into consideration. For instance, healthcare questions and tax questions are important for youth, young families, and entrepreneurs. In order to drive attention of this segment of target audience it’s more effectively to use Twitter, but if this segment is not the main of target audience of particular candidates number of  issues mentions in twitter would be less than in traditional media, but this fact doesn’t allow to jump to simple conclusion that Twitter is used just for unobtrusive issues. This moment need further exploration.

1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
Gregor Shilrey defines 5 types of theory depending on goals that information is addressed to:
- theory for analyzing,
- theory for explaining,
- theory for predicting,
- theory for explaining and predicting, 
- theory for design and action.   
So I can say that theory is structured and systematized information that has kind of goal mentioned above. Besides, the aim of theory is to explain behavior of particular system in order to predict the status of the system in every particular moment in future.

2. 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 characterized as?
I think that in the selected paper was used theory of predicting as the author wanted to prove the agenda-building role of Twitter in presidential campaign. 

3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
I think that benefit of theory of predicting is opportunity to predict the behavior of object of investigation in future. The limitations is lack of explanation. For example, in particular article the author shows the results that prove his prediction but nature and reason of getting that results are not explained.

Seminar #1

At the seminar we discuss Kant's and Plato's ideas. During discussion in the small group we focused on Kant's idea about a priori knowledge. We brought up the following questions:
- Can the knowledge exists without previous knowledge and experience?
- Getting knowledge is impossible without suggestions a priori

Our group jumped to conclusion that we always compare new things with what we have known already. Therefore "pure knowledge" does not exist without previous knowledge. Moreover, it's impossible to formulate a judgment absolutely independently. Kant stated that thing is not just a thing, it is the world where this thing exists or emerges. The example is can of coca-cola, in our reality it is can of coca-cola, but, for instance, in isolated tribes this object can have another features, goal, definition and appropriately perception by members of tribe. In other words, the world cannot be independent of us - the world is always our world.
The answer to the second question is that first we make a suggestion and then prove it or refute by experiment.

During the discussion in a large group we also raise the topic of Kant's concepts. Kant talked about very basic concepts such as space and time and categories in terms of that we perceive everything.

Theme 2: Critical media studies

     What is "Enlightenment"?

    In Ancient times people tried to explain the nature, the world, themselves, etc. and answer the questions “Who?” and “How?” by myths and magic features of supernatural creatures. So ideas based on fear and impossibility of influence on things by themselves. The only solution to improve or to change something was sacrifice to gods or higher creatures.

Enlightenment is form of advanced thinking using logical explanation instead of myths. Moreover enlightenment allowed humans to escape from fear and to see themselves as masters of nature and own destiny.  

 What is "Dialectic"?

Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement. The word dialectic originated in ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues. (Wikipedia)

Adorno and Horkheimer defined dialectical thinking as form of thinking in which each thing is what it is only by becoming what it is not. In other words, the fact is what it is until proven otherwise.

When there are two different opinion about one subject, dialectical method is used to find the truth by discourse.

What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

In one sense, its most traditional sense deriving from the Middle Ages, it implies the rejection of universals. In another, more modern but equally entrenched sense, it implies the rejection of abstract objects (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Abstract objects are non-spatiotemporal objects.

According to Adorno and Horkheimer “From the formalism of mythical names and statures, which, indifferent like nature, seek to rule over human beings and history, emerges nominalism, the prototype of bourgeois thinking.” That mean denies of abstract objects like gods and supernatural creatures. Consequently enlightenment is part of nominalism concept as it implies avoiding myths and relying on logical explanations.

 What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?

Myth is way of explanation nature, world and human being in form of stories based on fear, rituals, religion, etc. but not on experiments or observations.

In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

Marxist theory states that society consists of substructure and superstructure. Substructure, or in other words base, includes means of production and relation of productions, superstructure in its term includes its culture, institutions, political power structures, roles, rituals, and state. (Wikipedia).

When capitalism is abolished and proletariat has power not just base or substructure changes, culture as inherent part of superstructure is changing as well. I think we can say that changing of base leads to changing of superstructure. Superstructure is sort of relations that appear within human society development. Thus from Marxist perspective the point of analyzing cultural production is to form revolutionary requirements for art, for example, reproduction of works of art.

Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

According to Benjamin culture has revolutionary potential because it is part of superstructure and revolutionary changes in substructure make impact on it anyway. Adjusting new technologies of production to production of art allows to develop modern demands and tendencies of art.

Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

Benjamin states that modern perception has historical and social reasons. The same objects can be perceived in different ways depending on historical events, society development, etc.

The example of historically determined perception is Venice stature: for Ancient Greek it is object of veneration, but in Medieval Ages it is evil idol.

What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?

According to Benjamin “aura” is inherent to original work of arts and cannot be replicate in reproduction since “aura” reflects presence of work in time and space, historical meaning, initial purpose of creation. There are different kinds of aura in natural objects and art objects as the aura of natural objects is defined by distance to the object, the aura of art objects is defined mainly by time, place and goal of creation.

Theme 1. Theory of knowledge and theory of science

1. In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition."

In my opinion that main idea that statement is that relying on just what we see leads to confusion. For example, if our cognition conforms the objects, we must still think that the Earth is flat as it is impossible to observe (without special equipment and experiment) that it is actually round. “Objects must conform to our cognition” this point means that we should find the solution by letting the object to correspond to our cognition. In that way we will get accurate information about the object.

2. At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

I think that Socrates’s point is that everyone feels individually and sees things differently, so we cannot get knowledge based just our senses. Socrates illustrates it with example of taste of wine that changes depending on his health.

Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments (Wikipedia). Thus, it is correct to say that Socrates supports the idea that just independent experiment is source of knowledge. Just through the experiment it is possible to get conception about the object.