Research
journal
I have
chosen the journal New Media & Society. It is a journal that publishes research
from communication, media, cultural studies, sociology, and geography among
other topics. The research often explores the relationship between theory,
policy and practice and with and impact factor of 1.824 (2013) I think it’s a
suitable option for media technology research
Research
paper
I have
chosen the paper The Masal Bugdov hoax:
Football blogging and journalistic authority by Burroughs & Burroughs.
It explains the story about the Masal Bugdov hoax and the contrast between old
and new media. Masal Bugdov was a fictional character, created solely on blogs
stating that he was an up-and-coming football player. Eventually, through the
hype of blogs, Wikipedia entries and forum comments he made his way up to
the ‘Football’s Top 50 Rising Stars’
list of 2009 in The Times. The paper present the rise and fall of the
Masal Bugduv hoax by how and where the comments about him originated, they
analyze how it was possible for the hoaxer to gain the journalistic authority
to be convincing and from that draws conclusions about journalistic authority
and the perception of credibility in the blogosphere.
The
study was conducted using 847 blog posting, analyzing and cross-referencing, thereby
creating a timeline of the events. By listing the chronological events by the
hoaxer they identify how the hoax was possible using the Grice’s Maxims
(expectations of quality, quantity, relevance and manner). The limitations of
this study lie in the inability find the actual hoaxer, thereby only relying on
the blog posts. No quantitative study has been conducted and they clearly state
that future studies would benefit from in-depth interviews with hoaxers and
their victims. Since it is a very particular case, the generalizability must
also be questioned.
Theory,
Rather
than stating what theory is, Sutton and Staw first choose to describe that it’s
not references, data, variables, diagrams nor hypotheses. Theory could contain
all of the above, but individually, they don’t constitute theory. Theory is
rather the answers to questions of why (Sutton & Staw 1995:378). Theories
should follow some sort of rational thought and are analytical tools to
analyze, explain and predict a chosen subject (Gregor 2006:620).
I
would say that the main theory that Burroughs & Burroughs uses is the Theory of Explaining (Gregor 2006:624). As
Gregor writes this type of theory could be seen as the theory for understanding and that is just what Burroughs &
Burroughs does. They give causal explanations as to why the hoax was possible
by logically explaining and connecting it to the Grice’s Maxims.
The
benefits of using the explanatory theory is that it gives a deep understanding
of a particular set of events that occurred. This could be a good foundation
for other people to continue from, further explaining the connections between
new and old media and its limitations. However, it’s hard to generalize from it
and it’s also difficult to make any predictions about the future from this type
of theory.
Resources
Burroughs
B. & Burroughs J.W. (2011). The Masal
Bugdov hoax: Football blogging and journalistic authority. New Media
Society published online 13 October 2011. DOI: 10.1177/1461444811420270
Gregor,
S. (2006). The Nature of Theory in
Information Systems. MIS Quarterly, 30(3), 611-642
Sutton,
R.I. & Staw, B.M. (1995). What Theory
is Not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371-384.
That was intriguing paper you have found. Haven't heard about that before although i'm interested in football. It is an interesting phenomenon that they discuss with the incresement of social media and the term citizen journalism which is a term describing "grassroot" journalism from the public. Today it's very easy to start a rumour which gets spread and you think it is true because so many people have spread it further. Also in the case in your paper even The Times picked it up and then you get even more sure that it's really true. I use Twitter a lot and sometimes you see a lot of people retweeting some information that aren't true because they don't check the source and then it get trapped up quickly. Did they say anything about the conclussions in the paper? Would have been interesting to know.
SvaraRaderaI'm also a frequent Twitter user and I can relate to the event you are describing. How many times haven't you seen "RIP [insert famous person]"? Just to find out that it's fake...
RaderaAs to the conclusions they first talk about why the hoax was successful, saying that you have to master the language of the subject (i.e. football forums and the valid language being used there). The hoaxer thereby mastered the Grice's maxims using a vocabulary, syntax, format, length and quotations appropriate to sport writing. They also question the maxims, wondering how applicable they are to todays media climate and the online community but find that, at least during this case, they are still valid. Since it's such a particular case no general conclusions are being drawn and they finish their conclusion by stating the limitations i described above.