Theme 2: Critical media studies
“As I stated, I had trouble to understand the part of the text about "old" and "new" media. But after the lecture yesterday I think I got a better understanding of it. If I remember correctly Dahlberg stated that the "new" media climate we have today is more democratic (just think of all the possible news channels we have to chose from today!) than earlier. But you're stating that the "old" media is more focused on individualism and thereby it should make it more democratic (please correct me if I'm wrong here)?
I guess it all boils down to what perspective you take on this? And you can draw both positive and negative conclusions from it. Either you can go with Adorno & Horkheimer and say that the "new" media stupefy the public, making us passive consumers unable to criticize the content we're consuming (thereby making the "old" media more individualistic and more democratic(?)). Or, you can go with Habermas view, stating all the possibilities mass media has; liberate, stimulate and introduce people to new things, among others. I think both of these views are accurate today and everything is up to the individual thereby making the media climate today more democratic than ever.”
“When writing about the culture industry, you are stating that; "... the commercial marketing of culture... cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises." I directly started thinking of all commercials I've seen the last years and the stupid promises it makes (TV-shop is a great example). Do you think this way of deceiving the consumer (i.e. you'll get this beautiful girl, this awesome car and much more if you drink Coca Cola Zero) is strictly connected to commercials or are we seeing the same cheating of consumers in other media?
I also liked you're last answer about the low level of intelligence needed to watch most tv-shows today. I guess they are made for the passive way of entertainment and not so much as a public need. There are so much to chose from in todays media and for some reason I think it's good with some shows that you could just relax to, while at other times watching something a little more stimulating for the brain.”
“Hi.
I completely agree with your view on movies and how they sometimes are way to easy to predict. It sometimes feels like movies are produced after a recipe for success, sometimes by just slightly changing the story (for example the "Fast and furious"-series, the 7:th movie coming in 2014 according to Wikipedia).
But, you are also stating that you like movies that's harder to predict. Isn't it a possibility that these types of movies also are produced after a "recipe for success". For example after The Shining a lot of movies started out with that type of dramaturgy. Is there a possibility that the movies you like the most, i.e. the ones with an "open ending", also are produced to fit a specific (other than rom-com) demography of people? And if so, is it good or bad?”
“Well, the feeling I get is that the first season almost always is more well produced than the second one. Probably because you have more time and not a deadline in the same way. And I think people continue to watch because of the way the episodes are constructed, with cliffhangers that you really want an answer to.
I'm not sure if I understand your second question, do you mean that the market sets the rules? That if the consumers didn't want the product (i.e. the TV show) it would never been produced? If I misunderstood, please correct me. Of course that is the case, but I can't keep wondering how much better some shows could have turned up if the pressure to produce more episodes and season as fast wasn't as big as it it.
Of course there are exceptions, but what I'm trying to say, often is the case, is that the first season reels in the audience and the following ones, sometimes just tries to keep them, thereby making as much profit as possible.”
“Of course there are exceptions that keep a high quality throughout the series. Even though I don't agree with that article, since I think there was a drastic drop between the first and second season of "Solsidan". But maybe that's because I had too high expectations after the first season?
I totally agree with your example of "Heroes", I really loved the first season but then it just seem to get worse and worse. Maybe I'm remembering it wring, but didn't they finish the series mid-season because of the drop in viewers? Too bad on such a great start…”
Theme 3: Research and theory
“Just like the people above I found the article you found pretty interesting. I have played golf for several years and tried out a golf simulator on two quite different occasions. The first one involved a pentathlon at Ballbreaker, involving beer and competition, it made the social interaction more important than the game, so in that case the social presence was much more important than the telepresence.
However, this summer when I were going to buy a new driver I got the chance to try out some clubs at the store, and even though I got some social feedback from the person helping me I thought it were more important how the ball travelled in the air, how far, in what direction and so on. I found myself more focused on the screen in front of me than the people behind me so I think that it all depends on the purpose of the simulator. Is it to buy a new club, or is it to have fun with your friends?
It's pretty cool how far this technology has come and by simply adding a accelerometer near the clubs head you could get data on pretty much everything about your swing (top speed, rotation etc). That's why I'm more interested in why you assess this paper as type four (explanation and prediction)? What was the prediction in this paper and what made it "highly testable?"”
“I'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...
As 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.”
“Hi.
I find it a little bit difficult to follow along your argument about method 1 and 2. What was these methods and why were they used?
I'm also curious about what image technologies they used? Do they ever say why they used this type over another?“
“After reading the sustainability course we learned about these types of smart grids and the need to question why and how they are being built. Of course it's difficult to see into the future and take action on what you believe would be the technology that lasts the coming decades. It seems like a very difficult field and how do you make these assessments?
As to the text. Did the authors, like yourself, come to the conclusion that the; "need for improvement of these subjects through smart grid is enough motivated in consideration to these flaws". Were there any improvements at all and if so, how do you come to the conclusion that they aren't enough?”
“I think it's pretty harsh to simplify a whole field to "speculative conclusions", although I think I know what you're trying to say. In the case we saw earlier in the course with the table (is it there or not?) or the other classic example of the tree in the woods (if nobody is there to hear it fall, does it still make a sound?). In these cases I agree that it's pretty difficult to refute them (even though I personally think discussions like these are just a waist of time).
In other cases, on the other hand, like the one with social media use I gave above, it's pretty easy to make calculations and determine whether or not the theory is still viable.
The distinction I tried to make between social sciences and natural sciences is the fact that the theories in the social sciences are up for debate on a whole other level than the ones in the natural sciences (e.g. theory of social media usage vs. theory of gravity).”
Theme 4: Quantitative research
“Yes, they did... And I will try to summarize it the best that I can, if that isn't enough I suggest that you read the article (the part about reliability and validity is just a short part).
First they wanted to be sure that the scale they used were correct and reliable, in order to assess that they used something called an analysis of composite reliability. They quickly mentions that the Cronbach's alpha variable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronbach's_alpha) is acceptable and then moves on.The number should be somewhere between 0-1, the higher the better and they got values of about 0.83-0.95.
Then they continued to evaluate the reliability of the measure. Which they did by "measuring its factor loading onto the underlying construct". I'm not quite sure what this means...
To determine a good convergent validity they assessed the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) which "measures the overall amount of variance that is attributed to the construct in relation to the amount of variance attributable to measurement error". So, I guess that means that the AVE is a measure of the error-free variance of a set of items i.e. questions? Apparently the number should be over 0.5 and with values ranging from 0.54-0.73 they clearly met those goal.”
“Interesting study you got to discuss. I also agree that it's pretty weird that the participants weren't able to keep focus for 15 minutes. But don't you think that's why they used their friends as observers? To make it less formal and more like a regular study session? Because I think it's a huge difference if you're being observed by a total stranger, judging your every move, or just your friend sitting beside you as usual.
Also, how old were the ones in this study and where was it performed?”
“Maybe it wasn't totally clear, although it seems possible since you address the question like: "In this seminar...", but I only attended the first seminar this week due to a meeting with our project supervisor in another course. So I'm guessing your question is about the qualitative methods from the wednesday seminar?
Because of this I'm not quite sure exactly which qualitative methods you are referring to. When reading the bachelor thesis course I remember discussing interviews, focus groups and state-of-the-art research. Was any of these discussed and if so, how was that being connected to quantitative research (which this week was supposed to be about, qualitative research should be next weeks theme)? I read through your reflection (http://dm2572-teorimetod.blogspot.se/2013/12/reflection-of-theme-4-quantitative.html) but it doesn't seem to pick up any of these qualitative methods you are referring to?
To get some idea of what you mean, I instead looked at some other course blogs who wrote something about the wednesday seminar. Carl Ahrsjö (http://ahrsjo-tmm13.blogspot.se/2013/12/theme-4-reflection.html) writes about the fact that qualitative methods can contribute with data to the quantitative methods. I'm guessing you, for example, could construct interviews and/or focus group discussions and use that data as building blocks for a questionnaire. That way you're questionnaire is better grounded than if you just write down questions you think will yield reasonable data.
Amanda Glass (http://dm2572-glass.blogspot.se/2013/12/theme-4-reflection.html) takes up some good points about pros and cons with quantitative vs. qualitative research and how they can compliment each other. For example when interviewing smaller groups you have the opportunity to change questions or better explain them when the participants of the study doesn't understand something. And after participating in a couple of studies and filling out some questionnaires I know how easy it is to misinterpret something or how easy it is not to understand it at all. That's why I think it's important to test run your questionnaire (i.e. pilot study) to minimize the possibility for misinterpretation (could this be counted as the qualitative based questionnaire that Ahrsjö refers to?)
Martin Johansson (http://dm2572-martin.blogspot.se/2013/12/theme-4-quantitative-research-reflection.html) and Oscar Friberg (http://ofri-teoriochmetod.blogspot.se/2013/12/theme-4-quantitative-research-reflection.html) both wrote more about online vs regular questionnaires, which from what I understand now, the seminar was partly about. I liked how you can use some sort of "rewards" i.e. feedback when filling out an online questionnaire, I haven't really thought of that before. And if you combine that with questions based on qualitative studies like interviews or focus groups I guess the connection between the two types of research methods (qualitative & quantitative) discussed in this course is completed. I never actually thought of doing it this way but it seems pretty logical to base your questions on something more than state-of-the-art research, I guess it also gives more validity to the study.”
Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research
Well, that totally depends on what your research is about, right? If I'm making a qualitative study about some opinion of KTH students, maybe it isn't enough to just ask 300 persons, since we are like 15000 students here. But if I'm making a similar study that only focus on the media students, then 300 might be enough, wouldn't you say?
For this paper, it's not so much about statistics, but more about how the views on the user interfaces regarding geographic information actually works in different fields. Since there are a limited number of user applications there should be a limited amount of ideas about how it works. And in the same field, people probably(?) has almost the same idea about these things. So after 55 interviews, they probably got an ok amount of thoughts and ideas regarding improvements.
You also have to remember how time consuming the analysis of interviews actually are. So, I'm not sure more interviews always will be better since the researchers work on a limited time span and if the answers they get are pretty similar, maybe that's when you say: "ok, now we got what we're looking for"?
As I said before, everything depends on the target group. Hopefully, this answers your questions. If not, I recommend the book about interviews which I now realized I forgot to add to the resource-list. It helped me a lot during my bachelor thesis (Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2011). Research methods in education. Routledge.)
