Theme 4 - Quantitative Research

Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences

I chose the text "Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences" from the journal of Computer-Mediated Communication with an impact factor of 2.019.

Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
The quantitative method used where an online survey (with additional qualitative interviews with 8 of the survey respondents). The online survey, or questionnaire, was answered by 119 collage students at a university in Midwestern United States. It was consisting of 36 multiple-choice questions about their basic habits on Facebook but also about what personal information they share on their profile including how they had set up their privacy settings and what benefits or risk they saw in usage of Facebook.

This method gives a very generalized view of the specific target group (in this case, under graduate collage students in the Midwestern United States). The limitations might be that you need to get very many respondents to be able to draw any conclusions, and you won't get the qualitative aspect of the questions.

What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?
They seemed to have a lot of questions in the questionnaire, and I know from our "kandidatexamensarbete" that it's really important to ask the right questions. I think it's easy to ask redundant questions that wont help you to your goal, but they seem to have had questions to answer their hypothesis! I wonder though if they used all of the questions asked or if they could have left some out...  

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

Methodological problems include concerns about reliability, validity and dependability of data, results, conclusions and generalizations in a research enterprise. I think this study is a quite generalize one and they get the answers they seem to be searching for and thus I think that there aren't any great problems. I think it's good that they are using both quantitative and qualitative methods in the study. If they should improve the quantitative method then they could have had more respondents and maybe only focus on a smaller target group in a specific age-range or so. 

Physical Activity, Stress, and Self-Reported Upper Respiratory Tract Infection

Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

In the article "Physical Activity, Stress, and Self-Reported Upper Respiratory Tract Infection" they used a quantitative web questionnaire with follow-up questionnaires sent out through e-mail. 

The benefits of this was that they could send it to a large number of people who could answer it fast and easily. The limitations is as I said earlier that you don't get the depth as you would with qualitative methods and some respondents might not understand all questions or answer them incorrectly. 

With this method they could come in contact with 5000 people at once, and of which 1111 had answered all of their questionnaires!

Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

The benefits are that you can get really deep answers from a fewer range of people, but it's often more time consuming with qualitative methods than quantitative. Qualitative methods might be harder to draw any general conclusions of compared to quantitative methods. 

PDF version: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01494.x/pdf 

HTML version: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01494.x/ 
Methodological issues: https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110310100631AAFNbNn 

Reflection after Theme 2

For this theme I have read two texts: The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin and Dialectic of Enlightenment by Adorno & Horkheimer. I then answered a couple of questions connected to the texts.

During the lecture with Henrik Åhman we got some context of the environment the philosophers had been living in while writing these texts. It was really interesting but it was also hard to see the connection to the texts sometimes.

I also noticed that I hadn't fully understood the concept of dialectic but it got clearer when talking about different dialectical concepts such as Artist - Photographer; Aura - Mass culture; Unique - Many; Picture - Copy; Myth - Science. You need to seek the truth by logical arguing but also by looking at the object from different perspectives.

We also had a seminar where we brought up different concepts we thought was difficult to grasp from the texts and the lecture and then answered some additional questions in smaller group (3 or 4 people) to then discuss our answers as a whole group again.

When discussing Adorno & Horkheimer we talked about a gap between the existing and the possible ("A society that we live in, and a society that we want to live in") and that we need to change the way we think to change the society. We also discussed that both Art and Media Technology help changing the society to connect those thoughts with Benjamin's text.

We also talked a lot about nominalism - and that it may lead us to being stuck at only describing the society as we see it now. That may not be the way we want it to be. We need to complement it with the conceptual thinking, for the society to evolve into something we want it to be.

We also discussed nominalism vs realism with Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which was really interesting (but we did this in swedish and I'm not sure how to translate it into english now..). It's like all we see are a shadows of the real object that is somewhere else. All objects are formed after an idea of that object.

Bild: http://www.ieet.org/images/uploads/424db0.jpg 

Theme 3: Research and Theory

I've chosen the article "A very popular blog: The internet and the possibilities of publicity" by Brenton J Malin from the journal "New Media and Society". This journal has an impact factor of 2.052.

The journal describes two modes of publicity, openness and promotion, and their implications on traditional broadcasting versus online communication. She argues that the discussions of the democratic potential of the internet needs to take these questions of publicity in serious consideration.

"These two understandings of publicity, as openness and as promotion, capture two problems of democratic communication. The more open a channel of communication, the more diverse opinions it can include, but the less clearly it can focus attention on any particular topic.” “On the other hand … focussed communication risks flattening discussion into a homogenized message that excludes alternative points of view.”

She describes the importance of traditional television over other digital media for promoting parties during elections in the USA, and also how the television affects the viewers knowledge and opinions when viewing late night programs, such as The Daily Show, regularly. The TV focuses the attention and the Internet seems to be dispersing it. To get people to see your content on the Internet is much harder than just to broadcast it out on a popular television channel - you need your visitors to find you on their own way.

She also talks about using social media or more specifically Facebook as a broadcasting media. When using Facebook you are both a producer and a consumer. So it goes in both directions. There are however people, as for example Obama and Ashton Kutcher, who gather an enormous number of followers and then use Facebook as a broadcasting channel.

In the conclusion she says that "Only by allowing both a publicity of attention and a publicity of openness in the mainstream media can we hope that both can also flourish online."

1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.

Theory is a generalization of a phenomenon and the causation of it. Why did the phenomenon happen and how are we to explain it in an abstract or generalized way? 

I also found this quote on the course web regarding theories: "Theory is about the connections between phenomena, and explaining WHY, HOW and under WHICH circumstances acts, events, structure, and thoughts occur. Theory attempt to explain the causal logic between cause and event."
Theory is not references, data, list of variables or constructions, diagrams and hypotheses. The theories are, on the other hand, supported by diagrams and data, etc.
In the text "What Theory is Not" it says that data is required to describe which empirical patterns are observed, but theory on the other hand is why these empirical patterns are observed or are expected to be observed. I thought it was a good example and it shows that it isn't the facts or the diagrams that are theory - it is the underlying meaning that you get from the data and the explanation of why that data emerged.

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 would say that the theory type used in "A very popular blog: The internet and the possibilities of publicity" is mostly Explanation or maybe a little of Design and Action. Brenton is mostly only explaining what is now and it isn't tested or predictive. But I thought that it might be a little of Design and Action (if I understood that type correctly) because she tells us to take publicity in regard and that we need to discuss this matter when talking about democratic possibilities of the internet and in traditional media. But she doesn't really give us explicit prescriptions...

"Discussions of the democratic possibilities of the internet need to explore the ability of particular sites to build publicities of both openness and promotion and to analyze these within the context of the wider media environment"

3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?

The limitations of these theories might be that they haven't looked on what is going to be and it doesn't feel as "deep" as it would have done if it had been for example Explanation and Prediction. The benefits might be that the article now has caught someone's eye who then can start digging into it a little deeper.


Sources other than the given texts:
http://nms.sagepub.com.focus.lib.kth.se/content/13/2/187.full.pdf
https://www.kth.se/social/course/DM2572/page/what-is-theory-2/

Theme 2: Critical Media Studies

1. Dialectic of Enlightenment
a. What is "Enlightenment"?

Enlightenment is described as "the advance of thought" or in other words: knowledge. This enlightenment has been important for us human beings to establish ourselves as "the masters" and gain distance from our fears, or in this case even myths.  

b. What is "dialectic"?

Dialectic is a kind of discussion form where you try to find out what is true. This is done by logical argumentation and reasoning. This is what the enlightenment is about. To find a logical reasoning of what and why things are true.

c. What is "nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

Nominalism is the opposite of realism and may be two things: either it says that universal entities/objects (eg. strength and humanity) doesn't exist, or it says that abstract objects (objects that doesn't exist in time and space) doesn't exist. This means that only physical object exists but some versions of nominalism also admits that some particular abstract objects do exist (like numbers).

It's an important concept in the text because nominalism says that myths or other unnatural things without scientific explanations aren't true, and are therefore in line with the enlightenment.

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

The "myths" were the explanation to everything.They where the truth if we couldn't explain it in any way! And that may have risen a kind of fear in us. The enlightenment gave explanations to the myths and we therefore became masters of the fears/myths.


2. "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity"
a. 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?
Superstructures is developing much slower than substructures, and that is because substructures are affecting the development of superstructures. Substructures are the production for example paintings, theaters, movies, sculptures. Superstructures are everything that contains of the substructures such as the society, art, religion, laws and culture. The substructures are therefore the base, and if the base is good the superstructure (or the society/culture) which grows from it will also be good.

b. 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?

Benjamin saw revolutionary potential in example photography and films. They have changed the cultural industries and the views of the world becomes more easily accessible throughout the world.
Adorno & Horkheimer likes the new technologies and to be able to spread the enlightenment whereas Benjamin doesn't like technology in terms of creating art. A photography isn't true art in the way as an original painting is. But at the same time it is making room for new types of art, but I don't think Benjamin see it that way. He doesn't seem to think that a photograph is unique and therefore it don't have the same aura as "original" art objects.

c. 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).
Natural perception is the perception we are born with. It is the perception of the world we have through our senses and therefore it is also individual. But history or historical events can also have an effect on how we perceive the world, and that is what historical perception is. An example may be war or epidemics of dangerous deceases (like the plague).

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

Benjamin says that aura is the "unique phenomenon of a distance". I didn't understand that completely but he also brought up examples of the natural aura and the arts aura. The natural aura was as if a regular branch cast it's shadow over you, then you felt the natural aura of the branch. And the arts aura had to come from unique art, such as the Venus statue, and is what you experience when you look at it. So the aura in arts is different from the natural aura in that way that it's only experienced if the thing is a unique artpiece. But all things can have a natural aura.

http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/power/n360.xml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism 
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dialectic

Reflection after Theme 1: Look at the World as a Structure of Meaning

This week has been a long journey for me and my confused scientistic head. I am not used to read as difficult texts as these, nor of thinking in this "philosophic" way. I got really frustrated with Kant's text as I couldn't understand it. It made me confused and one second I thought that I finally understood it, but the next I was totally confused again, so that has been really annoying. Plato's text was more understandable in some ways. It was easier to understand Socrates arguments when they were directed towards another person.

I'm a very slow reader so I didn't read all of Plato's, but I read the first third about if perception really is knowledge and then I actually read a summary of the rest. It worked well and the summary I used was quite long and detailed so it didn't loose much of the context. I didn't understand much from Kant's language though so I just read as far as to the posed question and a few more pages. Then I had to read them over and over again to understand what he was even talking about. Then I discussed my raised questions among friends and tried to simplify the words to understand the meaning of the sentences. But it was really hard!

The lecture we had with Johan was also confusing. It started out well with some basic subjects like naturalism vs. scientism and technological vs. mechanical worldviews, but once we got into Kant's question of how is it possible to know something about the world a priori, then I got lost again... The seminar on the other hand was good! During the seminar we discussed that Kant was trying to give us the forms of understanding so that we can gain knowledge about the world. Kant said that knowledge about the structure of the world is really knowledge about the world. It's not only knowledge about our representation of the world, but it is the world. And we need to look at the world as a structure of meaning. The world isn't just a thing that is totally independent of us.

Then we continued on to "we don't see with our senses but through our senses". And we had a good example of this during the seminar: On one hand you can hear, but on another you can listen. I think that was a really good explanation! Then the quote "perception without conception is blind" was brought up and I think you should look at it as if to put the senses in a concept and give it meaning. that is how we see through our senses.

I hereby have to sentences that I'm going to remember from this week:

Learn to think in terms of meaning(forms) instead of fact

&

Look at the world as a structure of meaning

Theme 1: Theory of Knowledge and Theory of Science

1. In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) 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." How are we to understand this?

There are two different kinds of knowledge, a priori and a posteriori. A priori is knowledge that doesn't require any experience. It is the knowledge that you know is true without further exploration, such as all homosexual men are attracted to men. A posteriori knowledge on the other hand is knowledge that needs to be confirmed through experience, like all homosexuals are "feminine".

Kant says that it has been thought that our cognition must conform to objects. Which means that we can't have knowledge about objects before we have some sort of experience about them. We can't just sit at home and think that we have knowledge about the outside world without experiencing it.

He then takes another view and says that we should assume that the objects must conform to our cognition. This means that we must use our knowledge in order to understand the objects. You should therefore look at problems from another perspective, like Copernicus. Copernicus tried to understand the celestial motions by putting the earth in the middle and that the sun revolved around us, but didn't succeed. So he changed his point of view and put the sun in the center for us to revolve around!

I think that knowledge should be viewed as a combination of the two. We need to combine our experiences with looking at objects from different perspectives to truly know something.

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 Soctrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. He is trying to show us that the senses are connected to a bigger picture so to speak. The eyes and ears are only examples of instruments that are all connected to the mind for us to be able to perceive "objects of sense". We then also perceive different senses through different organs but we can not compare the senses with one another, or link them together to know what differs without a mind or connection point of some sort.

Socrates also asks what bodily organ that perceives other universal notions like being or not-being and likeness and unlikeness. Theaetetus then answers that these notions differs from the other objects of sense and that they doesn't have any separate organ, but the power of the mind.

All objects of sense and universal notions must therefore be connected together by the power of the mind for it to be understood by us. We can not only understand thing by looking at it with our eyes. We need to look at it through our eyes and combine that experience with something more to understand it.

"SOCRATES: The simple sensations which reach the soul through the body are given at birth to men and animals by nature, but their reflections on the being and use of them are slowly and hardly gained, if they are ever gained, by education and long experience."

As quoted above we need to use the senses through our organs in to the soul, but also to reflect on the being and the use by education and experience. It is the part about the accompanied experience that I think makes it directed toward the modern empiricism. Empiricism is based on that the only knowledge is what has been given proof of by observations or experiences. And Socrates is saying just that. That collecting the objects of sense is an ability all men are born with, but then we need to make observations (by example education) or gather experiences to really reflect and understand the knowledge we assume we have.