Theme 3: Reflection

At the seminar we discussed theory in smaller groups and Leif also explained a bit more in-depth what theory is. It was easier to understand now than during the lecture.

However, I got a bit confused during the seminar whether the article I chose uses Theory of Prediction since the article talked a bit about earlier studies and their results - therefore the results in this study could look the same or have the similar behaviour. My colleagues in class had understood this as prediction. However, Leif explained to us that it is not prediction since it just a formulation of hypothesis from earlier researches. So fortunately I had a pretty correct understanding of what Theory of Prediction is.

It also seems like a lot of Gregor’s theories includes or builds upon each other even though it is not explicitly written. For example Theory of Explaining already assumes that the topic has been described earlier, that the readers know of the topic or the researches includes a short introduction to describe the topic (Theory of Analysing). So Theory of Explaining contains a part of Theory of Analysing.

Leif continued to explain that theory for example is “ the answer to queries of why”. We also discussed abstract definitions for example; when does many trees become a forest? No one had a “correct” answer to this. I believe that the definition for theory is a bit similar in being abstract. There is no correct answer and the definition is a bit arbitrary... Therefore the concept is a bit difficult to understand.

Theme 4: Quantitative Research

Discursive Equality and Everyday Talk Online: The Impact of ‘‘Superparticipants”

I chose a paper called Discursive Equality and Everyday Talk Online: The Impact of ‘‘Superparticipants” from the journal Computer-Mediated Communication which has an impact factor of 2.019. In this paper equality in online talk is discussed and “superparticipants” are observed in a forum. Superparticipants are a “dominant minority of poster”, which mean that even though they are few they post a lot of the content. In the forum that they researched they found that 0.4% of the posters were superparticipants and they stood for 47% of the posts. There is a negative view on superparticipants but, this study came to the conclusion that the majority of the superparticipants did not attack or try to stop other people from posting, on the contrary they had more positive roles.

The journal uses both qualitative and quantitative methods but I will only focus on the quantitative method. They used their quantitative method to gain an overview of the behaviour of superparticipants and did this by collecting data on the forum to show: average post per day, length of membership etc. The researchers collected the data from the superparticipants profile which showed information such as threads created and participated in (posts), thanked and thanks (for posts) etc.

The benefits of quantitative methods is getting a lot of data which can be generalised and compared while the limitation is not knowing the nature of these post or the meaning behind them - that is getting deeper knowledge. This leads to having a more of an analysing type of theory which only describes the subject and doesn’t really understand it.

I learned that quantitative data usually is represented by numbers and that it is fairly easy compare them. It is also very easy to visualise and convey quantitative data to readers, by for example using tables or graphs. It also shows the behaviour of a lot of a high participants therefor making it easier to draw some conclusions of superparticipants behaviour.

I believe that their way of collecting data was good since it did not invoke the active participation of the superparticipants (they were observed on the forum), in contrast with questionnaires where the participants need to answer questions which they can subjectively interpret.

This paper used both quantitative and qualitative methods and I noticed that if they only used quantitative data their results would have been very poor. It would only describe the superparticipants” behaviour by numbers but not really explaining why or how. It doesn’t give any deeper knowledge of the subject. Therefore I would say that for this paper a complementary qualitative method was truly needed.

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

Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

Using quantitative methods, such as web-questionnaires which are used in “Physical Activity, Stress, and Self-Reported Upper Respiratory Tract Infection”, have the benefits of being easy to spread and be answered by a high number of people. Questionnaires can often be easy and fast to answer, thus people may be more open to participate in studies which have questionnaires instead of interviews.

It is possible to draw more general conclusions from the result, when using a quantitative study, since there is often a larger number of participants (in comparison with participants for qualitative methods). The limitations is that it is difficult to get a deeper understanding of the study. As well as that the subjects may answer the questionnaire without fully understanding it or even when they misinterpret it. This is difficult to follow up or stop since there is no personal interaction with the participants.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

The benefits of qualitative methods is that the researchers get a deeper understanding and get more details of the subject researched. However, qualitative methods (for example interviews) usually take more time than quantitative methods - and it is harder to compare and understand the results since the answers can differ vastly between participants (for quantitative methods numbers are usually the results as we can see in “Physical Activity, Stress, and Self-Reported Upper Respiratory Tract Infection”). Qualitative methods usually invokes less people because of this, and therefore it is difficult to say something general outside this specific group of participants.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/jcc4.12016/asset/jcc412016.pdf?v=1&t=i0gzku9y&s=4b278f010e574400085170c65a8f77c4473f4daf

http://www.setantacollege.com/wp-content/uploads/Journal_db/Physical%20Activity,%20Stress,%20and%20Self-Reported.pdf

Theme 2: Reflection

what I did
The articles are really difficult to read and even more difficult to understand, even though these were easier than the last ones. I have no prior experience of philosophy or philosophical texts so it is really difficult for me to grasp. To actually gain some kind of understanding of this I had to look up a lot of new words and concepts, and read more about for example the Enlightenments etc. to understand the articles.

This week seminar was really great, Henrik Åhman answered questions that we had and then we moved to having group discussion - the discussion forces you to view the texts from a different view. For me I understood the text much better and realised that I even misunderstood a lot in the texts. 

what I learnt during the week.

I learned a great deal about what a great impact culture and tradition has had on society. The lecture with Henrik Åhman was really interesting and I learned much about concepts and movements that I was familiar with but never fully understood. He talked a lot about historical movements and how social media influenced society - how it was misused and abused to trick people to believing in new values.

During the lecture we talked about truly understanding a text. Henrik Åhman told us that we need to read the text in the “context” from where it were written to really understand it. For example if it was written in a bar, it should be read in a bar. I thought this was really interesting, and I reflected on how much perspective and personal experience can affect one’s way of interpreting a text. For example if a text is written during a war we, the readers, need to take this under consideration even though the actual war isn’t mentioned.

I learned more about what nominalism truly means. Nominalism means that things, such as chairs or horses are called that way because we have decided it to be so - words are a social construction. There is no “ideal-horse” which what we call horses look like. It is just humans who have chosen to group these animals as horses. However, in a nominalistic point of view it is not good to generalise. Nietzsche claimed that the language we created “lies” and makes us believe that object are more alike than what they truly are, for example humans. However, believing like this - being an extreme nominalist - leads to no structure at all. Everyone lives particular lives, and nothing can be grouped.

A bit of nominalism can be seen in a lot of discussions today, one example the debate about feminism. We need to get away from the definition of “man” and “woman” and stop generalising gender. Society should not see women as a group but instead look at the individuals. Some people think that women should be housewives, since this would resemble the “ideal woman” in the “idea world”.

It is important to have a bit of nominalistic thinking, but it also important to actually question the finding and not just bluntly accept them. A nominalistic society would never work since there would be no structure.

Theme 3: Research and Theory

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

Oxford Dictionaries’ definition of theory is “A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something [...]”. Theory is used to explain something (it may be whatever) and to give knowledge about the subject in question.

Gregor distinguishes five different types of theory:
The first one is called Theory for analyzing (“what is” ). This is the most basic type of theory and only aims to describe. It is used when little is known about the subject examined. The second is Theory for explaining (“how and why”) and this is a theory for understanding the subject examined.  Theory for predicting  (“what will be not why) is the third one. With this theory it is possible to predict outcomes without explaining possible correlations between factors, that is not explaining or examining why it is going to be like that. Gregor’s fourth type of theory is called Theory for explaining and predicting or also EP - theory  (“what is, how, why, when and what will be”) and is used for description, understanding, explaining correlations between factors as well as predictions. The last one is called Theory for design and action (“how to do something”) and deals with knowledge used in developing.

Sutton and Saw claims that references, data, variables, diagrams and hypotheses are not theory.

Select a research journal that you believe is relevant for media technology research. The journal should be of high quality, with an “impact factor” of 1.0 or above. Write a short description of the journal and what kind of research it publishes.

I chose the journal Computers in Human Behavior which has an impact factor of 2,489. The journal examines computers usage and in a psychological point of view. It is not focused on the actual computer and the technology behind it but the interaction between humans and computers. The computer is just a tool where humans show their behavior.

Write a short summary of the paper and provide a critical examination of, for example, its aims, theoretical framing, research method, findings, analysis or implications.

The article I chose is called “Personality and Motivations Associated with Facebook use” and is written at the department of Psychology at the University of Windsor. This article examines the use of Facebook and what kind of personality traits that is connected with Facebook usage and also motivations for using Facebook . Facebook is a bit different from other social media since a lot of Facebook Friends meet in the “real” world first and then becomes friends of Facebook. This shows and unusual offline-to-online trend.

I chose this article since Facebook has had such a great impact on our society today. I would say that it really has changed humans way of living in our society today (in the westernized world). I’m also interested in the common personality factor and motivations driving Facebook usage since I, myself, am currently using Facebook regularly.

This study had 97 participants, 82 women and 15 men, who had to give information to identify their personalities. The participants also had to answer how they used the different functions of Facebook; the wall, posting photos, private messages, poking, groups, events, posting status, commenting and so on.

85% had Facebook. Some of their results were that; subjects which were extroverts belonged in more groups, those who had a lot of neuroticism liked the wall best, while does who didn’t show a lot of neuroticism liked photos. They came to the conclusion that motivation was not connected to a specific personality trait. The researchers were pretty surprised that they didn’t find more findings about personality correlations, since results from previous studies indicated that more correlation would exist.

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 main theory the article uses can be characterized as Gregors first type of theory: Theory of Analyzing. The researchers mostly try to find what is, for example what personality traits, what kind of motivational factors etc. But in their discussion they try to explain why the result looks like it does. Therefor they also have a bit of the second theory: Theory of Explaining . However they don’t really explain how it came to be that way.

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

The Theory of Analyzing is the most basic type of theory and it only focuses at describing a subject which is beneficial since it is easy to understand that kind of result. But, it is limited since it doesn’t really give any deeper knowledge to why, how or what the findings actually mean and how it will affect people. Since this article researches personal experiences it is also difficult to generalize.

As for the Theory of Explaining it is beneficial since it aims to understand the findings but it doesn’t give any predictions of what may come.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/theory

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563208002355#

Theme 2: Critical media studies

1. Dialectic of Enlightenment (chapters "The Concept of Enlightenment" and "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception").

a. What is "Enlightenment"?
As always is it good to have the dictionary definition of the word which in this case is according to the Oxford dictionaries: “A European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition [...].”

In the chapter “The Concept of Enlightenment” we are to understand the importance and value of technology, and that through the way of enlightenment we can have more knowledge, but at the same time be free from traditions. Enlightened humans’ reason are believed to be able to answer questions that the authority before had answers to.

Enlightenment is there to free humans from fear, and to exchange and dispel myths and fantasy with knowledge instead. Those thing which cannot be explained by technology or numbers, such as fantasy, is therefore an illusion. With the Enlightenment humans should be free of fear since there is no longer anything unknown. I think this is a bit weird, since everything “unknown” is classed as an “illusion”...

b. What is "dialectic"?

In the same way, I start by the definition from Oxford Dictionaries:

1: “The art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions.”
2: “Enquiry into metaphysical contradictions and their solutions.”

In the chapter “Concept of Enlightenment” it says “dialectical thinking, in which each thing is what it is only by becoming what it is not”.  It is a bit difficult to grasp but I believe it means that you investigate different opinions and try to realise which are not true, thereafter with the help of reason and the exclusion method one can come a bit closer to the truth.

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

According to Oxford Dictionaries:
“The doctrine that universals or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality. Only particular objects exist, and properties, numbers, and sets are merely features of the way of considering the things that exist.”

With this definition I think it is seems to be a concept which supports the Enlightenment. For example it dispels myths and fantasies in the same way that Enlightenment does, and it encourages the use of knowledge instead.

d. What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
Myths are untruths and illusions and I believe that Adorno and Horkheimer use it to support the Enlightenment and to show why the Enlightenment is so important - to eliminate untruths that causes fear.

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?

Superstructure changes much more slowly than substructure. And substructure can be seen as general production and superstructure as the production of culture. Hence, culture is changing slower than the means of which to produce them. In a Marxist perspective it is the production, the substructure which defines society and the future to come. If a country has good production it will enhance the superstructure and vice versa.

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 talks about photography as a revolution of reproduction which created the idea of pure art that should not have any social function. Photography, mechanical production separates the work of art from it’s aura. He writes about the example of having the “authentic” photo, which is no use since a photography can have a lot of prints from its negative. Therefor, photos is not pure art and doesn’t have any aura.

This could be compared to Enlightenment where science and technology is highly valued, and therefore this sort of reproduction of “art” would be appreciated. Whereas Benjamin does not seem to embrace this “revolution” when it comes to calling it art.

The revolutionary potentials are depending on the substructure, that is the means of production (which is connected to technology). So if technology can be revolutionised so can culture.

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).

Benjamin writes that over a long period of time perception changes with the whole existence of humanity. But it is not only directed in this way but can also be changed by history. His example is about Roman art and how it changed how the Romans perceived art. However, perception is not only about art but also about how humanity sees the surrounding world; living standards, laws, norms etc.

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

Benjamin claims the concept of aura of being the “unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be”. This seemed to me to be a bit distract, but Benjamin illustrates this with references to the aura of natural things. He gives us the example of following with your eyes a “a branch which casts its shadow over you” - in that moment we feel the aura of branch.

When it comes to art Benjamin refers to a statue of Venus which which uniqueness could be experienced - that is the statues aura.  However for art to have aura it needs to be an authentic work of art. I believe that he means that all natural things have an aura - but not all art only “true” art.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/enlightenment

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/dialectic

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/nominalism

Theme 1: Reflection

I believe that I contributed with the discussion on the seminar. Even though most of the seminar was more mostly a lecture than seminar. However, when we discussed I also said my opinions and hence drove the conversation forward.

Before this weeks theme I first started to read the texts - since I didn’t understand a lot I realised I needed to prepare before reading them. I prepared by looking up difficult words that I was unfamiliar with, I also tried to read some easier summaries of the text to get a better picture before reading the actual text.

I also learned that I have a very naturalistic and scientistic way of seeing the world (which most of us do these days).

I learned a lot of new words mostly. I learned about Kant’s different faculties of knowledge; quantity, quality, relation, modality. I also understood the difference between analytic judgement and synthetic judgement. For example analytic judgement is something we don’t need to investigate - for example the statement “all bodies have extension”. Since having a extension is kind of the definition of bodies, we know that this is true. However, synthetic judgement we need to investigate to learn something more. For example “some bodies are big”.

I think it sometimes is good to challenge yourself to think in a different way. Many new thoughts and opinions can be build due to this. However I feel that the best way to learn new things about metaphysics or philosophy is to discuss these kind of matters with other people since you then can get a broader understanding of what other people think and also get a new perspective of things. This also leads to new questions and opinions.

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?

I thought this to be very interesting reasoning. Kant means that usually our cognition (which can be described as result of perception, learning and reasoning) should adapt to objects. Hence, we cannot know about an object without studying or experimenting with it before hand thus creating experience of the object. For example, we cannot just be home and ponder about the lives of bees and come to a correct result without reading about them or going out, observing these bees and gaining experience of the bees lives.

However, Kant says that we should now do vice versa as an experiment and let the objects adapt to our cognition to see if we can learn more from this. Kant means that this way of thinking has proven fruitful in mathematics and natural science, and for an example writes about Copernicus who made good progress in explaining celestial motions by doing this. Kant means that by changing our ways of thinking we will learn more - I would compare this to the saying “think outside the box”.

2. a. 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?

Socrates brings up an example of the Trojan Horse, in which they are men unconnected to each other and not having one “ruling” mind.

However, our senses do not work this way. Our senses; ears, eyes, taste, touch, are tools in which we perceive senses through. But it is in the mind that they are connected, the mind is the common centre of perception. Our senses belong to a whole, which would be our entire body and soul.

I would explain this by saying that we hear through the ears, but it’s in the mind that we understand what we hear. Therefor we do not hear with the ears. It is just an instrument for hearing. Our senses of perceptions are neutral since they only are instruments. They do not have experience or feelings towards what they perceive. However the mind, or the soul as Socrates would say, is not neutral.

Something interesting is one of the definitions of perception from to Oxford Dictionaries is as following:
“The ability to see, hear or become aware of something through the senses”

Where it also has been chosen to use the word “through” instead of “with”. Which makes me wonder if it now is well-recognised and canonical to use “through the senses” when discussing perception?

2. b. And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

According to Oxford Dictionaries empiricism is:
“The theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses”

Socrates argument is directly connected since Socrates and Theaetetus eventually, by reasoning with each other, come to the conclusion that knowledge is not attained through only perception, since perception is given by birth to all men and animals, but knowledge is gained by reflecting and gaining experience of the impressions. However, perception could be seen as the simplest basic stepping stone for eventually acquire knowledge because without impressions or experiences to contemplate and discuss how can we arrive at some sort of conclusion of knowledge about an object?

References:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/perception

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/empiricism

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/cognition