Monday, 28 September 2015
Saturday, 26 September 2015
Theme 3 - Reflection
In the lecture and
seminar of this week’s theme, we are mainly talked about what is the theory and what
is the research. In generally, theory
provide an explanatory framework for an observation, is a set of propositions
that aims to identify (abstracts) objects and their relation to each other. There
also have more definitions according to the field it belongs, for examples
scientific theory is based on empirical data to explain the phenomena of
nature, typically is the right fact until other argument with other empirical
data make a falsifiable prediction
related to it; Philosophical theory, without consists in empirical data which are
mainly in the realm of ideas. The theories of philosophical are not tested with
empirical observation. However, professor
Leif give an unexpected definition for what is theory that theory is about looking, in other words, is a way that we
perceiving the world associated to our knowledge and generate an idea, it is
very similar to hypothesis but it is hard to say the difference between theory
and hypothesis, only thing I can explain is that hypothesis is an idea based on
some theories and can be tested, confirmed through theoretic framework. Once a
hypothesis be confirmed, it can be a theory used to propose new hypothesis or
as an evaluation criterion.
Research is a way of gathering data to make an explanation
of theory, it is a theory production somewhat like the relationship between
superstructure and substructure, depending on each other and affecting each
other.
In the lecture,
before the introduction of research, professor Leif ask an interesting question
which is “what is human”. I mean not to discuss the definition but to expound the
meaning of that question. The teacher reference to this topic, in fact, wondering
to discuss the relationship between the three concepts theory, human and research.
In my view, since human is kind of creature that have ability of thinking and
the ability can make their thinking or questioning become truth, thus, a
perfect circulation generated between human, theory and research. Human
observing objects through their eyes and ears to perceive the world, they
generate questions and make hypotheses or theories to define answers, then they
gathering data and knowledge their own to make a research for judgment the
correctness of the things they proposed,
the research reflecting the results to human and human learning and
knowing the world depending on these certified facts, and inspired by them to
propose new questions and theories. Unfortunately, theory may not project the
real of the world, precisely because we are humanities, we can not know the
real meaning of phenomenon or objects in the world. However, the continuous
development of human society attributed to we dared to question everything. In
this theme I learnt that we should not use a Normalism view to examine the world, that is dangerous that we
could get no answering for all. Instead, an eye-opening way is required. Maybe someday a crazy guy will jumped
up and say” the theory of Darwin’s evolution is wrong, I found a new theory and
my research can give the most powerful evidence”. What’s going on? Maybe we
could found the true sense of humanities. Whatever, that is another story.
Friday, 25 September 2015
Theme 4 pre-study
Select a media technology research paper that you argue is
using quantitative methods in a good way. The paper should be of high quality.
1.
Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are
the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
2.
What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?
3.
Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use
of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?
The paper I choose in this theme is Internet
and Social Media Use as a Resource Among Homeless Youth, this is an exploration research to investigate
how does the internet and social media used in those homeless youth, thus for
that to find out and understanding how homeless youth use media networks
bridging social capital and maintained social capital. The finding in this
article will also be a resource to help those group.
This research collecting data from a convenience sample of 194 homeless
youth with the age is 13 to 24 for who used the internet before by using a quantitative method which is an internet questionnaire, for those
subjects answering their self-information and use internet for what purposes. The benefits for that is make the
results within an explicit form that can easily and clearly to see the findings
and helpful for analyze. However, limitations
also expressed for this method, cause the data in this research are
self-reports so maybe the youth cannot represent their actual use of the
internet. The data are drawn from a convenience sample, have a risk for biases
in it. They are not collect data on the media literacy or media competence of
subjects, they could not say if the youth really now that how to use the network
to get what they need. They did not have detailed data considering special
types they researched. Those all are problems easily appeared by using this
method.
I think the method the author used in this research is very suitable, a
questionnaire can extensively and effectively collecting data in a short time.
By designing the questions can control the direction we want to know. The statistical
method can give an intuitive result make the researchers easier to find things
they expected. For example in this article, the author give the question that
what does the youth use the internet to do, he collect data and statistical
results via a table form to show them, then we can easily find that homeless
youth are more likely to use e-mail when connecting with others. Thus we
analyze that they just try to hide their homelessness, then we think about how
should we find a good way to help those youth without damage their hearts.
I am not sure what is the main
methodological problems in this article or in other words, I am not sure
the means of it. In my opinions, they want to investigate how does the homeless
youth use the internet and media to do, they give their hypothesis and test it
with a questionnaire, and then discussion the result. However, we should
considering more details when using a questionnaire to make results more
representative.
Sources:
Read the following
paper written by Ilias Bergström and colleagues. Reflect on the key points and
what you learnt by reading the text.
This paper suggest that a virtual body can substitutes the
person’s real body in the visual term. There have 36 subjects be tested in a
between-groups in IVR and represented with two models CD and FL in the
experiment, the results shows that the subject feeling the virtual body in a
virtual environment likes the real body themselves. This paper is very
interesting cause I am very interested in virtual reality. But I have some
questions that how does the author definition the two type CD and FL in this
research, what will happened if use a yellow color skin? However, this research
have a huge development prospects can extend to many fields and can be widely
used and served for human society.
1. Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?
Quantitative methods is the use of statistics,
mathematical or computational techniques and other methods to carry out
systematic empirical study of social phenomena.
The benefits
of quantitative methods:
Quantitative methods have more reliable and
objective, it can use statistics to generalize results, users can easily change
relationships between variables and can establish cause and effect in highly
controlled circumstances, thus can reduce and restructure a complex problem.
Limitation:
Quantitative method does not study things in a
natural setting, the main limitation is that a large sample should be studied
in order to ensure the correctness and completeness. The larger the sample of
subjects researched, the more statistically accurate the results will be.
2. Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?
Qualitative method is “a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines,
traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research by the business sector and futher contexts including research and service demostrations by the non-profit sectors".
Benefits:
Qualitative
method does not need a strict design plan before a research start, this make
the research more freedom and unfold naturally. The researcher can get more
detailed and rich data in a written descriptions or evidence.
Limitations:
It
will easily gain biased view in the research and will heavily skewed data
gathered. It also need to consume more time into it.
Sources:
- IEEE VR 2012 - Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality
- Denzin, Norman K.; Lincoln, Yvonna S., eds. (2005). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-2757-3.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research.
Sunday, 20 September 2015
Reflection of theme 2
A week has passed, a theme come to an end, the
topic of this week is Critical media studies, two reading texts required which
are Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical
Reproductivity" (1936) and Adorno och Horkheimer’s Dialectic
of Enlightenment (1944). I spent a hard time like before to read and tried to understand what
are they talking about. However, I think, the contents of this week are more
interesting than the last week and I also met many new concepts for
example Enlightenment and Nominalism from Adorno and Horkheimer, superstructure and substructure from Benjamin especially aura he mentioned that give me a deep impression.
After the
lecture and seminar, I have a new understanding of those concepts, I think the
difficult part of this theme is the connection between Nominalism and Enlightenment,
nominalism try to explain that objects in the world are unique, example of us,
we all pupils from kth, we all be called human being, but we all different, we
all unique and reality. That make a big deviation with the philosophy in theme1
which explained that the world we observe is just the reflection or copies from
the real world. Enlightenment
somewhere similar with nominalism
since both of them are not abstracts. But Adorno and Horkheimer indicate the
danger of nominalism, once we are only observe the object without question it,
we will never know the true of it and nothing could be change. Cause our human
just questioning the objects we observed so we can create and break myth.
We also discussed
a lot about the myth in our small
group, I am very interested in this part for my personal. I think everyone know
the definition of myth from now, but how strange it, myth still exist in our
daily life even in today such a science oriented society. For what reason makes
the myth occupied an impregnable position in human being from the ancient to
now? As I think, human fear the unknown things or somewhat out of their perception
range, but the myth give a special definition to them in a just perfect range
that people can accepted it so that they can continue their normal lives. The true
of things sometimes does not matter for our, we prefer to classify it as myth
rather than accept it and the myth just provide such a sanctuary. For most of
people, they just need a simple rule to follow in order to live within their
life. I am not defended with myth, just what I think.
The aura we also discussed in the end of our seminar, unfortunately
due to the time constraint, I did not get more supernumerary knowledge from the
teacher. I hope I can get more information from your posts cause you guys are
my second teacher J.
Saturday, 19 September 2015
Friday, 18 September 2015
Theme3 pre-study
Select a research journal that you believe is
relevant for media technology research.
I choose Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, this journal is one of
the oldest web-based internet studies, peer-reviewed scholarly journals which
have been published quarterly continuously since June 1995. It focus on social
science research on communicating with computer-based media technologies which
include original research articles and meta analyses of prior research for
communication, sociology, media studies and information science ect. The impact
factors of this journal with five year is 3.799.
Select a research paper that is of high quality
and relevant for media technology research.
Title: Social Networking Sites:
Their Users and Social Implications — A Longitudinal Study
With the rapid adoption of social
networking sites (SNSs), there have more important questions about the social
implications surfaced. Such as using social networking sites will give negative
effects on social activates, decreasing time on spend with friends and family;
the SNS users will easily behave loneliness.
This paper is an exploratory research
based on previously related researches to examine and analyze the different
social capital between SNS users and nonusers which the social capital include
the term (1) frequency of face-to-face interaction with close friends, (2)
number of offline acquaintances, (3) level of bridging capital, and (4) absence
of reported loneliness. It also compared the social capital with five distinct
SNS user types which are Sporadics, Lurkers, Socializers, Debaters, and
Advanced. The author also give the hypothesis that (1)SNS user would have more
frequent contact than nonusers. (2)SNSs would be positive related to offline social
networks. (3)SNS users experience less loneliness than nonusers.
In this study, the author design a
questionnaire use an unique and extensive set of longitudinal data from a
representative sample of online users (N = 2,000, age 15–75 years) in Norway
from 2008 to 2010. The author measured the research from demographic factors, SNS
user or nonuser, SNS user types, informal sociability offline, loneliness, and
bridging capital; he gave the result as a table view to compare and analyze.
In the result, the author give the
answer that SNS users report significantly more face to face interaction, more
acquaintances and have greater bridging capital than nonusers. But there also
have some specials such as the “male of advanced and debater users spend more
time on SNS but report more loneliness”; “Females use SNSs more frequently and
interact more socially than males”; “Socializers had greater social capital,
but they are not expanding their social network over time”, the author think
this is because “people may be stressed by too many connections, and thus not
willing to increase their weaker ties over time”. The author also give the idea
of future research for this.
As my view, this research had a
clearly research purpose and used an precise effective investigation method, but
the results does not have complete accuracy since it was limited by
operationalization of social capital and only tested in Norway. However, I believe
that the SNS play a positive role in human being interaction and will be more
completely in future.
1.
Briefly explain to a first year university student what
theory is, and what theory is not.
Theory
is answering the question of why.
Theory is a set of assumptions,
propositions or accepted facts that can followed in order to get a reasonable
explanation of cause and effect relationships for an observed phenomenon (from the Greekthorós, a spectator ). Theory is not references, neither data, neither lists of
variables/constructions, diagrams nor hypotheses with the describe of the
authors.
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 the theory used in my
selected paper are Design and action, Analysis, and Explaintion. The author
design a questionnaire to collect data by using a social network site. He make
the results as a table view to analyze and explain the answer of questions and
hypothesis he provide before.
3.
Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected
theory or theories?
I think these theories the author used
in the paper is a perfect combination. The experimental data and results makes
his research have more convincing, the explanation of what he did and result
analyze help the reader have a more understanding for his study. But
unfortunately, the design and action theory is not perfect in this research
cause some of reasons be limited.
Sources:
Petter, B. Brandtzæg (2012) Social Networking Sites: Their Users
and Social Implications — A Longitudinal Study, Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 17, Issue 4, p. 467-488, July 2012.
Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. M.
(1995). What Theory is Not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371-384.
Monday, 14 September 2015
Reflection of theme 1
The first theme of the course Theory and
method for media technology was end in last week and I had learnt a lot of
during last week. I think the course is very interesting whatever is the
lecture or seminar and the most interesting thing is the seminar that we
discussed and shared our own ideas with other students. In fact I was a little doubt
for why should we have to learn the philosophy before the course start, but now
I think it is necessary cause the idea and theories we learnt from this course
will give a great helpful for my next study.
After the lecture, seminar makes I have a
more clearly understanding of what Kant and Plato’s opinion for what is knowledge and how could we perceive the world. In Kant’s
opinion, we perceive the world through form
of intuition (space and time) and twelve categories, our ‘filter’ interact it through what we observed in
the surrounding environments. Kant also gives the worlds own form which is:
perception without conception is blind, conception without perception is empty.
In my point of view, it is conception that form our recognition and think by
itself automatically. On the contrary,
perception is what we perceive from outside objects. Vision transform into perception when the lights of objects
reflect to our eyes. If we lose the conception , we can only see “bodies” from
outside but we can not form an
cognition. In this way, perception will depressed into useless. That is why we
call “perception without conception is blind”. Meanwhile, If we can not
perceive from the out side, we have no idea of what we’ve already observed. Our
conception can not form an recognition because there is nothing can be based
on. That is why “ conception without perception is empty”. Also, in the last
seminar ,we are mainly talked about what the meaning of this, we assume that a
child did not have a soul (it means knowledge or conception in this) when he
was born and therefore, he is blind. But he will get the soul via his growing
up and clash the outside objects he observed. As my opinion, even a newborn
child will have a soul but the soul is in a deep sleep and it will wake up
slowly when it meet other souls and make a reflection of the stimulus from
those souls. We also talked about what will happened if a child growing up without
any parenting or contact with any culture. The answer of our is we all believe
that he will survive but he will have a completely different view of perceiving
the world and living in a different life. The reason for that is just reflect what
Kant said the baby just follow the role to perceive the world through form of
intuition and categories. That is similar like Plato’s idea which is we do not see and hear "with"
the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears.
Different people will have different view with same objects because they have
different conceptions. In other word, the perception of the world will only
depending on ourselves.
Friday, 11 September 2015
Theme 2: Critical media studies –pre study
Dialectic of
Enlightenment
1.
What is "Enlightenment"?
Described by Adorno and Horkheimer, Enlightenment is to ”liberate humans
of fear and installing them as masters. ” Enlightenment use rational scientific
method to explain the things which people do not understand and described as
myths, “it emphasized reason, analysis, and individualism rather than
traditional lines of authority” and liberate humans mind.
2.
What is "Dialectic"?
Dialectic is a method for helping resolve
debate or disagreement between two people who have different opinions and
ideas for a subject. The method in order to help find out who is right and who
is wrong and give an argument.
3.
What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important
concept in the text?
Nominalism is “a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which
general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract
objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not
exist.” Nominalism is an important concept in the text because it is somewhere
like the enlightenment to denied all abstract concepts.
4.
What is the meaning and function of "myth" in
Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
Myth is a concept and story that was told in an ancient culture to explain a
practice, belief or natural occurrence. It is the culture established on the human fears and fantasies. It was
widely used by political powers and religious forces to control people.
"The Work of Art in the Age of Technical
Reproductivity"
1.
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?
The superstructure and substructure
is the concept of Marxist. Which the superstructure is culture, institutions
and political power structures and which the substructure is the forces and
relations of production. The culture and culture production likes the
superstructure and substructure, the substructure determines the superstructure
but in a one-way relationship cause the superstructure often influences the
substructure.
2.
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?
The culture have
revolutionary potentials according to Benjamin. For example the photography, the image replication
process have a greatly accelerated with the lens uses, it broaden our horizons
and more details which are not easy to defined in normal reproduced to people’s
eyes. It also changed the way of people viewing the art objects, it makes more
people can admire the works of art and plays an unparalleled role in the culture
dissemination. Culture promote development of technology and technology promote
reform of culture.
Benjamin and Adorno
has a little similar opinion in this regard. Although Benjamin has different
ideas of mechanical reproduction, he gave his affirmative for photography.
Which is similar like Adorno & Horkheimer’s view that technological
progress has the potential to disseminate culture and knowledge.
3.
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).
People perceive the world through the senses
and senses depend on the knowledge of priori
and posterior. But the knowledge of
priori and posterior determined by naturally and historically or we could say
the living environment and policy of rule forces in that time will influence
people’s value for culture.
For the example given in Benjamin’s
essay, the different value concept for vanes between the time of Greece and
Middle Ages.
4.
What does Benjamin mean by the term "aura"? Are
there different kinds of aura in natural objects compared to art objects?
The word "aura" that Benjamin described is
"aura is the perfect combination
of art and space time, it is an unique
presence, reflecting the authenticity
of art." We could say aura is what authenticity art object lost in the age
of mechanical reproduction, the unparalleled, the mystery, the value of people
worship. But it also given a reactivating or renewing itself in the contemporary
society.
An different kind of aura in natural objects can refer to the
”unique phenomenon of a distance”, which is similar to the distance perception.
Sunday, 6 September 2015
Theme 1 pre-study
Theme 1: Theory
of knowledge and theory of science pre-self study
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?
In Kant’s article, he tried to
explain that our cognition of natural objects is not only depend on a priori knowledge but also connective
with a posteriori knowledge. So what
is a priori and a posteriori knowledge? A priori knowledge is something you don’t
need do experiment to confirm it is true or wrong. A posteriori knowledge is
something you obtained through experiences. The metaphysics explained that everything
exists in natural are originally what they like and do not need to confirm
them. But the object of human cognition is it the real essence in natural?
Kant try to use the example of
Copernicus to establish a new point of view, Copernicus assumed that the entire
celestial host revolves around the observer but he can not has a good
explanation of the celestial motions, then he changed his overview to make the
observer revolve and left the stars at rest to seek if can make a progress.
That is a change of thinking and for thus Kant put forward that objects must
conform to our cognition.
Scientific is based on the principle
of empirical. Kant suggest to use an opening mind in scientific research and
objects cognition, ‘it must take the lead with principles for its judgment
according to constant laws and compel nature to answer its questions, rather
than letting nature guide its movements by keeping reason, as it were, in
leading-strings;’ If not, those accidental observations and plans of no
previously designed will never connect up into a necessary law. The principles
of nature and the experiments thought out in accordance with these principles
must be implement in the same time that can lead the scientific in a truly cognition
way.
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"?
In my mind, the
things you see and hear sometimes are not the truly what they are, it will
depend on the cognition of the person. The different environment or different
experience for people will have different opinions in a same thing. Like right
and wrong, it is difficult to distinguish. Things can emerge different
principles, for what you obtained will just decided by yourself. So "Knowledge is perception" is not correctly
in the end. Socrates will not given a clearly definition for what is knowledge
like it inherently is difficult to define. But Socrates lead a way for
thinking, like he said he is a midwife and use his art to help those people who’s
thought dystocia and judge if it worth bringing up.
The definition of empiricism in Wikipedia is’
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