Comments

It’s interesting how you argue about Hollywood movies as predictable with the same patterns in most of the movies. This is something that really bothers me, and I always scroll past these when they are suggested and recommended on different movie-sites (which often are ranked by – americans.). So tired of the American heroes, how they present the “bad guys”, Also the overkill action or exaggerated love stories with the predictable endings. I wonder if people get satisfied with these kind of manuscripts? Or if it is just a way to brainwash people towards “this is how it should be, and can be!”, just to make people feel sufficiently unsatisfied with their own lives. Although, Hollywood seems to be the dream for most of movie directors such as Daniél Espinosa and Daniel Fridell. But I wonder what underlies that fact? Could it be as Adorno and Horkheimer states? That it is, as you’ve written, the maximization of profits in the industry?

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Hi Havva,
I do agree with you that it was interesting to discuss the definition of individualism and made us consider if there even is one? It doesn’t matter in what type of “trace” we place ourselves in; there will always be a group of people that consider themselves belong to it. Therefore it is in fact almost impossible to regard ourselves as individuals. Is true individualism an exact contrast towards something that is not already defined?

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Hi Martin,

I definitely wished that I had done as you’ve done – read this course before my Bachelor thesis. The preparation towards relate these different methods, and being aware, but also have a deeper understanding in the different areas as these themes have covered is of great relevance. The ability to find relevant papers through journals was something I now feel I did not have sufficient expertise in while researching for my bachelor thesis. I wish you all the luck with your bachelor thesis!  

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Hi Ingrid,
The paper you’ve read seems quite interesting, in the sense that they want to examine the difference in a cultural point of view. Although, I wonder why they chose two developed countries such as Germany and the US ? I feel that it would have been a considerably more rewarding research if they perhaps would have chosen one developed country and one undeveloped country. Do you agree? I haven’t read the paper but I believe the outcome of the research might have been that the result between the countries is similar to each other?
Also, you argue that 21 people are not an adequate amount of participants to base a result on. But in a qualitative study researcher aim for depth instead of generalization, which means that 21 people in the study should be enough to get a result in the study. As Olle Bälter said during his seminar, the amount of time to transcribe a one-hour interview is certainly time consuming for the researcher.

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Hi Maria,
First of all, It is an interesting choice you have made in selecting the article. The option that you made is very up to date and something that is concerning a lot of people today. You mention that Humphrey does not agree with the participants, and also that he tried to define “privacy issue” but failed? In what way does he fail?

Something I immediately think of while reading your post about Theme 6 and the choice of article that you’ve made, is the program Debatt on SVT. Where they recently discussed the tabloid Expressens outing of “anonymous” writers on the racist forum Avpixlat, and in that way reveal identities and scratch the surface on privacy issues. I believe that the choice of participants in the research perhaps would have reacted differently IF they contacted people in, as for example an anonymous forum, and did the interview with these. And by doing this, underlining the fact that no one is anonymous and therefore highlighting the privacy issue.

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Hi Aron,

While reading your blog-post I specifically got stuck on the last entry were you reflect on “vessels of art”. My interpretation about what you are proposing as opposite to mass deception, is that this is to provoke something that is not (culturally) accepted all over the world? During the seminar we discussed the interpretation of art, and all of those whom interpret a nude picture of a woman as something pornographically does not understand the beauty behind the art. I don’t know if this could be compared to your thought about Lars Vilks representation of a sensitive topic in an Islamic point of view.  But I feel that you’ve tried to underline that this is not something that is brainwashed and accepted by the “mass” ?

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Hi Nicholas,

I like the fact that you chose an article were the researcher has the intention to examine an actual problem and how technology could be a beneficial part of peoples “own choice” of rehabilitation. As you write – the choice of method in this research is valuable in many different perspectives. Such as getting a greater understanding for users of these kind of drugs, but also grasp what kind of text-messaging could be useful to prevent them from using as much as they earlier have done. This could be a base towards further studies in the subject. It would also have been interesting to read about how they reacted when the SMS was delivered to each participant, perhaps through a diary. What do you think?
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I think it is fascinating how you compare the church with media, and explain this in a way that churches take advantage and fool people that do obey these religions. In some way I do agree with you, seeing it through the point of view that we do pay taxes if we are a part of a church, and also pay for medias mind control in certain ways. Perhaps through must haves and created desires. But, the differences that I do react on is that churches often satisfies and try to direct people (hopefully) in the right way, preaching about how you can and should be a good person. These are main pillars in the biggest religions, but off course there are always extremists. And the satisfaction through media is often not spiritual (although it could be), but usually in a materialistic point of view, which I believe is something that differs these apart.
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Hi Marit,

The qualitative paper you have chosen fits into the earlier seminar about mass deception with Adorno and Horkheimer. I certainly enjoy reading about researches on children, because of the fact that they always speak their mind, and mostly do not reflect their thoughts before they express how they feel and think. As you highlight, it could be a problem and intimidating being interviewed in a larger group. This is something we have been discussing during seminars, where many student that have presented their articles consisting of focus groups mention that participants does not take the same space as others.

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While reading your sentence about “modern movie industry doesn’t produce art, only content to please the audience”, I immediately think of the saying Cool guys don’t look back at explosions: http://9gag.com/gag/6445763 , which are all Hollywood produced movies. There is no doubt that Hollywood movies DO have certain structures and lines that most of the times are followed while produced.  And we should not forget that Adorno and Horkheimer was in this particular environment while reflecting about the culture industry. Swedish movie directors are well known as touching deeper subjects and playing with characters in different ways, so I guess that Adorno and Horkheimer would have reflected differently if they had an overview of the worldwide movie industry today.

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Hi Leah!

Thank you for presenting design research in a good a perceptive way. Through the text I do agree with you on most points that you highlight, and the fact that you underline that design research can be communicated best through focus groups. Although I also feel that you have to be careful when selecting participants that are contributing in the focus group. It is of great importance to reach out to people that perhaps are not in the same industry or the same area. The reason is that there is a possibility that people can have the similar thoughts, and the main cause of using a focus group is to get as many different inputs as possible to be able to considerate improvements.

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Hi Havva,

While listening to you at the seminar I felt that your choice of articles are of great interest, especially the second one about Human resource management and cultural diversity. It reminds me about my internship in India as a 18 year old student, where I could reflect upon this issue of a Swedish CEO trying to adapt to the Indian culture and also trying to approach the employees with a different style that differed what they were used to. I’ve earlier read the course Leadership in cross-cultural context were we focused on cultural differences in countries.
I do agree with Jenny above about the choice of method in the paper, “Us teenagers’ perceptions and awareness of digital technology: a focus group approach”, and feel that the researchers approached the students in an ineffective way. The teenagers that were in the focus groups, had a sensitive age and off course it is hard to express yourself in such big focus groups.  Link to comment 

Reflection Theme 6: Qualitative and Case Study Research

The beneficial part of the first seminar was that I felt we had already covered a discussion about qualitative methods during an earlier theme, which made the arguments stronger and more developed than I had expected. But also creating a deeper interest and desire towards different approaches that are possible to use in qualitative methods. While selecting my article I felt that I have basically prioritized my own interest, which have increased my curiosity for reading the articles and getting more and more dedicated to my choice throughout the course. Similar to previous seminars regarding quantitative methods, we discussed the different point of views about qualitative methods in articles we had chosen in our groups, and after this presented it towards the rest of the seminar group.

For a short period during the last seminar the student that were attending discussed the already written explanation about Case Study at the Wiki page that is used throughout the course, and where students have the possibility to edit the information. The group argued that the case study is probably something that everybody will have use of in our master thesis, although it won’t be something we will write about. Through this conclusion we also came in to the discussion that many papers are a Case Study but perhaps not aware of that fact. While attending this last seminar I felt that the structure of the seminars were well planned, with the strongest method in the end. The quantitative and qualitative methods both have their advantages and disadvantages, which I have come to sense with during the course. There are always many surrounding factors that are significant in the choice of method when planning a research. But there is no doubt that the combination of these two, which could be relevant in a Case Study, could have the strongest outcome in both depth and generalization. If the study combines the two methods and consist of similar outcome, the benefit is that it will answer the five W’s: who, what, when, where and why. The five W’s are questions are somewhat of great importance in information-gathering, and have their roots from 1902 and a famous poetry by Rudyard Kipling:
“I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who”

The conclusion is that Case Study is not only looking for patterns, but also understanding. So instead of perhaps only sending out surveys, which are anonymous and impersonal, the researcher spend some time (if e.g doing a research at a company) and by approaching in this way gather a deeper understanding in order to filter content for the research. It is although important to take in to consideration that there could be a dissimilar result while using two methods, but if the scenario is that the two methods are showing similar results, it is obvious that the researcher have a stronger case and a more powerful research than while just using one method.

 During the weeks two seminars the attendance rate was not as high as in the beginning of the course.  Although I didn’t feel that it affected the discussions about the themes, but brought out opinions from students that earlier did not take as much space.

Reflection Theme 5: Design Research

During theme 5 us students had the possibility to read two articles about Design research. The week consisted of two lectures where one researcher from each paper attended and spoke about design research from their point of view. I believe that the combination of these lectures would have increased my understanding towards the type of research even further.  

I felt kind of disappointed that I had no possibility to attend to the lecture by Ylva Fernaues, due the fact that we had a preparation to our final presentation in the course Future of Media.

At the same time, I particularly benefited from Haibo’s lecture where I felt that he touched some important features of what we should have in mind as “soon to be” engineers. He usually, during his lectures, presents his point of views in attention-grabbing ways. The focus of Haibo’s lecture was how to handle an idea, and also the different steps to take it towards a prototype. Such as, distinctive examples, in this case two persons who were chased by a bear. He explained in a way that one would relate to how to implement this and visualize it as a problem and the two persons would be possible perspective to observe it. The outcome would be a result of different solutions. At some point in the lecture he also presented a 5-step model, which was a procedure to handle an idea once you have got one.

By getting an insight of how a researcher handle typical problems that could occur, I feel that it provided the attending students with relative information and further understanding on how to make own assumptions. But also the ability to compare and handle ideas that probably will be something we all will face one day, probably this spring.

Theme 6: Qualitative and Case Study Research

Qualitative Methods
 Sheltered in Cyberspace? Computer use among the unsheltered "street" homeless from the journal Computers in human behavior with impact factor 2.067.

The study examined 100 unsheltered homeless persons located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The main purpose of the study was to analyze usage of computers and how greater access could be a beneficial way to enhance social support, which improves opportunities to create positive outcomes for this fragile minority. According to a national report on homelessness by US department of Houring and Urban Development, 643 067 individuals were homeless on one winter night. In the beginning of the report the researches define homeless people as "an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence".

To get participants the researchers interviewed five individuals who had been sleeping on the streets for several years. These were introduced through a local homeless services provider. These five were given 25 dollars each, and also "friend referral cards", that they could use to gather other homeless people that they thought could participate. For each card, they got 10 dollars. 100 interviews were in the end completed.

The measures were collected in DIS/HS (Homeless Supplement to the Diagnostic Interview Schedule) And ASI (Addiction Severity Index) The article used a mixture of Data analyzing methods, both Quantitative and Qualitative. In the quantitative part the investigators charted statistics such as Demographic (which included sex, age, education, religious views, income, relationship status etc), homelessness (self-definition of homelessness or not, sleeping place for the last 14 nights etc) and psychiatric variables (ASI, alcohol and drug use). The qualitative data were transcribed and analyzed by the researchers and created a list of themes that emerged from the data.

By using both the methods there is a greater understanding in both depth and mapping out the problems. Although there are also improvements that could have been made. For example there was a nonrandom technique to recruit participants (“friend referral cards”), from only a certain neighborhood. This means that it is not possible to generalize the conclusions that were made. The researchers also studied a fairly new area, which made it hard for them to have enough background in the subject – although they state in their discussion – it’s a first step in this area of investigation.

While reading the article I didn’t feel that I got a greater understanding about qualitative methods, because of the fact that we already had seminars discussing disadvantages and advantage. We have also covered the subject while writing Theme 4 and the reflection.


Case Study

A case study is a research study, which mainly is used in order to support interpretation. This tool could have different goals when used. With multiple investigators, the case study would allow the researchers grasping towards an explanation and understanding of the issue or object that is examined. The multiple investigators, which are shown in table 1 (Eisenhardt K. M.), could be a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. Although, it does not have to be both of them. The case study research could also have a potential aim to add up strength and would be relevant to clarify an already previous presented study. It is also accurate to create a seamless combination between an occurrence and a context when it is not apparent in the research.

The process of building theory from Case Study Research through my selected Case Study Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry has certain strengths. These are especially the clear structure and disposition through out the paper. Some certain steps are easy to recognize such as the definition of the research questions, after explaining the reason of the chosen area of subject: According to PMQ Pizza Magazine (2010), the pizza industry is one of the largest representatives of resturants, and stands for more than 10% of all food service sales. And the study is aimed to cover text mining to analyze unstructured text content on Facebook and Twitter sites for three large pizza chains: Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza and Papa John's Pizza. The selected cases are an interesting choice when I first read the title, but they underline information which contributes towards understanding why they chose this area in the food chain. The research questions are following:
- What patterns can be found from their Facebook sites respectively?

- What patterns can be found from their Twitter sites respectively?

- What are the main differences in terms of their Facebook and Twitter patterns?

The researchers also use multiple data collection methods in their study. They collect quantitative data from each social media site, e.g comments, share, likes, fans/followers. After doing this they apply text mining and to discover patterns and further knowledge – and in this way get a deeper insight analyzing of how the selected pizza chains social media activities in practice.

References: 
Eyrich-Garg, K. (2011) Sheltered in Cyberspace? Computer use among the unsheltered "street" homeless, Computers in Human Behavior, 27(1), p.296-303
http://www.sciencedirect.com.focus.lib.kth.se/science/article/pii/S0747563210002505

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories from Case Study Research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550.

He, W., Zha, S. & Li, L. (2013) Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry., International Journal of Information Management., 33(3), p.464-472
http://www.sciencedirect.com.focus.lib.kth.se/science/article/pii/S0268401213000030# 

Theme 5: Design Research

Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses

While reading the first part of “Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses” I find myself amused of how the writers have drawn correlations between programming and how this language could be representative in comics and fashion. It is interesting how they implement these areas, which one usually have not thought of when having programming in mind, and present them in a way that is so clear and understandable. For example they refer to combining different clothes in order to create a new styles, and show that this could be viewed in the same angle as combining modules and functions to create new programs. Another approach through a different angle is the similarity between programming and comics, displaying the exaggeration e.g powers and abilities as a language which is easy to read, and also playful.
The previous examples are presented as useful because of the fact that they provide semiotic qualities, and the writers describe these as “possible for ordinary people to read and relate to”. The balance between these two show that there is a way to approach different generations that perhaps have certain difficulties adapting to new technologies, such as older people. Furthermore, the focus on this week’s theme is HCI (human computer interaction) and more specific on design research. The two articles provide us with presentations and characteristics that differ from each other.

Question: Are there any other fields that are inspirational when doing a Design research? (As for example, fashion and comics in this article)

Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration.
Prototypes are a beneficial part of researching if the researchers, like Haibo Li with colleagues, investigate how to implement a new method. In media technologies researchers often want to create or improve an already existing product. By presenting a prototype there are many valuable advantages to study and could be explained, in my point of view, as a road towards further understanding and probable solutions. From a researchers point of view, the prototype will assist as the next step further away from the starting phase as the idea, and become a concrete visualization of the product without developing it all the way. By presenting the prototype towards an audience, perhaps the potential users of the product, the researchers will be able to take different angles of improvement to consideration. Earlier studies in the subject are not always the best (or only) approach in developing new systems, and the prototype will conduct in order to gain necessary feedback in an early stage. This could be both time-efficient for the researchers and also open up new areas of errors that may not have been relevant in before hand. A prototype may also be a probable solution to get as many answers as possible that may concern the researchers. Such as testing the functionality, developing new ideas and also determine cost.

While doing a design research, the presentation of it is often, from the readers’ point of view, hard to understand without a prototype presented or at least visualizing it to get a grip of the actual product. User satisfaction, when doing a design research, is A and O and when communicating towards a potential audience and future users. This is why the characteristics of the prototype have the main purpose of showing the major elements and therefore help the users to understand the product. By showing these characteristics, the users get a sense for the actual product ahead of the establishment. This is why Li and his researching team has done a great job in presenting their idea of product in the article “Turn your mobile into the ball: Rendering Live Football game using vibration”, by illustrating throughout their article with pictures and tables backing up the key of their idea. The researchers do not need to consume the time to produce the final product, but only apply parts of the devise – which also reduces costs.

References:
Fernaues, Y. & Jacobsson, M. (2009). Comics, Robots, Fashion and Programming: outlining the concept of actDresses. In Proceedings of the 3^rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction. New York: ACM

Réhman, S., Sun, J., Liu, L., & Li, H. (2008) Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 10(6), 1022-1033.

Reflection Theme 4: Quantitative Research

The combination of this week’s seminar was a contribution towards further understanding of the research methods. By combining the first seminar, which consisted of a brief discussion about our selected papers, and the second seminar, which was more of an open discussion about the methods, I felt that this week has been the most giving towards my final time at KTH. 

The main assignment for the first seminar was, besides from discussing our selected papers; to choose a paper we felt was a good representation for a quantitative research. The one my group chose was called “Using social media for work: Loosing your time or improving your work?”, a study about Utilitarian and Hedonic values and what the outcomes are while using Social Media during your office-hours. When selecting this paper the group also draw a figure representing results and patterns between them. 

The second seminar I thought was a positive way to proceed the discussions we had: individually while writing the assignment and in group on the first seminar, but also a continuing way to develop the very principle of the different research methods. During the seminar we discussed the disadvantages and advantages of qualitative and quantitative methods in research context. By doing it in a competitive way and dividing ourselves into groups, we had the possibility to discuss various perspectives and also be able to make a case for the distinctive circumstances behind the arguments. It was a way of pushing the limits in presenting the cases in order to formulate a way that distinguished the different groups apart to gain points. 

Sometimes the groups raised opinions to gather points, that in many situations was not always something that the other groups agreed with about the relevance or sustainability in the cases, which opened up for discussion during the seminar. I continuously get thrilled when this happens because it is motivating to hear different perspectives about arguments.

The obvious advantages with the different methods, I believe most of us before the seminar have mentioned while writing the fourth assignment, are for example that qualitative methods answers the question “why?” and that a deeper sense of understanding is a main reason to choose this type of method while doing a research. The participants who could be involved in the studies (if we take a focus group as example in this case) are encouraged to interact in a deeper sense and evaluating their thoughts that differs to the quantitative method, where an understanding for generalization is often the main purpose. The participants are restricted, in many cases if there is no open-ended question involved, by rating the questions in a predetermined range.  Also, the quantitative method makes it possible to measure and analyze data in a short time.

The conclusion about the research methods is that they are both useful and certainly have advantages and disadvantages. However, being able to implement these methods one must consider both pros and cons – to obtain the best possible outcome. I feel that an interesting way to approach the methods is to read about what one should not do while conducting the method. An interesting example that the seminar leader presented, was to show us questions in a quantitative research, and shortly after spoke about strawberries also mentioning that we must not think of these. He compared this with talking to kids and in the beginning saying “you can’t do this”, which subconsciously disappears from our mind. That’s why it’s important to present the questions in an objective way. 

Theme 4: Quantitative Research

Digital Natives as Learners: Technology use and approaches to learning.
Written by Penny Thompson
Journal: Computers & Education, Impact factor 2.775

The main focus with the paper is to study the "digital native" generation as learners. The paper contains a quantitative method in form of an online survey towards 388 freshmen in a specific university to gather data in order to evaluate if this generation of students think and learn differently than previous generations. The survey aimed to reach out to 3000 freshmen, but only got a response rate of 13 %, which means that generalization of the study is not possible to the extent as the researchers desires. The study explores the relationship between technology use patterns and approaches to learning. The description of a “digital native learner” is presented throughout the article with a table, hence the fact that they claim there is no single definition of the "digital learner" that can easily be tested through research. They use Prensky's "Ten characteristics of the Games Generation" and also include other popular writers. In order to define them further they present potential benefits and risks for learning in each characteristic, and table was used as a basis for the questionnaire, which was divided up in four parts.

The low response at the certain university shows that a sample of 388 participants is no way near sufficient to understand the depth and create a statistical analysis to observe patterns and trends for this “digital native" generation. Another problem that I do reflect upon is how the researchers aimed to get a generalized picture by only reaching out to one specific university, without keeping in mind that surrounding factors possibly will have an impact. The article shows only a scratch on the surface of the subject, the relevance to get a clear picture of “digital native” generation should answer the five W:s (why, when, where, what, who) which I believe is accurate in this type of study. And in order to answer the five W:s they should have used a combination of qualitative and quantitative method. They mention in the concluding remarks that findings from the study is that teachers can play a critical role in preparing students for success in the digital world, which yet again only could be based upon this outcome at this certain university.

Summary of Physical activity, stress, and self-reported upper respiratory tract infection. Benefits, limitations of quantitative vs. qualitative methods.

The aim with the paper is to examine the relationship between physical activity level and upper respiratory tract infection (URTI). The writers aspire to see if there is a connection between physical activity and perceived stress. In order to do this they use a quantitative method in form of web questionnaires. The study involved 1509 participants in the age between 20-60 years, during a 4 months period of time with 5 follow up questionnaires that reached 74% of the total participants.

The first thing I relate to while reading the question about quantitative methods is that this is a method that Statistiska Centralbyrån is using. By analyzing the paper Physical Activity, Stress, and Self-Reported Upper Respiratory Tract Infection, viewing their outcome of the study that is conducted, I draw certain conclusions about benefits and limitations. The beneficial parts of this method are that it can be used for a large scale of data collection, in this case, 1509 participants. The result provides a lot of information and is easily presented in graphs and other statistical visualizations. It creates a possibility to combine data and compare these to each other – which enables to introduce a correlation between outcomes.

The main disadvantages with this approach of method are for example that questions in the survey could be subjectively interpreted. It is also hard to get a deeper understanding for the subject. A quantitative method is not something that is permanent over time, which means that the result can vary. In the study we also see that the aim was to reach out to 5000, but only got 1509 participants and 3195 non-responders. In the end it was only 74% that answered to all 5 follow-ups, which shows us that it sometimes is difficult to get the amount of data-collection you intend to get. In this particular case, it may depend on the way they decided to approach the participants – by mail.  Table 2 shows us that there are a smaller number of participants between the ages 50-60 comparing to participants between 20-29.

Compared to quantitative methods, qualitative methods are conducted to gain necessary information and answer the question why. The method is used to comprehend more narrow situations in a deeper sense, which often is a benefit. Qualitative collection can be in form of focus groups and observations. The limitations in this case are that it is not achievable to represent conclusions and generalize anything about “the rest”, besides from the group you have observed or analyzed.

References:

Thompson, P, (2013). Digital Natives as Learnes: Technology use and approaches to learning, Computers & Education, Volume 65, pp.12-33 Avaliable at: http://www.sciencedirect.com.focus.lib.kth.se/science/article/pii/S0360131513000225

Fondell, E. et al., (2011). Physical activity, stress, and self-reported upper respiratory tract infection. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 43(2), pp.272–279. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20581713 

Reflection Theme 3: Research and Theory

What I consider has been most rewarding for my personal progress regarding the third theme in the course, is to be able to reflect upon my own judgment about what theory is and not. Or at least what I have thought it was. I believe this subject of matter is fundamental knowledge towards the end of our studies, and something that people frequently get incredibly confused about. By reading other blog posts about my co-students choices of articles and journals I’ve soaked up a lot about what is useful contrary to what is not towards the contribution within researching and different theories in information systems.

The combination of reading the literature for last week’s theme, which consisted of Information system research (Gregor, 2006) and What theory is not (Sutton & Staw, 1995) , was an excellent mixture which made me comprehend a clear distinction in structure and work of a good article. This is what I further on will focus on regarding arrangement of my studies. I believe, that I’m not only the one that have been focusing on articles while doing my research for certain papers I’ve been writing through my studies. I consider it is beneficial to rearrange my structure to review journals with a certain impact factor, and therefore being able to select articles of larger importance targeted to what I in actual fact have use of.

However, I missed the seminars, due the fact that I got sick. I certainly believe that it had been encouraging to interact with my co-students verbally as well, in order to discuss different point of views regarding the different theories and the papers we read and also individually selected. I had a Skype meeting with one in my seminar group to get a greater understanding of what I’ve missed, and after this decided to focus on reading the blog posts to keep my self updated what type of articles have been discussed during the seminars. Although I see a certain pattern in what people chose while selecting journals, my conclusion is that these journals could be compared to a spider web that ties together essential articles in form of nodes of information in an interesting manner that is of great importance for Information research in Media Technology.  

Even though this is just our third theme, and half way through the course, I find the structure helpful of broadening our way of critical thinking, and independently relate to what we have learnt this far. While the beginning consisted of getting a grasp of the philosophical thinking, we have now preceded to a part of independently relate our knowledge to the extent by analyzing articles and assemble our own judgments. And i am looking forward to the second part of the course. 

Theme 3: Research and Theory

The Journal

The Journal I have selected for Theme 3: Research and Theory is New Media and Society, which is an international journal that focus on global and local aspects of new media and social change, it also covers aspects on implications and impacts of media change but also relation between theory, policy and practice. A few topics that I can mention to get a clearer picture of what type of articles this journal publishes are related to digitalization, convergence, interactivity and virtuality.

The impact factor of this journal is 1.824.

The research paper

The research paper i’ve chosen is called Re: Search and is written by Mark Graham, Ralph Schroeder and Greg Taylor from the University of Oxford. Throughout the paper the authors touches the shell of links between information and power of social aspects in search behavior. The focus of the paper is Search, something they define as power of accessing and shape information. “Separating the relevant from the irrelevant and the knowable from the unknowable”. The main purpose of the paper is to compare four papers and the connection between information, knowledge and power. They focus on search engines because it contains the tremendous amount of content, to order, structure, filter, rank and make sense out of an enormous capacity of information that we are able to collect. They highlight the aspects of the significance that search engines have only existed for the last two decades because of the fact that powerful companies have made the possibility to access to information. Although, they also underline that those who design and control these search engines have an enormous amount of social power. Major search engines, such as Google, do have critics (users, academics etc) who are apprehensive regarding the power that is concentrated in the hands of these powerful players.

What is Theory? 
Sutton & Staw explains in the paper “What theory is not” a greater understanding on the topic of misunderstandings regarding what people should have in mind while writing a research paper. The most frequent mistakes that mostly occur are the “five elements”: Data, variables, references, diagrams and hypotheses. These are all important fundamentals in a paper – but should not be conceded for being theory. A primary key of what a theory is – something that explains WHY these elements bring the outcome to a certain result, and a logical system connecting a relationship between “elements”. Kaplan (1964) and Merton (1967) explain theory as an answer to queries of why – which could be considered as a brief explanation of the subject.

What type of theory in my selected paper? Benefits, limitations. 
According to Gregor there are five different types of theories that could exist in papers that covers information system research. These are defined as Analysis, Explanation, Prediction, Explanation and Prediction and Design and Action. The paper presented in this theme (re: search) has one major theory that could be defined as analysis. The reason why analysis is the one of five that fits the paper from Gregor’s taxonomy of theory types, is because it focused on analyzing and describing what power search engines today have. That these play a role as gatekeepers and have a power of providing information about human needs and behavior by comparing four different papers throughout the paper. 

References 
Sage Journals. 2013. New media society: http://nms.sagepub.com/  

Graham, M., Schroeder, R & Taylor, G., 2013,
Re: Search: http://nms.sagepub.com.focus.lib.kth.se/content/15/8/1366.full.pdf+html

Gregor, S., 2006. The Nature of Theory in Information Systems, 30(3), pp.611–642.
Sutton, R. & Staw, B.M., 2013. ASQ Forum What Theory is Not., 40(3), pp.371–384.

Reflection Theme 2: Critical Media Studies

During this week’s lecture and seminar we discussed, reflected and listened to Leif Dahlberg and other students opinions on the subject of Adorno and Horkheimers book Dialectic of Enlightenment. It was fascinating to get a better sense of understanding how culture elite - such as Horkeheimer and Adorno and also other cultural critics from the Frankfurt School had become extremely powerful influential’s. The book - which was written by the two mentioned above – was written while they were exiles living in the US during the world war 2 because of their Jewish roots and also their political beliefs. During the period 1920-1930 many question about what went wrong due the fact that Germany was an extremely cultural influence at that period (such as Beethoven for example). Horkheimer & Adorno became influential for the reason that of their urge to dig deeper into the question trying to provide answers to "what went wrong" and how Germany had reached this point.

I feel that both the seminar and the lecture was of great importance for a broader understanding to the book and it was also interesting to be part of the discussion which showed that almost everybody associated the literature from the 1940s and draw parallels towards mass media today.

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” – the quotation by Karl Marx and conceivably an influential part for Horkheimers and Adornos chapter about Cultural Industry, Mass media and Mass deception. Dahlberg mentioned during the lecture if this “opium-thinking” could be compared to social media. Pacifying communities, stop the society and individuals to ask critical questions and also maximizing profits for the industry by controlling the masses. During the seminar we also discussed the Marxist theory, about base, material structure and superstructure, which are the parts his theory consists of. Where the base determines the superstructure (which is in almost most cases one generation behind) and how google is in a way doing the opposite, because of the fact that google controls the base. The base is the relation of production, while ideology, education, and laws determine the superstructure. My favorite part of the seminar was when we discussed cultural industry and the mass deception. That mass media should serve people as an instrument to enlightenment. Individualism was a definition many of us wanted to discuss, also the strive for mankind to be individualists, as well as the definition of the word. How we cannot determinate what an individualist is, how this is an illusion of being “not part of a group” which we in one way or another always will be. Despite of what choices we make there will always be someone with the same political thought, the same taste in music, liking the same colors as you do. Even though people are trying to take a path as not being a part of mass deception, it’s difficult. Additionally we discussed how Adorno felt concerning going to the movies, the fear of being amused by the same jokes as others, becoming a part of the same social body.

Theme 2: Critical Media Studies

1. What is Enlightenment? 

The definition of Enlightenment is explained according to Adorno and Horkheimer as a dominant authority over persons and objects. Throughout the text they argue for the fact that this authority could be compared as a relationship presentable as dictatorship over humans. They give the example: "The man of science know s things to the extent that he can make them" - which shows that the ideology to master a specific art to the extent where people try to gather enough information to master nature, which is extensively explained as something unknown - something that is fearful. In a sense, this could be narrowed down to how humans want the role of what "a God" is said to have. They also present the fact that calculability and utility is a form of presenting this "knowledge of power", and emphasizes that the weakness lies within the things, who can not be supported by these certain standards, should always be viewed with doubt. Mentioning that for Enlightenment thinkers everything is an illusion if not being able to be solved by numbers. This type of "mastering" could be reflected in the way that we should doubt facts until we are able to prove the opposite, and also the ability to defeat restrictions and uncertainties. My mind strikes towards the bing bang and the discussion between believers vs. scientists, God vs. science - that also could be defined as Myths vs. Enlightenment.

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

A "myth" is the form of presenting an unexplainable subject, a description of phenomena, which people might fear and in this way reduce the feeling and gather control of lacking power over the unknown. The fear over the unknown is present in both Enlightenment and Myths and both of these terms provide solutions towards the actual fear. They differ in the way that Myths contribute an answer as a belief. The function of Myth is explained according to Adorna and Horkheimer as a way to report, name and tell of origins and also narrate, record and explain. 


3. What are "old" and "new" media that are discussed in the Dialectic of Enlightenment?

Adorno and Horkheimer do not specify certain "new" and "old" media. They mention in the chapter "The concept of Enlightenment" different types of media while discussing Technology as the essence of knowledge and describe these as following; the radio as a sublimated printing press, the dive bomber as a more effective form of artillery, remote control as a more reliable compass. Other media that are discussed in the book are A and B-films, different stories in magazines and radio, which could be categorized as "new media" where capitalistic thoughts are present at all time. While old media - is more an artistic movement than focused on a capitalistic profit.
4. What is the meant by "culture industry"? 

The description of culture industry is an industry that provides culture, as for example media, towards society. These industries have certain standardization in the extent to feed the population with "must haves" in a manipulative way to create passivity through mass consumption. Adorno and Horkheimer highlights that this type of industry creates psychological needs that encourage consumption to gain a capitalistic profit. Active and personalized thinking about what is really of significant meaning for consumers is neglected through this type of industry.

5. What is the relationship between mass media and "mass deception", according to Adorna & Horkheimer?

The relationship is to generate a demand in society, by using mass media and in that way create mass deception. This type of deception contributes the capitalistic structure by forcing people to shape their thoughts of consuming into a narrow mindset.  

6. Please identify one or two concepts/terms that you find particulary interesting. Motivate your choice.

Who decides these certain standardizations and what is it behind the structure of the mass feeding? I feel that the industrialization of mass media is an attention-grabbing subject and even though Adorna & Horkheimer wrote the book in 1940 it is a tremendously relevant topic even now – 70 years later. While reading the chapter it immediately made me think that their influence is based on Marxism and politics are an underlining part to their work. By creating a desire through this type of propaganda and must-have feeding the businesses that are included to the culture industry get the power to control people as marionette dolls – directing people in a certain course. The social control can be compared to gaming – where cultural industry are the players in front of the screen and the people are the characters who have predetermined options, rules and restrictions.