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.