Comments by Johan Weinl

Comment on Adam Roséns: Theme 2: Critical Media Studies the 21 november 2013 03:14

You mention that you don´t agree whit the point concerning how bad new media is for the mankind.

I think that his text is very critical to all kinds of media, and I agree a little bit whit you. But if you look at a mor wider perspective, isn't there any part of new that can be bad for society?

Comment on Torbjörn Axelssons: Evaluating and reflecting upon Theme 2 the 21 november 2013 12:28 

I agree whit you when you say that this is something that you can apply to ourself. I think that I at sometimes have spoken about certain fact witch I know isn't 100% true. Do you think that it is good to have these knowledge? It could end up whit that no one trusts each others facts.

Comment on Torbjörn Axelssons: Theme 3: Research and Theory the 26 november 2013 15:29

You say that: 

"the more variables you introduce in a scientific method or theory, the more depth and deeper insights could be achieved".

When you say variables, I am thinking about different aspect of political views. Is this what you mean by it?

Comment on Adam Roséns: Theme 3: Research and Theory the 26 november 2013 06:24

You write that:

"Facebook only been launched for two years when the observations from Lewis et al. started in 2006, hadn't much previous studies on Facebook users been done before"

Don't you think that most of the theories basted on gathered data comes from major analyses?

Comment on Adam Roséns:  Theme 5: Design Research the 11 december 2013 01:36

Hi Adam!
I actually agree a bit with your conclusion about the paper on the vibrating phone on soccer-games when you say that only a small part of the paper was relating the human aspect. 
This was however a pretty straight forward technical paper, compared to other more "fussier" papers that tents to be about how humans work. 
I actually liked this paper because of that reson, but as I said above, it would be nice to have a more human aspect of the problem, so what would you write about without making the paper less fussier?

Comment on Adam Roséns: Theme 6: Qualitative and Case Study Research the18 december 2013 02:09

Hi Adam!

Very interesting topic about cyber--bullying. I personally believe that cyber-bullying or bullying in general is one of the worst health problem in western society and I insist that this is something that needs to be stopped!

That´s what concerns me about the text as you describe it. The author seems to only say what actually is going on in the cyber-world and doesn't seem to have an answer for how to stop it.

Do you have any answers for how to stop it after you´ve read this text?

Comment on Torbjörn Axelssons:  Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research 18 december 2013 13:04

You write:
"A problem with the method is this particular uncertainty - that they did not state in more detail how they formatted and conducted their focus groups and interviews. The results they extract therefore receives an image of quite arbitrary data, which is unfortunate".
This I agree with, it doesn't give out any information about in what environment the interviews was conducted in and how it could effect the results.
Do you think that because of this, it would have had a different outcome in the results

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research post

This week has been about Qualitative research and about case studies.
I have had some experience with this topic, because we mainly used these metodes during our bachelor thesis. It is a good way to get information about a very specific topic from people that could have a lot of experiences of that particular topic. This could also be a problem and that is the most important things that I've learned during this week.

Case-studies gives, as I said above "information about a very specific topic from people that could have a lot of experiences of that particular topic". The main problem with this is that you exclude the rest of the people and in some certainties it could be bad. I don't have any real example of these kinds of situations, but one imaginary idea could be this: The government decides to build a new highway and qualitative studies are conducted with experts using a case study. The expert then gives a conclusion of where and how the highway should be built, and everybody is happy. By only doing this, you miss out the rest of the population. Although, the rest of the people, that doesn't counts as experts, aren't getting anything said themselves about this proposition.      

This problem is something I believe that everyone must be aware of when conducting a case study. It needs to be compared with other test results so that the overall conclusion can be determinated.

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

This week I've been focusing about the media technology that regards cameras and the science of health. I've chosen an article that's called Low-cost compact cameras: a medical application in CMT disease monitoring by Albert K Chong and it has an impact factor of 1.44. In this research-paper Chong is making a qualitative research about a disease which is called Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease (CMT) that is a “genetically and clinically heterogeneous group of inherited disorders of the peripheral nervous system characterised by progressive loss of muscle tissue and touch sensation across various parts of the body” (Wikipedia). This disease often starts in a persons foot. What basically happens is that the muscle starts to shrink (and thereby the foot) and it could spread to the rest of the body. What Chong is trying to investigate is that if low-cost compact cameras could help to predict if a person has the CMT disease. The measurements needs to be very precise in order to determine if the person in question has the CMT disease. This makes this a qualitative research and that's why i chose it.

Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
The methods that are used in this paper is a mechanical technique. By this I mean gathering a lot of very precise data, and then make a conclusion based on mathematical statistics. The benefits using this method is that you get a very accurate data, and in terms of a medical condition, getting accurate data is crucial in order to determine a disease. The only limitation with this method that I can come up with is that it is a very time-consuming way of a very accurate measure. This is just i hypophysis, but if there is a disease out there that could be detected the same way as above (by making some measurements of the body), and time is a very important key, this could pose a problem for the patient.

What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?

This paper has described how measurements were made in this experiment. I can not say that I am sure that this is the same for all qualitative methods there is. What I can say though is what i’ve learned that in order to make this qualitative measure you need to be very precise making these measurements in order to make a realistic conclusion..

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

There aren't actually many methodological problems in this paper I think. There are good ways of how the measurements are being made, and the author makes it very clear that in this experiment, the test results need to be at a very precise level because of the human health that is involved. One thing that I can point out, as I said above is that this technique is a bit to time-consuming to make this, so far an appropriate choice in modern hospital.   

Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.

A case Study is a research method that aims to provide in-depth knowledge of the investigating. The characteristics of the case study is that it focuses on a phenomenon that is often difficult to distinguish from the phenomenon's context. Often the focus is on a single (or few) cases, which it then examines the "deep" to get more detailed knowledge than what you can get at such a survey study. The case study method can be used both in the social sciences and the natural sciences, the main difference between them is the way to measure various parameters and variables. The case study occurs mostly within the social sciences.

Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.

        

The paper that I’ve chosen is called ‘’Expert Search for Radio and Television: a Case Study

amongst Dutch Broadcast Professionals’’ by Wietske van den Heuvel and this paper reports the results of a qualitative case study amongst eight Dutch broadcast professionals who frequently use the online search system of The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The study is also based on the assumption that the task affects the search strategy. Different test subjects are observed and interviewed while following a scenario with tasks designed around different factors.

The result of this paper shows that the task does not affect the search strategies of the test persons and that the search strategies differs between test persons, not between tasks.

After reading the text Building Theories from Case Study Research by Eisenhardt, K. M. I. realized that it isn't an easy task to take a case study and then try to make a good theory or conclusion.  Eisenhardt, K. M. writes:

“the intensive use of empirical evidence can yield theory which is overly complex” and in the case above with Heuvel W. V. D. this is the complete opposite according to me. The case study that is being done consist of only eight different broadcast professions. By combining this sentence and the conclusion i would say could be mixed into the phrase: “the unintensive use of empirical evidence can yield theory which is underlie complex”, so in this case the Selecting cases is according to me the “Selecting Cases” and “Analyzing Data” has the most weakness in this paper.

One part that I felt was better than I suspected, was that the author used a lot of different categories of people, and by different categories I mean different work duties, people with different education, ages experiences etcetera(chapter 4.2). I didn't actually found anything in the text by Eisenhardt, K. M. I. that had this example as a strength, but the closest I believe that it would relate to is “Crafting Instruments and Protocols” and “Entering the Field”.

Theme 5: Design research post

The last weeks theme has been about design research.
I had a hard time in the beginning to relate the two papers that we got. One was about dressing out toys and one was a bit mor technical complicated to understand. I did not see what was sort of binding them together.
Now however after some lectures and aftermath I have gotten a better clue, but still not to a hundred procent i believe. The design concept i believe is a pretty complex subject witch can be applied on many subjects in the reality.
I liked the text from Haibo Li. et al a lot. I was a bit technical but I think the text was pretty straight forward witch made is a lot easier to read. The second text from Ylva Ferneaus was a bit more fuzzy to me. Some parts of the text was very interesting but a lot of the text was focusing on the a subject that wasn't related to technology witch made it more hard to understand.
The things that I've actually learned this week is how prototypes should work and when in the designprocess i could be good to have a focus-group testing a prototype. It's still hard I think to actually say exactly when a prototype should be tested, but it has given me a knowledge aboud the limitations or benefits what happens if you test a prototype to early or to soon.

Theme 5: Design research

 Reflect on the key points and what you learnt by reading the text

This text gave me insight about what actually i happening in our technology-society right now. If you just are into buying a simple laptop, there are a lot of design-proposals that you can choose from. If you just look at the two major computer-companies (apple and windows) you could reflect on the choice that everyone makes when buying one of these computers. Assuming that the person isn't depended on money when buying a computer, than I believe that the choice that is made is most relevant to the design. If the person isn't interested in the actual technological aspects of the software or brand that is in a computer, the design in this case it could refer to the actual look of the computer, usability or what typ of experience the person has using a computer or a software.  
I would say that the things that I've learned is that I will bring the insight i got reading this text when I in the future are going to buy a certain product.   
The question that I would ask is, does this type of design affects the way the different gender could be a problem. For instans a racer-blade is the exact same technology, but the product is directed to both men and women, could this be a problem for society regarded the design?

2. What role will prototypes play in research?

I believe that prototypes will have a very huge role in research, especially if it is a reachers that has the aim of creating a new product. To create a product the researchers should in an early stage test this product at a pretty early stage. This is because a field-study, with a large variety of people with different ways of living gives an early message to those that are researching within this project if something needs to be changed in the design. 

3. Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?

A proof of concept prototyp is, according to wikipedia "a realization of a certain method or idea to demonstrate its feasibility", and I think that the answer lies just there. To further develop a prototyp who's technology is relatively new, you need to make sure that this technique actually works in full scale. I however I believe that the proof of concept prototype doesn't need to be tested as large on some technology that already exist.   

4. What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?

I think that the characteristics are the limitations. If you have a focus group thats testing the prototype the prototype won't actually be finished when tests are done. This is i believe the limitation but it is also the purpose of a prototype. This is something that I believe will distract the test-grope so instead of focusing on the actual product that will be finished, the test-group will put lots of focus on whats not there.  

Theme 4: Quantitative research - post

This week has been about quantitative measures and how to properly analyzing it. If you compare this chapter to the previous that was about theory, I think that this area was much easier to actually understand. One question that made me confused last week was "what theory is and isn't". In this case just looking at quantity it is much easier to say what a quantitative research is and isn't.

The things that I've learned, which I also has mentioned on my pre-post, is that it is a huge differens making a quantitative reachers that involves the human factor. It is a much more complex test-subject rather than something else that will behave more or less according to statistics, for example a machine of some sort.  

Theme 4: Quantitative research

The research paper that I've chosen is called "An experimental procedure to obtain sound power level of tire/road noise under Coast-By conditions (C. Davo et. al)".

It has an impact factor of 1.097. 
The aim of the research was to test how much sound power that was generated from the interaction between the tires and the road due to the speed of the vehicle.

1. Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

The test was carried out by multiple testing of the different speeds. The paper doesn't actually mention exact numbers for how many times the tests were conducted, it only says "The test was carried out multiple times..". The benefit of this quantitative test is that the mean average error will decrease. The limitation in this test is much harder to answer. If you think about it, the test is just concluded one car in a controlled environment (sort of) that does the exact same motion, so I don't really see a downside using multiple testing in this case. 

2. What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?

This test differs from other tests where for example humans are involved, due to the fact that the human is much more complex than a machine. Due to this I think that the data that comes out from multiple testing of a machine can be considered as much more accurate than a compiled survey. 
I believe that you can, based on a specific test, be pretty sure whats gonna happen if you have quantitative data. For instants, a car whit a certain weight, speed and tires. It will probably have the same result as if you only look at the quantitative measures that someone else did. If you however asks a person, that you don't know at all a specific question I would say that it is nearly impossible to predict the answer. So the tings that I've learned is that you can make better conclusions if the human factor is ignored. 

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

The overall methodological in this research-paper is I think very well completed. The authors are well aware of the measuring-techniques. they use multiple microphones at different locations, and they also take the microphones frequency-response into account. Due to this, the real sound-power at specific frequencies can be calculated, instead of just measured.  
There was only one methodological problem that I saw. The title of the research is "..tire/road noise.." but the authors only measures one tire-type at one road-type. They could instead increased the numbers of both tiers and road conditions to get more quantitative data. The authors has only given a mathematical formula for both road and tire and given out a prediction of the sound-power. This is however a factor that has been criticized by the authors themselves. 

Physical activity, stress, and self-reported upper respiratory tract infection

This paper is a study concluded by different people within different areas of expertise. It is a 
study that has the aim of finding the relationship between, perceived stress, physical activity and the occurrence of self-reported URTI (Upper respiratory tract infection). The test was conducted by population-based prospective cohort study of 1509 persons. The test persons was to report physical activity and incidence of URTI. The conclusions was that high physical activity was associated with lower risk of contracting URTI.


4. Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

One benefit could be that with quantitative method is, as I described above that you gather a lot of data which make the average error lower. This is a perfect way of gathering data if you are dealing with something less complex. In this paper, the persons was measured according to a scale called MET witch is a physiological measure expressing the energy cost of physical activities. so in this case it gives a pretty good result. It is however limit in the case to get a good average result if you are dealing with more complex questions, like people.  

5. Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

The benefit with the qualitative methods are almost the exact opposite as I described above. It is a much better method to use when you'r dealing with more complex test-objects, humans for instance. By making a more qualitative questionnaire face to face with the person in question, you would more likely get a more accurate result compared by an easy survey. The limitation however with this method is that it is very time-consuming and sometimes it takes a long time to get a result. If you however don't have time to wait you would need to hire people and it would be cost-full.       

  

Theme 3: Research and theory (post)

This theme has been for me pretty hard to actually understand. I was in the beginning aware that there were lots of different ways how to for example to gather some data or fact about a specific topic that was going to be written a journal. And by this I make the distinction between the practical points and the theory points. I however did not know that there were different ways of marking out different types of theories.
The text that we read tried in a way to explain what was and what theory wasn't. I had a hard time actually understanding Sutton's text, because I think explain what something isn't, is pretty confusing to me. Therefore, Gregor's text was a lot easier to understand.
The things that I have learned isn't so staggering. The major things that I´ve learned is just that there are different kinds of theories that you can apply at different text and research.
 

Theme 3: Research and theory

The journal that I’ve read is called “Journalism and theory of journalism: Contradiction of interaction”. The journal is “focused on complex problems which characterise relationships between modern theory and practice of journalism. Special attention is paid to situation in the Russian media community. After the crash of the Soviet political system domestic press has lost former methodological base. It started to develop spontaneously by empirical ways. In these conditions the ideas of a denying any theory appeared, in different forms and variations.”
The journal can be found on page 123 on this link: http://www.scientific-publications.net/download/media-and-mass-communication-2012.pdf

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

To understand what theory is and what theory isn't, we need to look at the word theory. Theory comes from the greek word “theoria” meaning viewing or beholding something. Many would say that the opposite to theory is practice, meaning doing from the greek praxis. So, just by looking at the word definitions, theory means that you observe and “not theory” means doing.
One other way to look at theory and “not theory” is by looking at innovation in different areas. for instance Darwin went around the earth and found and named species. This work that he did was mostly based on practise, but then later in order to categorize the different species, theory could have been used.    
The ultimate way for best result is then to have skills in both areas of theory and “not theory”.

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?

in the journal that I have chosen, he talks about the difference between “journalism and theory”. The major theory type that he uses in his paper is Analyse theory. Since they are doing the research on gathered data, most of the context in this journal is by analysing this data and trying to make conclusions.

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

The benefit of using theories is that you don't really lose any “thoughts” or information. This is similar as what we talked about during the seminar. We mentioned for instance that newspaper (we assumed) says the truth about fact (many political issues), but it doesn't necessarily need to be the entire truth. It could be the same with only selected theories. The selected theories that are mentioned could be true, but it doesn't says all of the theoretical knowledge. I don’t really have any example of that, but if anyone has, please share it with me on the comments.
The limitations of using all you will kind of be sucked into much reading and eventually start getting confused about what you really are reading. I have an example of that, and that is a common math course here at RIT. In the beginning, after some selected new theories, you are still able to keeping up with everything. But after a while, when all theories has been teached, you start having problem understanding.   

Theme 2: Critical media studies

1. What is Enlightenment?

Enlightenment is a movement that wanted to get rid of all the myths that exist in society and instead replacing it with knowledge and science. Many people bases their ideas on experience , traditions and superstition etc. and the enlightenment movement thinks that the ideas should be based on knowledge based on science. In the Enlightenment the human is believed to be “the master of nature”.

2. What is the meaning and function of “myth” in Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument?

Myth is a tradition that has emerged from the beginning of mankind and it is a response to mystery and tends to serve as an explanatory solution to enigmas and unexplained phenomena. H&A describes myth as synonymous to false clarity and that it seeks to explain phenomena, just like enlightenment, and is in that sense quite similar.

“Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology.”

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

Couldn't really find any answer to the (old) part of the question question, but i think that  radio is a (new) version of the printing press. The TV is described as something very close to radio and film.

4 What is meant by “culture industry”?

The cultural industry is, for me, a way for the media to introduce a sort of a third party. There is so much power in this, the TV / Radio broadcasts everything in one direction, so the listener has no possibility of answering, and many listens blankly at what is being said. It can, at worst, become a kind of propaganda machine if things go badly

5. What is the relationship between mass media and “mass deception”, according to Adorno and Horkheimer?

I think this is a merger between question one, three and four. In the fourth question, we talk a lot about the media as a kind of propaganda machine, that is, if a news company gives out scary facts about any business or similar. However, it is important that these new companies follow enlightenment, otherwise possibly false revolted occur, named in question three and four.

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

Actually, I thought this book, was pretty uninteresting to read and due to the fact that we didn't had any lectures or seminars this week. I did however found the questions interesting to analyze based on the text, mainly the question about why people dent to speak of fact where there isn't really any fact and reflect over that. When i read these question I thought to myself that I  actually does it myself.

Theme 1: Theory of science

1. What does Russell mean by "sense data" and why does he introduce this notion?

In the beginning in chapter one, Russell describes the sense data as “things that are immediately known in sensation”. It could be things such as color, a smell or a specific feeling that are known to us.

He explains the sense data and compares it with a physical object. Even if two,or more, persons sees an object, for instance a brown cube, these people will see the same physical object, but receive two different sense data.

2. What is the meaning of the terms "proposition" and "statement of fact"? How does propositions and statement of facts differ from other kinds of verbal expressions?

The proposition means that somethings are explained by a person based on some facts but also much on the person's experience or knowledge. This is always common when people try to explain some facts with own words. A statement of fact however is just what it is called, a statement of fact without any own additional words.    

In chapter 5 ("Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description") Russell introduces the notion "definite description". What does this notion mean?

That means you only need to be aware of the sense data of an object, a place you are at, or anything about a certain person. With a "Definite description", you mean a word or a phrase that in any way describes one of these three things.

In chapter 13 ("Knowledge, Error and Probable Opinion") and in chapter 14 ("The Limits of Philosophical Knowledge") Russell attacks traditional problems in theory of knowledge (epistemology). What are the main points in Russell's presentation?

Russell believes that true faith is the same as knowledge. Russell also says that all the knowledge we have about the truth always contains a certain amount of doubt. Therefore, one can question whether it really can be no real knowledge of any kind, or only a belief in true knowledge.