Last post of the course

You should write a 1000 word commentary in which you reflect about different ways of combining different methods in order to answer complex research questions.

The course began with a deep dive into a more philosophical approach to reflecting about knowledge – something that was new to me, and not necessarily something that was easy to grasp. However, it did add a new layer of thinking for me, and I gained insight into how to reflect upon the world around us, and especially knowledge. Many times in an engineering education, the answers are black or white – right or wrong (take for example math, given a specific equation there is a right answer and many wrong answers). This course opened up a new way of thinking, what is right and what is wrong – is there such a thing, can we objectively say that anything is right?  Our a posteriori knowledge is something that must be examined in order to understand how we reflect on certain questions – and other people who do not share that knowledge must gain a larger understanding of what you are presenting, in order to understand.

The course continued with more philosophical questions such as enlightenment, dialectic discussions and nominalism. This was also something that can be applied to just about anything and is an important aspect to bring with you when trying to contribute to the human pool of knowledge.

I would say that after the above, the course became more and more relatable over the last few weeks. Discussing theory, quantitative research, qualitative research, design and case studies were all more tangible for an engineering student than the philosophical questions that began the course. Since most (if not all) who read this course have written a bachelor’s thesis, we had previous experience in these fields, which I felt was applicable when reading about the texts prior to the seminars.

However, with the above being said, and the extremely interesting aspects of this entire course – it is not until you can combine all 6 seminars that you truly have an understanding of how you as an individual can contribute to knowledge by answering complex research questions. By first having a grasp of the philosophical aspects, and actually asking yourself what knowledge you want to contribute with, how yourself will be colored by your life experience, and how to avoid nuancing your research given the lens you view the world with.  Ask yourself question such as “Do I have any previous experience of this subject, and how will that affect my approach to this question?” or “What exactly am I trying to contribute here, and how should I best approach the problem?”. When you have answers to the above, you can apply the second half of the course – trying to come up with new theories of different aspects of life by using either qualitative or quantitative methods (or maybe even a mix of both). There are many methods which can be applied to solving the hypothesis you have, for example using quantitative measurements (raw data put into a context), qualitative measurements (interviews, participant overviews, focus groups and so on).

Continuing on how to answer the research questions – once you have all of the tools given to you, and you have been defining the question and the method to use in order to best achieve the answer, the next step is to “get your hands dirty” and get to work. Define what you are trying to answer (by using a more philosophical approach to knowledge and a priori/a posteriori knowledge), start looking at which methods to combine in order to best answer the question (quantitative measurements? Qualitative? Design research? Case studies? A combination of them?). It is important for the researcher to know that there might not be a right answer on which path to take, but having all of the tools in your arsenal will help you choose the path which best fulfills your needs – every research question will have a different approach to how to answer it. A subject that has been brought up by me and my course mates has been that of objectivity versus subjectivity – and the impossible task of being entirely objective when conducting research. And to me, it is quite clear that it is impossible to be 100% objective – but due to the philosophical part of this course, and what true knowledge might be (and might not be), you have a better understanding of how to become more objective. And from a reader perspective, knowing that every paper out there is not entirely objective is also important to know – and use that knowledge to take the core of the paper with a grain of salt, and form your own opinion of what is being presented.

I think another very important part of this course is the entire structure of first reading texts, followed by a lecture, then a seminar and finally a follow-up post. The structure ensured that we view the week’s content at hand through many different aspects – and we were given the chance to first gain our own perspective of the literature, followed by gaining insight into how other students and teachers viewed it. By combining all of these perspectives, you had a better opportunity of defining how you want to view it yourself.

I want to wrap up with the point that I have been trying to get across through this post – which is that there is no “one size fits all” approach to how to answer the complex research questions you form. And there will never objectively be a correct way of answering one, but with that in mind, you have the possibility to use different approaches to answering them and create your own combination of what the best suitable approach might be. A course like this one has opened my eyes to different perspectives I had never thought about previously, and it is exactly that types of perspectives that is essential in answering research questions – the knowledge of all of these different approaches. 

Post theme 6.

This week was interesting, as case studies were somewhat new to me. The first part of this weeks seminar regarding qualitative measurements was something that to most was something familiar – as was the case for me. Before the seminar, I wondered quite a bit regarding the fact that I had such a hard time finding a qualitative study in one of the few journals I was looking at. During the seminar, I brought up that point, and Ilias had quite an interesting view of how different “schools” of journals have different approaches for which type of measurement should be used. For example, some journals might be of the viewpoint that qualitative measurements far outweigh quantitative – whereas another, similar journal, might have the exact opposite view. This was very interesting to me, and something I had not really considered before the seminar. It’s also a very important aspect to have in mind when reading looking for specific papers regarding a subject – that depending on the journal you are reading through; you might find completely different approaches to how to find the “correct” answer. That is something that I will definitely have in the back of my mind when conducting my master’s thesis, in order to find the most appropriate papers related to what I am writing.

The second subject of this week, case studies, were new to me – and made for a very interesting reading and learning experience. The fact that case studies are in a specific context helps you gain a better understanding of how people act/behave – and they can be crucial for understanding human behavior. For example, case studies when it comes to horrific events such as war or natural disasters can help us gain important information on how to act and relay information in case of those events. This in hand can be of substantial help when preparing for those events – knowing how humans will behave or act, so that the government or other organizations can help. When it comes to media technology, case studies can be crucial in understanding how different mediums are used based on the context. One example that I can think of is how humans use different platforms (mobile, desktop, laptop) depending on the time of day – and because of that, news sources can adapt the content throughout the day to their readers. The reason for this knowledge might very well be case studies on how tablets/phones etc. are used throughout the day.

An interesting discussion during the seminar was how the word “case” in case studies relates to how it is often used in an educational/business environment – and how they differentiate. In the educational/business environment, case normally refers to a specific situation (such as how Spotify grew its user base during a specific time, or how the iPad was a huge success) – which is quite different from how the word is used in the case study subject. It’s important to differentiate the two, to avoid misconceptions of what you are communicating. 

 Post theme 5.

This week’s seminar was regarding Design Research, which to me was a quite new subject – something I found to be very interesting. The assigned articles for the week were of experiments where design research was used as the way to achieve a result. One of the primary questions of the week – “What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?” was to me quite hard to answer, simply because I had no previous experience, I thought of all of the data being taken into consideration when designing these processes to be the empirical data. I still hold true to that opinion, but I would like to expand it to also include all of the data that is documented when doing these experiments, as well as the prototypes, cases and so on which are all essential to design research. Another aspect which I now understand better is one of the key differences between design research and design in general. When designing a new product, whatever it is, the key focus is always to try to optimize the product in some sense (usability, looks, performance) and so on – which in most cases is done entirely to get a better product, which results in a greater chance of it being bought (increasing revenue). Design research on the other hand, I would argue, is more focused on discovering behaviors, attitudes, trends etc. when it comes to different topics – which can then be used to actually optimize the process itself.

One of the key similarities between the above mentioned topics, I would argue, is that context is essential – and that it might be impossible to replicate a design research. What I mean with this is the fact that the artifacts which are being looked at are bound by a specific substructure and superstructure which is always subject to change. And if either the substructure or superstructure changes, the results of an identical (method-wise) design research are subject to change – and therefor might not be replicable.

The above is also a reason that I am eager to change my mind regarding if design research can be looked at as knowledge contribution. I hold true to my statement that design research CAN be seen as design research, but it has to be clear that the knowledge contributed is bound by time and the artifacts. The knowledge gathered today is something that can change in the future, and the knowledge gathered years ago has a good chance to be outdated today – however, the results of design research do in fact answer where our knowledge is at today, at this given time. However, a key aspect is that you can always try to replicate the outcome of a study by changing the means, and the process. However, I think that one of the difficulties of design research is that there are an endless amount of ways to approach a design research, and it is impossible to objectively answer which one is better. You can always strive to optimize a process, but you can never objectively answer if you are “correct” or not.

To me, this week was very interesting as it brought up a new subject for me – which I say can contribute to my future research where it is applicable.

Theme 6 - Qualitative and case study research

For this week’s topic, I had a hard time finding a qualitative research paper, which was rater surprising for me. I looked through around 20-30 articles in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and quickly glanced at the method to understand how it had been conducted. From my experience, papers have a mix between quantitative and qualitative, but to my surprise – almost all of them were purely quantitative.

I ended up taking one of the articles from the list of examples provided by the course administrator and took the one called “Connected scholars: Examining the role of social media in research practices of faculty using the UTAUT model”, published in Computers in Human Behavior, which has an impact factor of 2.880. The reason I chose this article was due to the fact that they stated the following:

“The study is based on the content analysis of 51 semi-structured interviews of scholars in the Information Science and Technology field.”

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

As I mentioned above, the reason for choosing this article was due to the fact that they conducted semi-structured interviews, which is something which I did when performing my bachelor’s degree. Semi-conducted interviews are interviews which have somewhat “loose” questions, which the people being interviewed have to fill in the blanks. The reason for this is to not supply the interviewees with the answers – rather you try to point them in a train of thought, which they have to answer themselves. From doing some research of my own, this is a good way of getting specific information about a subject without steering the answers yourself. You get a broader understanding of a specific question for the target audience of the article – in this case the scholars. A limitation which might be applicable to this method is the fact that you only have a limited amount of data to work with, for a specific target audience – which means you can’t draw general conclusions.

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

Apart from learning more about the usage of semi-structured interviews, and how they actually took place in public – I learnt a lot about how to interpret the results of the interviews. To me, it was quite difficult to draw conclusions based on interviews, since these were individual’s opinions. However, in this article they use individual quotes to categorize answers – using the individual ones as a description of a general consensus, which to me was rather surprising.

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

I would say that the largest improvement-area is the lack of data. This specific paper had approximately 50 people who were interviewed. One idea might be to use a quantitative measurement, for example a survey, to a larger audience and use the interviews to answer the result of the survey. The second limitation was the fact that a lot of the people who were interviewed were at a specific conference – so the target audience was quite niched.

Case study.

The paper I chose to work with for the case study half of this week is called "The tweets that killed a university: A case study investigating theuse of traditional and social media in the closure of a state university". Published in the journal Computes in Human behavior (2.880 impact factor).

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

A case study is a way to research a specific study using pre-defined cases, and using these specific cases to gather and analyze data. The main benefit of using case studies is the fact that you get to place the subjects in a “real” context. These contexts may be a specific case, a subject, a situation etc (people, places, events). Cases are used when it is hard to differentiate a context without placing the subjects directly into it. Case studies are good when trying to come up to an answer for a specific question, but cannot be used in a general sense.

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.

I found it quite hard to use the process of building the case study hard to follow, as the article might not have had all the individual steps in the method. They analyzed the data and then went on to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. I do think that Eisenhardts table is an extremely good ground to build a case study on, but it has to be adapted to your specific subject, which might require some tweaking.

Post theme 4.

Sadly, there was no seminar this week to have discussions regarding the subjects which were at hand. With that said, it did feel like a seminar which was a lot easier to grasp than the previous ones. The reason for this being that both quantitative and qualitative research is something that students who are currently studying a master’s program has already undergone a bachelor’s degree – in which we wrote a thesis. When conducting our bachelor’s theses, we read some information regarding both of these subjects – so it was more tangible.

Without a seminar, it has been hard to have discussions regarding the subject – but I have tried discussing it with people who read the course last year to get some more insight into the area. And one of the recurring subjects has been how quantitative data is extremely hard to deal with in an objective meaning. No matter which pool of data you have, it is next to impossible to be completely objective about it, and put it into the exact context in which it belongs. One way of doing this is categorizing the data into different groups. An example could be that different answers would be categorized to “Positive”, “Negative” or “Neutral” depending on the type of data which was given. However, this is also a thin life to walk, and in the end these categorizations might come down personal interpretations – which might not be objective.

Because of the above, I have reflected about the fact that there might never be a completely objective approach to a problem, and in the end it all comes down to how the researchers decide to approach a problem and a data source. If researchers were to put an entire paper into context and be completely objective, it might need an entire book just to describe every single aspect of the context – which is absolutely impossible to achieve. So, as a reader of different papers it is always important to have your own critique of what is written and try to do your own analysis to find which “pit falls” might have been present when conducting the research.

I also think that the above highlights the fact that it is always important to use qualitative methods as well as quantitative – to try to reach one step closer to an objective answer. 

Theme 5 - Design research

What is the 'empirical data' in these two papers?

To me, it was quite hard to distinguish the empirical data which was used in these studies. The reason for it to be hard is the fact that design research is not in itself a way of using quantitative measurements to help defining a phenomenon – instead, design research is a process which in no way has a “correct approach”. Rather, design research is a long process with an infinite number of different solutions for a problem, and it is an extensively iterative process in which you contantly strive towards finding a “better” answer, rather than the “correct” answer. There are several variables (which some are known, and others are not) – so it is impossible to put all of these variables into perspective. Rather, design research is about being creative and constantly being able to adapt to the situation depending on the results of your research.

With that said, I would argue that the empirical data which was used in these articles are these iterations and variables which have been used when conducting the concepts. The physical actions of the kids which lead up to the result. Also, interviews which were conducted might be seen as empirical data.

Can practical design work in itself be considered a 'knowledge contribution'?

I would definitely say that design work can be consired to be a knowledge contribution – however, not in the same sense as quantitative and qualitative research. Design work has to be put into a context in order to understand it as knowledge contribution. If researching how to optimize or use a specific gadget or artifact, it is important to understand the technological limits which are in the context, and what alternatives are out there. What I mean by this is the fact that design research of a specific area will change over time, and the answer which one article might find can be completely changed if a new artifact is developed and put onto the market.

An example would be how the concept of designing a map has changed over time. 30 years ago, designing a map for a specific target audience will use the artifacts of that time (paper most likely). However, if asking the same question today – one might find that using a product with a GPS, such as a Garmin GPS device or a smartphone would be the ideal creation. Both of these research designs are “knowledge contributions” of that time.

This means that it is not general knowledge contributions which are not bound by time.

Are there any differences in design intentions within a research project, compared to design in general?

I would say that designing for research purposes is more centered about gaining a type of knowledge about an issue, it is in a sense a visualization of a problem in order to understand it and “fix” it. Design research is rather a way to look at a design process and how it can be altered to optimize a design process.

Design in general is a quite loose term which can be interpreted in many different ways. Design can be everything from designing a product to fulfil a need on the market – for example making a product more appealing to the eye, to making a product useable under a specific condition etc.

It is a way of optimizing a product and not a process. I would say that in general, design in general does not contribute to knowledge – whereas design research does.

Is research in tech domains such as these ever replicable? How may we account for aspects such as time/historical setting, skills of the designers, available tools, etc?

See my answer of how it can be considered a knowledge contribution. I would say that there is no real way to account for it rather than acknowledging it and putting it into context.

Are there any important differences with design driven research compared to other research practices?

I would say that design driven research is about finding solutions in how to optimize solutions for a given problem. There is no correct answer on how to solve a specific problem, but it can always be optimized a little bit further – and one could say that “solving” a problem is about finding a “better” solution than the current one. The solution will be for a specific problem which cannot be generalized and used for other problems (unless they are very similar, and using the same logic).

Post theme 3. 

This week’s seminar had a lot of focus on finding a paper from a research journal with an impact factor with a rating above 1.0. Prior to the week, I had no idea what this concept was, which I now know that it is a measurement of the average citations of the papers which it includes.

Before this week’s literature, theory was synonymous to hypotheses for me, and the way which the word is used in everyday speech such as “I have a theory about this or that” was the actual meaning of the word. However, after the seminars I have a much better understanding of what theory actually is – and how it is actually empirically based models to explain a phenomenon. What I find quite interesting however is that they are only models, and a theory might over time get replaced by another one. What I mean by this is the fact that a well-renowned theory can never be proven to be fact, and over time (it might be after 10 years, or even 100 years) – another theory starts emerging, which is another model to explain the same phenomenon. And when this new theory emerges, the first one might slowly dissipate as it is proven to not be correct. What is fascinating about this is that theory can never be proven, it can only be disproven – and a theory about a phenomenon will only ever be the “leading” theory, and never the “correct” theory.

During the seminar, me and my group had a very interesting discussion about the 5 categorizations of a theory. We all had a hard time drawing clear distinctions between the different types – for example, what is the difference between an analysis and an explanation? What is the difference between explanation and prediction in comparison to design and action? Our discussion was centered about that all of these might not be clear cut, and they overlap quite a bit. A paper can analyze a phenomenon while trying to explain it (but might not be a clear enough explanation to be categorized as one).  This led me to understand (with the help of my seminar group), that my paper was not only an analysis – but by analyzing the trends, they do in fact have an element of prediction of how news outlets can use the trends described in the article to anticipate how the future might look.

Another thing I learnt during the seminar is that the different categories of a theory are not within a hierarchy. I thought that, for example, prediction is better than an analysis – because it goes “deeper” into the subject at hand. Depending on what you seek to answer with your article, the different categories are all different approaches to find the answer. So, I would say that when starting out with writing an article, you have to decide what type of a theory you want to develop, and use an approach suitable for it. For some theories, an analysis is all you need (which can then be built on by other papers), whereas some theories require an explanation as well.  

All in all, I had an easier time understanding the concepts of this theme in comparison to theme 1 and 2 – but it is very interesting to think about how an everyday word such as “theory” is so much more than just a basic hypothesis. 

Theme 4 - Quantitative research

My chosen research paper

For this week’s theme, I chose an article from the journal called “Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication”, which has an impact factor of 3.541. The article is called “The Mediation of Politics through Twitter: An Analysis of Messages posted during the Campaign for the German Federal Election 2013” – and as the name suggests, the article is about analyzing the political trends on twitter, in order to get an understanding if there is a correspondence between how people are tweeting about the election, and the actual vote. This was done by analyzing 1391187 tweets from 98166 users, using specific hashtags and keywords to find what is being tweeted.

The positive aspect of using this above mentioned method is the vast amount of tweets that you can analyze, which gives you enough data to statistically support different hypotheses. However, which the authors themselves are very open about, the fact is that there might be only be a small niche of users on Twitter (e.g. more students than retired people, more unemplyed than emplyed etc.) due to the fact of the technology which is used. Because of this, the quantitative data will be skewed in favor of the specific target audience of Twitter.

From the article, I learnt a lot about using open databases (in this case Twitter has an open API which you can fetch data from using specific parameters) and how this can be openly used in research papers and analysis of this kind.

One of the main methodological problems is the fact that the authors are analyzing one social medium and just one election – which might not be enough to draw general conclusions or predictions about the hypotheses at hand. However, since the authors want to analyze the question if there is a correlation if the twitter data supports the actual election numbers the methodology is a good way to disprove that statement.

Drumming in immersive virtual reality:

This article was a very interesting point of view of virtual body ownership. By changing how the avatars used in a virtual environment look, the article wanted to examine the change in behavior of the users. Different models changed the perception of the users, and with the change in perception – the behaviors did aswell. A question that I had was regarding the design of the two avatars which were used – why did they have the FL and CD avatars which were both male? I would have loved to see the behavior change when experiencing the virtual environment as the opposite sex, and how the perception would have changed from that.

One of the benefits of using quantitative methods is the data can be quantified and statistically applied to verify your hypotheses. Data in a critical mass (a certain amount of data) can be used to uncover patterns. Data is also quite easy to analyze nowadays with the high availability of analytical programs such as Google Spreadsheets or Excel. However, pure data might not take into consideration the biases of the numbers – it might not explain why the data is skewed in one direction (which could be that the data originates from a specific audience which has a certain perception of the problem being analyzed) – to clarify, the data itself does not put the numbers into a context.  It’s good for generalized results and to test hypotheses – however, this requires a high amount of data.

In contrast, qualitative methods is heavily limited by the narrow amount of data that you achieve. Due to this, it cannot be used to draw generalizations of a subject. However, when quantitative and qualitative methods are used in a combination – you get the opportunity for a much higher understanding of a phenomena at hand. By first using quantitative data by (for example) surveys, data dumps etc – and then applying a qualitative method to that data, you get a much higher understanding of the phenomena at hand. This even opens up to new perceptions which you might not previously have thought of.

To sum up – both qualitative and quantitative methods have clear benefits and downsides, but when used in a combination they can be used to gain a much higher understanding of a specific phenomenon.

Post Theme 2

For preparation of this week’s seminar, I read both the texts by Benjamin and by Adorno and Horkheimer. In addition to this, I tried finding other sources who referenced these texts, or had their own ways of trying to explain their meaning. The reason for this was simply to try to get a broader understanding of the texts, and try to find other people’s interpretations of what they mean, in order to shape my own understanding. All of this preparation was in order to contribute during the seminar, in which me and two of my classmates had long discussions about all of the questions which we were expected to answer.

One of the longest conversations we had was regarding dialectic, and how it is separate from a normal debate. We thought it was quite clear how a regular debate is had in order to try to convince the opposing part on the fact that you are right – whereas a dialectic is about finding out the pure truth, by finding out what is not true. I contributed to this discussion by conversing about how dialectics are used in everyday life, and we encompass dialectic thinking of opposites every day, not in the form of trying to gain an true answer, but rather a way of discussing everyday.

Before the seminar, I had only thought of the question regarding how the world is perceived through our senses, and how it is naturally and historically determined, to only be from a perceivers point of view. During the seminar, there was an interesting discussion on how this not only rings true for the perceiver, but also from a production perspective. The seminar leader had used the example of art throughout history, and how it is differently produced throughout time. Eras such as the renaissance, romanticism or modern art are all perceived differently from a production perspective (which can clearly be seen by looking at art from the different eras), as well as from the perspective of who is looking at the art.  

Another question which was clarified to me during the seminar was that of Nominalism. I had a hard time understanding how the concept, in which you reject universals and abstract objects, was to be understood. However, during the seminar, we got the explanation by discussing Platos’ allegory of the cave.  I thought of nominalism in the sense of metaphysical issues, such as god – but I did nto understand that it can be much broader applied to just about anything. In Platos’ allegory of the cave, there is the issue that platonic realism exists outside of the physical world, and the fact that this can’t be proven. By using a nominalist perspective, you try to see the world in a different approach. Every book is unique, and universals cannot describe every single book – as that would generalize the physical object.  By rejecting that thought, you can try to enlighten by not believing myths and false truths, as there is no way to prove their concept – simply put, you reject them.

To conclude, the fact that these texts written a long time ago are still reflected in today’s society shows how philosophy and these theories are not bound by time – rather they are a mere reflection of the society and the human minds which form it. This week’s texts have helped me get a better understanding of how the substructure of a society which forms our everyday lives by producing a superstructure in which we live. But by trying to enlighten ourselves and seeing another resemblance of the truth – we too might “step away” from the society in order to gain a larger understanding.

Theme 3: Research and theory

Journal of choice

The journal I chose was ”Journal of Computer-mediated communication”, which is a peer-reviewed journal which covers (as can be interpreted by the name), communication which is mediated through computers. It has an impact factor of 3.541 and was (during 2015) ranked 1/79 in communication and 3/83 in information sciences. The journal can be found on: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1083-6101

Research paper of choice

The paper I chose from the above journal was “News Recommendations from Social Media Opinion Leaders: Effects on Media Trust and Information Seeking” published in September 2015, volume 20, issue 5. The paper described how media outlets are having an increasingly difficult time having an audience trust them as a reputable source. The fact that major news outlets are losing subscribing customers on a next to daily basis due to inherent lack of trust in these outlets is examined. 

In order to look at this decrease in trust, the authors experimented by having participants see news articles from the above mentioned news outlets displayed on their social media walls, in this case Facebook. By using Facebook API's and creating posts and shares of specific news articles, an increased amount of trust of the source was gained when the articles appeared to be shared by a friend or a opinion leader. 

The authors examined the three following questions:

1. The relationship between exposure to news posted on social media and media trust
2. The relationship between exposure to news on social media and information-seeking intent
3. Whether either of these relationships are affected by the perceived opinion leadership of the person sharing the news on social media. 

And investigated the following hypotheses:

1. H1: A news story recommended by a friend on social media will increase trust in the news outlet, compared to receiving the same story directly from the traditional news outlet where it appears.
2. H2: There will be an interaction between a friend's news recommendation and perceptions of the friend as an opinion leader predicting trust in the news outlet.
3. H3: A news story recommendation from a friend on social media will increase intent to seek future information from the news outlet, compared to receiving the same story directly from the traditional news outlet where it appears.
4. H4: There will be an interaction between a friend's news recommendation and perceptions of the friend as an opinion leader predicting intent to seek information from the news outlet.

With a sample of 364 undergraduate students, they investigating these above questions and their results support all 4 of the hypotheses. I.e, people actually trust news outlets if their friends, especially opinion leaders, support these news and share them on social media.

This paper can be found on the following link, where both the hypotheses and questions are quoted from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12127/full

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

Theories are empirically based models to explain any kind of a phenomenon or occurrence. It is a model to explain, and describe the world for an increased understanding. But more than that, theories are also a model which can be used to draw conclusions about the future based on previous occurrences of a specific phenomenon. According to Gregor, the taxonomy of a theory can be categorized into five different types:

1. Analysis – Not extended beyond analysis and description of a specific phenomenon.

2. Explanation – Explains a phenomenon, but does not continue to try to predict further outcomes.

3. Prediction – Has predictions and testable propositions. Does not support well-developed causal explanations.

4. Explanation and prediction – The mix of number 2 and 3. Provides a prediction which is supported by testable propositions and causal explanations.

5. Design and action – a phenomenon explained by explicit prescriptions to “construct and artifact”.

Sutton extends the above by describing what theory is not – his list of the 5 elements which are often thought to be theory, but are not are:

1. References.

2. Data.

3. List of variables and constructs.

4. Diagrams.

5. Hypotheses and predictions.

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?

The theory which my paper sought to answer a question of how people interact with social media and how perception is changed of a source dependant on where the source is linked from (in this article, by whom it was shared on social media). Because of this theory, I would definitely categorize it as an analytical paper – an analysis. No predictions are made based on the data which is presented in the article, they only seek out to answer the hypotheses which they constructed. 

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

The positive aspect of an analytical paper is that you get an overview of the current situation – in this case regarding trust of reputable news outlets online, and how that trust is perceived differently dependant on who shares it. You get a clear description of the phenomenon which is at hand, and it can also be a good start for further explanation and predictions – but sadly this analytical paper did not reach all the way there. The clear downside and the limitation of this analytical paper is that we only get a snapshot of this phenomenon at this time, and it is hard to make predictions about what the future might hold – and since there are no testable proposition or causal explanations, the theory might be regarded as rather “weak”. But as I said, it can be used as a solid foundation for further research which might aim to find a more detailed explanation and prediction.

Post theme 1.

The first week of the course, reading the works by Kant and Plato was an intriguing new area for me. As a student with no prior experience of philosophical questions, reading the texts were quite difficult. In both the texts, I had to read through many of the passages several times to grasp the concept which was being discussed, and even by doing so – I am not entirely sure I grasp it completely. What I have learnt is an eye-opening aspect of how the world can be perceived, and an increased understanding that the world is perceived differently depending on your experience. Every object around me is perceived uniquely by me, and uniquely by anyone else observing it. This knowledge can be used to gain a further understanding of the problems that arise when people have differing opinions about a situation – because it’s our experience which lead us to believe that we are correct in a matter, and to objectively find the truth might be next to impossible.

Another reflection that was brought to me this week was that of metaphysical questions that cannot be empirically answered. As an engineer student, this is something that is hard to tackle – since I am a problem solver by nature who (has) strongly believes(/believed) that there is a correct answer to every question. But for metaphysical questions, I must understand that there isn’t, and the only way to answer them might be to not let my mind be conformed by these questions.

An interesting discussion during the seminar was that of how objects are never objectively portrayed. Objectively, a table is just an object which exists in time and space and is perceived by us humans. It is our sense perception which is then interpreted by our soul to how we choose to perceive it. The table it might be perceived as beautiful, practical or other concepts, but it is our minds which attribute this to the table, not our sense perception and not the object itself.

During the seminar, my group had a long discussion of how we believe that every impression (sound, smell, vision, sense etc) that we encounter is then interpreted by our brains (our souls?) and attributed meaning. That our brains might just be huge databases which map impressions to meaning. We might hear a specific noise, which we have heard previously – so our brains map that specific noise to a person, an object or something else. We might see a lamp – and our brains map that lamp to memories, colors or experiences. This might just be the engineers in us trying to find an answer to philosophical questions, but it was an extremely interesting discussion.

Another question which my group raised during the seminar was that of education. How educating ourselves enlightens us in a sense and “colors” the world differently. By reading books, watching documentations or educating ourselves in other fashion – we give ourselves the knowledge of changing the way we view the world. Educate yourself about art, and you will no longer perceive Van Gogh paintings or the Mona Lisa the same was as you would have before (you have in a sense colored your soul with this knowledge). The same goes for anything – educate yourself regarding something trivial such as physical bridges, and you will most likely gain an increased understanding and view of every single bridge that you drive over or walk over for the rest of your life. You experience, your knowledge alters the way you perceive otherwise trivial things.

Theme 2: Critical media studies

Dialectic of Enlightenment

What is "Enlightenment"?
Enlightenment, according Adorno and Horkheimer is described as true knowledge, or the extreme truth. However, this only applies objectively and using knowledge of nature and the world – meaning things that are quantifiable, measured and objectively examined to find the truth.


What is "Dialectic"?
Dialectic is a form of an argument for resolving disagreements. It is a way of using rationality and logic. I would argue that it is not a form of a debate, since the objective of dialectic is to find the truth, not to convince the opposing part that you are correct. The classic form of a debate uses rhetoric’s such as logos, pathos and ethos – where dialectic uses ration and logic.


What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?
Nominalism is a theory which rejects universals and abstract objects. It is a crucial part of the text, since talking about the Dialectic of enlightenment is a metaphysical issue. It’s about dangers which lie in using predated abstractions and universals.


What is the meaning and function of "myth" in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument?
Myth, in Adorno and Horkheimer’s perspective is knowledge that is not based on empirical and quantitative measurements, but rather subjective opinions of individuals – which from an enlightenment perspective should be seen as false knowledge.

I see the authors using myths as a argument that enlightenment is crucial in order to get rid of these false truths, which may or may not cause fear to individuals.

The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity

In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?
The way I interpret it, the substructure is the underlying architecture for the productions, which is different depending on the type of production – for example different roles, working conditions etc. However, the superstructure is the result and extension of the substructure, and involves aspects such as culture, religion and politics. The superstructure moves much more slowly than the substructure. In the sense of cultural production, it is quite evident that the superstructure (the culture per se) is slower than the different aspects which has helped produce it (the substructure).

An example of the above is what Benjamin discusses with the mechanical era, and how different machines slowly changed the superstructure. The substructure went through a shift when machines were invented, which manifested in the superstructure by replicas of art.


Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?
There is definitely a correlation of how culture can make huge impact. If you define “revolutionary potentials” as something that changes the society in any way – than it is evident how culture has a way to do so. Take for example photography, which has changed how we view huge aspects of the world, how the cultural shift away from paintings to photography helped us with a sense of understanding.

Take also for example how movies, art, music and other forms of culture has the possibility to spread political views. I would argue that propaganda manifests itself through culture in many forms.


Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).
I think last week’s literature has a very strong correlation to this exact question – how we perceive the world is entirely based on the experiences we have gone through, and what we (think) we know about different aspects.

Take for example the Mona Lisa – two different people will have completely different perceptions of the same object depending on how much you know about it. When someone who has read about Da Vinci, and the history of the painting – he will perceive this rather than just a painting.

Another example which is portrayed by our history is music. Look at how music has changed and altered throughout the history – it is in a sense the result of both a substructure and superstructure of that specific time. And if substructures and superstructures change, other people will have a hard time perceiving the same thing, since their views of the world, of the art, are different.

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

The way I interpret Benjamin to use the word ”aura” is the authenticity and uniqueness of an object. I would say that the aura is in a sense the history of an object, and what our brains perceive when looking at an object. It cannot be replicated and exists through the existence of an object. A replicated piece of art has lost all of its aura.


The aura of a natural object is defined as “We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may” by Benjamin. I interpret this as a more physical aura, of how the natural object presents itself to you, through shadows, touch, warmth and so on.

Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science

In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?

To understand what Kant means by our cognition being forced to conform to objects, I believe that we have to use a metaphor. Kant talks about the Copernican revolution, and how Copernicus decided to change the way he looked at celestial bodies: away from the theory that the sun and other planets rotated around earth, to that the earth rotated around the sun. In the same way, Kant wants to flip the idea of our cognition conforming to objects, and change it to that objects are conformed by our minds for metaphysics.

We cannot experiment on the notion of metaphysics since we do not understand how to let our cognition be conformed by the object - our minds cannot comprehend the spectrum of metaphysics. However, if we, just as Copernicus flipped the notion of celestial bodies, change the way we look at metaphysics, and let our own minds define and conform the objects, we will gain a greater understanding and knowledge of what metaphysics truly is.

With the above said, I believe that a priori knowledge of an object does not truly exist, since we always need some sort of a knowledge to make the a priori consensus. An example often used is that we know that “all bachelors are single” without a priori knowledge – but for us to truly know it, we need to know the definition of the word bachelor.  Because of this, letting our cognition conform objects is next to impossible due to a lack of a priori knowledge – which is the difficulty of the entire thought process of Kant.

At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

I believe that Socrates is talking about how everything we know is always based on prior experience – and that what we know is constantly changing and adapting to what we see, feel and hear. The sentence about how we hear/see “through” our eyes and ears to me is about that our organs are only vessels to deliver these experiences to our mind – which is where the true sight and hearing takes place. A modern day example might be that two people looking at an object will see entirely different things: for someone who is very interested in art, seeing the Mona Lisa is an amazing sight – not only do you see the painting, but also the history of it, because your previous experiences has helped define the Mona Lisa in your mind. However, the same painting, Mona Lisa might to some only be a painting of a woman, and nothing more.

Another example might be that two people hearing the same song will hear entirely different things. Someone who has studied music might hear the different tones, the instruments and the people who have created the song - whereas someone might hear just hear a piece of music.

Empiricism, defined as “Empiricism is the theory that experience is of primary importance in giving us knowledge of the world. Whatever we learn, according to empiricists, we learn through perception. Knowledge without experience, with the possible exception of trivial semantic and logical truths, is impossible” (http://www.theoryofknowledge.info/sources-of-knowledge/empiricism/). Coincides perfectly with what Sokrates says. Empiricism states that all knowledge is primarily based on our experiences. Sokrates says that a “filter” of sorts is added, and what we see is dependent on our previous experiences in life.  The common point is that knowledge is based on previous experiences, and that knowledge is ever fluid and can change based on new experiences that you may encounter.