Finishing commentary - Combining research methods

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

First I think that you have to define what a complex research question is. There is simple research questions and complex research questions. Examples of simple questions is; who, what, when, where. And these kind of questions can be answered by statistics and facts and often with only one source. While complex research questions is for example; how, why, effects. To answer these kinds of questions usually require information from multiple sources, and to get a result you then need to analyze and compare the information.

To answer complex research questions I think that it’s good to combine both quantitative and qualitative methods. You can start with a quantitative method to find interesting topics and then do a qualitative method to get some statistical proof and be able to draw general conclusions. For example you could start with a focus group then with interesting material you could design a survey to get some statistical proof of your theory. You could also start with a quantitative method and then do a qualitative method to focus on some interesting parts. One example of that is to first do an online survey and then do interviews with a few persons to get more developed answers or focus on some result from the survey that was unexpected. Aside from combining quantitative and qualitative methods you can also combine methods based on other types, like individual with group, face-to-face with remote, or facilitated with self reported.

I think that a successful research has some important parts. The first is a good research question. The research question need to be sufficient delimited so the research doesn’t get too broad but not to delimited so it’s hard to get a result that can be generalized. The question might be complex but doesn’t need to be, it’s all depends on the aim of your study. Then you need to do a some literature studies and see what theories about this subject exists. You also have to consider what previous knowledge you have before you start and what you have to read up on. The theory is important, this is what you try to prove with your research and what forms the study. Your theory might only be the “analysis” kind, then you only searching to answer questions like who, when, what and where. To answer this you can use a simple research design. If your theory is an “explanatory and prediction” kind, that requires more complex kind of research design. One of the more important things is to decide which research methods should be used and how the study should be implemented. What method you use depends on the intentions with your research. It’s common to start a study by using some kind of qualitative method, to support the development of the study even if you want to do a study with quantitative methods you want to do some sort of small pre-study to test your thesis if it’s viable and how you can prove it in the best way.

Design research does not mean that you use certain methods, a design research can often consist of different kinds of research methods. You want to first do research to know how you should design your artifact and then you want to test it. This requires a least two different methods. When you do a case study I think that you automatically uses several methods and sometimes mixing both qualitative and quantitative methods. I also think that you have to do this if you want to reach a saturation of knowledge in your study, that is the goal in a case study. When you do a case study you want to knowledge about every aspect of the case and also about the context means that you have to use different methods and different people evolved in the study.

To end this I think that this is a hard topic to write about, because you can design your research in many different ways and you don't have to use any common method. You can design your research in a totally new way as long as you think that you will get the data to prove your theory. Then it’s more important than ever that you so a pilot study to see that the method works the way you want. To use traditional methods is what I think easiest way. They already have a set frameworks, and you can read a lot of literature on them so you know how to execute the research to get the best result.

Post reflection - Theme 2: Critical media studies

This week’s theme was “Critical media studies” and we got to read Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity" and two chapters from Adorno and Horkheimer’s “Dialectic of Enlightenment”. These text aren’t the easiest to read and understand if you aren’t used to this kind of texts. So it was good that the lecture explained both the context and the message of the two texts. Here I want to focus on the more important parts of the lecture that I will take with me.

They are written after the enlightenment have shown itself from its weak side with some breakdowns of great technology. And just around and after the fascists has won ground in Europe.

The meaning of myth in Adorno and Horkheimer's argument is that it’s the demystifying of nature and a closeness to nature. Enlightenment on the other hand wanted to bring the man away from nature  and that you should explore it with measurements. Enlightenment wanted to structure the nature into labels. Adorno and Horkheimer thought that this was the wrong way and that you have to break through your pre decided labels and structures to see what more is it in the world. This will cause us to see only what we have decided that we see.

At the seminar we discussed nominalism versus realism. Even though i think I know what the concept of these views is I don’t know if I can explain it good enough. It has to do with universals and abstract objects, and nominalism is the opposite to realism. Nominalism was an important concept this week. Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer meant that nominalism was used in either the enlightenment and/or by the fascists and mass media. That it would hinder people to see what is and what an object's possibilities.

During the seminar we also discussed how Benjamin means that culture like film has revolutionary potentials. He thinks this since it can portray ordinary people which people can relate to. Adorno and Horkheimer meant that this was a negative aspect since this could lock people into stereotypes and the worldview that mass media portrait. An example of this the boss and the secretary and their relationship. On film the boss is always a male and the secretary is always a female, this will cement the look on what a boss and a secretary is. Benjamin also meant that film had revolutionary potentials thanks to the editing and sound. By editing the film and adding music you make the viewer a feel in a certain way. With the editing you also choose what the viewer should see and how.

Post reflection - Theme 3: Theory and research

This week’s theme was “theory and research” and the focus was on theory. Probably because theory is an important ingredient that good research depend on. You could say that the theory guides the research. I learnt what theory is not, but I still think that theory is an concept that is hard to know how you use it the right way. That it can take a little practise to create good and useful theory that can be proven. I think that branches of science have different views on theory and what is legit theory. And this makes it hard to define what theory is in only a couple of sentences. During the seminar we discussed; “What theory is”, “what is the difference between theory and hypothesis”, “different kinds of theory”.

We came up with the conclusion that a hypothesis is more of a statement that you want to test if it’s right or wrong. You could say that it’s an unproven theory. Since one thing I learnt this week is that a theory must be proven to be real theory. When you create a theory for a research before doing any methods you take different sections of theory from previous research that is all considered true and combine these into a new theory that can be proven.

Post reflection - Theme 5.2: Design research

Since we only had two lectures and no seminar this week, I’m only going to write some about what was discussed on the second lecture and thoughts that came after.

This week’s theme was “Design research” and that was the focus in the second lecture this week. It discussed questions like;

• What is research?

Finding answers, solving problems, test theory all this to gain knowledge.

• What is design? What is research design?

This is an more complex questions since design is such a broad term. Design research is a way of doing research by creating a design/prototype and then testing it to see what works and what does not work. Then you can do other designs based on this and doing more testing on the new designs. You can also do only one design but with a lot of preparations and exploration in the subject. The design of the prototype is often preceded by a lot of sketching and trying different setups. The result in design research is not only is the design or prototype. It can be the process or things found during the process, for example interviews with users of an artifact.

• What is the role of a prototype?

The prototype is what is in the center of design research. This is what you design to test your research idea. The intentions of your research is what molde the prototype.

One of the more interesting parts of design research is to test and break norms. In this kind of design you don’t have to design things the way we are used to. The design research is for finding and testing new ways of solving problems and to break norms.

Post reflection - 5.1: The research idea

Since we only had two lectures and no seminar this week, I’m going to write some about what was discussed on the first lecture and thoughts that came after. The theme of the week is “Design research” and prior to the lecture we read a paper where they developed a prototype that transformed a football game into vibration signals from a mobile phone. The thought behind this was so you could feel the soccer game instead of looking at a video stream. We also had to answer some questions about evaluation of technology and prototypes. 

The lecture was evolving around the research idea. He talked about how you come up with a research idea by defining a problem, this is most important, and then solve this problem. Then he discussed how you choose what idea to realize if you have several ideas that you want to use. This is done by calculating if the idea can be realized and asking yourself if it’s a breakthrough technique. To validate your idea you can create a proof of concept.

I wished that he would have talked more about design research since the things he talked about wasn’t any news for me. But then usability and prototypes is something I’ve come in contact with in other courses. In media technology I think that design research is one of the more rewarding methods.

Pre reflection - Theme 2 : Critical media studies

Dialectic of Enlightenment

1. What is "Enlightenment"?

The Enlightenment was an era from the 1620s to the 1780s where intellectual and cultural groupings in Western Europe thought it was time for rationality, analysis and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority. Adorno and Horkheimer talks about the enlightenment as the advance of thoughts, that is aiming at liberating human beings from fear. That the mind should conquer superstition and that the human should rule over the disenchanted nature.

2. What is "Dialectic"?

It’s a way of discussing a matter by two or more people holding different sides of the matter and try to establish the truth of the matter guided by reasoned arguments. It’s not a debate since they both want to get to the core of the matter and reach a mutual understanding. It’s systematic reasoning without the emotional investment of the debaters.

3. What is "Nominalism" and why is it an important concept in the text?

Nominalism is a view in philosophy, it says that objects can’t be categorised in general terms and that these are just empty words. These general terms and universals don’t exist at all and everything is just individual things. In the text they talk much about magic and rituals. That in magic and in rituals, some object can take another form and be a substitute for a sacrifice or a symbol of something else. They also mention that the enlightenment wants to label things to reach truth, and call things by it’s real name but by doing so makes us unable to see the diversity and to see things in another light and what else they can be used for.

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

I believe that Adorno and Horkheimer means that the “myth” is what existed before the Enlightenment. Myth is a way of controlling the nature by rituals and stories, and trying to make nature logical to mankind. Myth works as the opposite to enlightenment but at the same time Adorno and Horkheimer means that myth is a result of the enlightenment. We are dependent on nature and while trying to take control and demystify it we create the myth.

"The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity"

1. In the beginning of the essay, Benjamin talks about the relation between "superstructure" and "substructure" in the capitalist order of production. What do the concepts "superstructure" and "substructure" mean in this context and what is the point of analyzing cultural production from a Marxist perspective?

I believe that the definition of superstructure and substructure in this text is the same as in the Marxist theory. Where the substructure is the productive relationships, and the whole production, economy and work part of society. The superstructure includes the society's culture institution, political power structures, roles, rituals and state. There has to be a substructure if a society should have a superstructure but the superstructure often influences the substructure.
Therefore when the substructure is changing the superstructure also has to change so according to Marxist theory culture production reflects the economic and production side of a society.

2. Does culture have revolutionary potentials (according to Benjamin)? If so, describe these potentials. Does Benjamin's perspective differ from the perspective of Adorno & Horkheimer in this regard?

When I read Benjamin's text I don’t know what to think, he feels very negative towards film and photo. I think that he talks about how object portrayed loses its aura and that it’s the camera that has the control and chooses what the viewer should see. I can’t really read out if and how he think that this gives culture a revolutionary potential. When it comes to Adorno & Horkheimer they are also very harsh towards what they call mass media and it feels like they think that it’s enslaves the public. They talk about how all culture is the same and that it all portrayed the same things and that this may create a world image and fortify this as how it is and always will be. This “monopole” in culture and that the culture industry is based on money makes it difficult for other thoughts to get through.

3. Benjamin discusses how people perceive the world through the senses and argues that this perception can be both naturally and historically determined. What does this mean? Give some examples of historically determined perception (from Benjamin's essay and/or other contexts).

I don’t understand what he means by perception being both naturally and historically determined. As I understand with historically determined perception he means that depending on which historical era we are living in change how we interpetrate things we perceive with our senses. The perception isn’t really about sensing things but more about the interpretation of what we sense. When we interpret things there is all about what context we are used to. An example of a historical determined perception is how we look at children. Historically they have not had as long childhood as now. Children have been seen as small adults. They were supposed to start working at a young age to help the family. They were for no use if they did not help. Schools didn't existed until recent times and this was how they learned a skill and about life. In the present we think that this is abuse to let young children work hard and long hours.

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

The aura of a natural object is defined in the text as “the unique phenomenon of distance”. I think that he means that the aura is the originality and authenticity in the real objects. When an object becomes mass produced it loses its aura. For example painting have its aura, through the effort that the painter put into making it. If this painting would be mass produced it would lose its originality, since it’s not the only one any more. Natural objects we can’t make duplicates of so it has another kind of aura then art objects.

Post reflection - Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and science

This week’s theme was “Theory of knowledge and theory of science”. The focus of the lecture was Kant and his book “Critique of pure reason”. There was some concept that was in focus of the lecture that I thought I would try to define. A priori knowledge is knowledge before experience and is what analytic judgements are build on. Analytical judgement is kind of a concept about an object and you know that it’s true because of the meaning of the subject. A posteriori knowledge is knowledge after experience and connected to synthetic judgements. It is the opposite to analytical judgement and something you can formulate after investigating the object. Kant works in the field of metaphysics which tries to generate synthetic a priori judgements about the world, something that might sound impossible. Kant looked at how our knowledge is structured. For example we can’t perceive anything outside space and time. We organize our knowledge in a sorts of categories that he called “Forms of intuition”.

During the seminar we talked a lot about what the truth is. How can we know what is real and what is created by our mind? And I think that the conclusion was that we will never know what the truth is because we can’t see the world as it is in itself. We talked about models and how we use them to try to understand the world and to describe it in a way that we can comprehend. Then we talked about if mathematics is a description of the real world and I meant that it can never be even though the nature fits in with our concepts and models. These models is created by us and is our way of understanding the world but that doesn’t make it the “truth” about the world. But within these models we have some kind of truth that we have agreed on. After these discussions you start to question if there really is a reality or if everything is something that is made up in my mind and that nothing is real, but something has to exist so we can perceive it. I think that a priori knowledge is hard concept to understand. I don’t believe that you can have knowledge without experience. All words is made by man and it is created based on experience. I think that it gets very abstract to think of the object without its name and concept, and how we should really know that what we have decided is what really is. When we are newborn we know nothing about the world and as we grow older we learn about the world through our own and others experiences.

A finishing quote: “Perception without conception is blind” - Immanuel Kant

Post reflection - Theme 6: Qualitative research method and case study

The theme for this week was “qualitative methods and case studies”. Qualitative methods is research methods where you go deeper into a subject and get more profound knowledge. These methods was first used in social science. Examples of qualitative methods is interviews, focus groups and observations. During the seminar we didn’t talk that much about qualitative methods, we just tried to define what it was. Humans is involved in qualitative studies in another degree than quantitative since they are often observations and interview types of methods. You also get another kind of data that you need to work with in another way to find structures and themes. When you use a qualitative method I found that it is important to have several information sources, like several interviews, focus groups or observation objects. This is important so you can compare these and really see if there is similarities and differences between the sources. There is also good if there is two or more people involved in the gathering of data and the analysis, and that these people has different backgrounds so the analysis doesn’t get shaped by past experiences.

When it comes to case studies I want to present some things that came up during the seminar and that got more clear to me from being at the seminar. A case study isn’t a method, it’s more like a framework that says how you should conduct a profound and comprehensive study about a subject. The case is a event, object or person and a case study can consist of one or a few cases. Important aspects in a case study is that you don’t start with a theory and/or hypothesis, you only have a research question in the beginning. You start collecting data and then when you have something to built on you start formulating a theory. I think that this is because case studies are usually done on unexplored territories, and then it’s hard to formulate a theory about a subject that you have no knowledge about. In case studies you look at literature and previous studies in the end of the process which is opposite to the usual process, as I understand. A case study usually ends when you think that you can’t get any more knowledge about it without having to put a lot of effort to it, that you reach saturation in knowledge.

Post reflection - Theme 4: Quantitative methods

This week’s theme was “quantitative research methods”. That means methods that depends on numerical measurements and where the resulting data is numerical, for example surveys. An important aspect of quantitative studies is that the data needs to be analysed using statistics to be able to say something on a general basis. You need to use statistics and logical arguments to prove a theory.

During the seminar we talked a lot about quantitative studies vs qualitative studies, and their limitations and their benefits. One easy way to distinguishing the two is that quantitative studies have their roots in natural science and qualitative studies have their roots in social science. Benefits with quantitative methods is that are easy to do on a larger scale and easy to analyse because of the data collected only consists of numbers. In quantitative studies you get other kinds of data that maybe easier to answer to questions like “why” and find out effects and motivation behind actions. But when it comes to benefits and limitations it isn’t as black and white as I thought and we discussed how you can get an answer on a “why” question even with quantitative methods.

We talked about how the experiment in this week’s paper was a good example of this. What they did in their study was that they before they started had an idea of what kind of analysis they would do and what theory they wanted to prove. They kept this in mind while they designed their study. Designing the study is one of the more important parts, since this will decide what kind of answers you can and will get. At the end they used logical arguments in a good way when analysing the data to prove their theory. But I think that in some way this study has some common things with qualitative studies since it was kind of profound way of conducting the study, which took time and effort, and that would require a lot of resources to implement on a larger scale. Instead of having people observe the people playing the drum they let the computer to do the same. Which gave them data to back their theory and that feels more secure and impartial since it don’t rely on human perception and analysation.

We also talked about bias in research and how you never can reach a non bias study but that you should strive for it. For example when you do a quantitative study you have to think carefully about what questions you use and how you formulate them. In a qualitative study you have to be careful in how you interpret your ‘data’ and analyse it to get it as objective as possible.

Pre reflection - Theme 4: Quantitative research methods

This week we were supposed to find a paper that used quantitative methods. I chose “The digital divide shifts to differences in usage” that does a quantitative study of internet use in the netherlands and how this is correlated to age, gender, occupation, education level and internet experience. They have two research questions that they try to answer:

1. How do socio-demographic variables relate to the amount of Internet use?

2. How do socio-demographic variables relate to types of Internet usage?

They use a survey for collecting the data for this study. The survey is done through an online market research site, where the participants get a few cents as incentive for every survey they do. In this way they can get a big sample of participants, and a sample that are a good representation of the dutch population. The benefits with quantitative studies in general is that they are easy to analyse and you can do statistical calculations on the data. One limitation with most qualitative studies is that it’s hard to answer more complex research questions like “why” and get the motivation behind actions and thoughts.

I think that the data they collect in this paper only answer their research questions. About how much and what people do on the internet. They do prove that some population segments uses internet more during their free time and for more leisure kinds of activities than other segments of the population. They are trying to get a theory about how we with internet is moving away from a knowledge gap to a usage gap. The knowledge gap is a theory about how higher socioeconomic status groups gets information faster than lower socioeconomic status groups and that this increases the knowledge gap between them. The usage gap is a theory that includes this but also takes technology into consideration. Since to use internet to attain knowledge you need technology and knowledge about how to use it. But I don’t find anything that ties it all together, the research and the theory.

I’ve also read “Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality: The Body Shapes the Way We Play” by K Kilteni, I Bergstrom, and M Slater. It was a paper about an experiment with changing body through virtual reality. They let their participants play an djembe drum while wearing a motion capture suit. While being immersed in virtual reality and seeing another body that moves just like them also playing a djembe drum. All this to create an body ownership illusions and so they feel that the body they see while looking down at oneself and in a virtual mirror is their real body. The participants were divided in two different groups one got a light-skinned formal dressed man as their avatar and the other avatar was a dark skinned man with casual clothing. They wanted to know if differences between real and virtual body will be noticeable in the person's behavior and attitudes during the body ownership illusion. The result was that they could see a difference in how complexed the participant's movement was in the different groups.  I thought it was an interesting use of virtual reality and motion capture. Most of my encounters with quantitative study methods have been surveys, and it’s interesting to see other qualitative methods and that you don’t have to use the usual way of doing things. I tried to come up with more ways to measure data in the media technology field and one example I thought of is eye movement trackers.

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

Benefits with quantitative methods are that there are easy to analyze your result and find empirical evidence for the conclusions you might be able to make from the data. But the information you can get from your data is limited, you might get proof of what is happening but not why.

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

With qualitative methods you get deeper into the question you study, and you might reach a theory of why, you get material that you maybe can ground theory on. Hard to make in a bigger scale and to make any conclusions that apply to a larger group. And you don’t get any empirical evidence for your result.

• Van Deursen, Alexander Jam; Van Dijk, Jan Agm (2014). The digital divide shifts to differences in usage. New Media & Society, 16(3), 507-526.
• Kilteni, Konstantina; Bergstrom, Ilias; Slater, Mel. (2013). Drumming in immersive virtual reality: the body shapes the way we play. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 19(4), 597-605.

Pre reflection - Theme 6: Qualitative methods and case studies

Qualitative methods

The first tasks was to find a paper in media technology that used qualitative methods. In qualitative methods the data is often more richer and goes deeper into the subject being studied. Examples of qualitative methods is interviews, focus groups and observations.

I choosed “Will the Revolution be Tweeted or Facebooked? Using Digital Communication Tools in Immigrant Activism”. Which is about how you can use digital communication tools in immigrant activism, just like the title says. Focus groups is the main method in this paper. They performed two focus groups that both consisted of five people that were all active in immigrant issues. During the focus group they asked open ended questions for the participants to discuss around. The benefit of a focus group is that the participants can be inspired by each other and that the discussion might result in more profound ideas and thoughts. Instead of having one big group they decided to have two small so they would be able to compare the discussions to see if they could find any similar structures and thoughts. A limitation with a focus group is that it could keep back some persons from saying what they want.

A few days after the focus group all the participants answered some open ended questions by email. The benefit with this is that they could pick up things that had come up after the focus groups and also catch some personal thoughts that didn’t come up during the focus group. That this is a good method to get as much from the study as possible. One methodological problem with the study is that they had 10 participants divided on only two groups. They mention this in the paper and just like I also should recommend is that the study could get more trusted and profound if they had more focus groups. I don’t think that bigger groups would have made it any better. I have to say that I think that even two small groups can be a good source of information especially if the participants is well versed in the subject, which is something I have learned for reading the paper.

Case studies

A case study is an detailed examination of a subject that is the “case”. The “case” being studied could be an individual, an organization or event. You study one or a few cases where you go in-depth and try to examine everything about it. Case studies involve different methods for data collection, like interviews, observations or surveys. The data that’s collected can be both qualitative and quantitative.

I choose to analyze the paper “Mobile Social Networks and Social Practice: A Case Study of Dodgeball” By Lee Humphreys. Dodgeball was a mobile social network service (MSNS) that enabled users to connect with other friends using using checkins telling where they are. They checked in by sending a text message to Dodgeball with their current location. Dodgeball in their turn sent an sms with location to their network of friends. Dodgeball existed between 2003 and 2009 and this study was made between 2005 and 2006.

Humphreys did a year-long qualitative field study about Dodgeball. He’s starts with two research questions:

1. What is the nature of interactions that develop around a MSNS (i.e., who is using it, and what are they using it for)?
2. How might these interactions change the way users think about and experience urban public spaces?

At this stage he doesn’t create any theory or hypothesis just like the case study research framework presented in "Building Theories form Case Study Resarch" by Eisenhardt. Humphrey chooses Dodgeball because of it being one of the most hyped and the first commercially available MSNS systems in the U.S. The study consisted of in-depth interviews with users and with the founder of Dodgeball. Besides that he also analyzed messages sent in a group of Dodgeball users during a week long period. He chose to only interview people that were frequent users of Dodgeball since he was interested in how people used the system and incorporated it into their lives. This means that he uses a theoretical sampling instead of a random just like the case study framework says you should do. Then it’s hard to tell how he does the analyze of data and the shaping of a hypothesis. Since he just present a his findings and not really present how when he shaped the hypothesis and if he is using an iterative process like the case study framework. He doesn't mention saturation of knowledge and I think that he only had a year on him to do this study and that he could have gone deeper into the subject if he had more time.

• Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories from Case Study Research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550.
• Harlow, Summer; Guo, Lei (2014). Will the Revolution be Tweeted or Facebooked? Using Digital Communication Tools in Immigrant Activism. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 19(3), 463-478.
• Humphreys, Lee (2007). Mobile Social Networks and Social Practice: A Case Study of Dodgeball. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 13(1), 341-360.