comments

http://mediatechtheory.blogspot.com/2013/11/theme-3-research-and-theory.html#comment-form

Hej Andreas,
Author in this paper thinks that previous media life cycle models are too simplified and they do not represent the complexity of media life cycle. He introduced phases such as emergence, dominance and survival or extinction. I agree that it is really great to use life cycle model to analyze the media from its birth till its extinction or survival. I really recommend this paper to you as there are really good real time examples which clarifies the life cycle concept.

Hi,
It it really interesting approach to liken peaks and pines of media with a life cycle. In my opinion it is really easy to analyze media life cycle by comparing it to phases of life cycle.
By saying "simulation process" he mentions that in every stage a medium affected by other mediums. For example radio in late 40s got effected by theater. Concept of radio play emerged. If you compare it to today televisions now getting smarter and smarter everyday, they are able to connect to internet now which can be seen as another simulation process. It is effected by medium of internet.

http://mediatechtheory.blogspot.com/2013/11/reflection-on-theme-2.html#comment-form

Hi,
Here I did not mean that they control our communication by, for example watching our each and every step in social media. What they do is that smoothly directing us on how to use such platforms. For instance in twitter they say that no more than 140 characters.

http://mediatechtheory.blogspot.com/2013/11/reflection-on-theme-1.html?showComment=1387451525612#c8933504407279904643

Hi,
I totally agree with you we need to learn to criticize everything. Learning by ourselves and comparing our experiences with others and trying to derive the conclusion. In my opinion this is the only way to develop "correct knowledge" if it exists.

http://mediatechtheory.blogspot.com/2013/11/reflection-on-theme-3.html?showComment=1387451902651#c6168586043265500257

Hi,
Yes it was really difficult to derive the theory within the paper before I learned where to check for it. Now it is really easy to understand the theory used in the paper.
"Theory of cognitive sensory intuition"... :D, I think it is pretty good definition. :D

Reflection on theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

What I learned from this week's theme about qualitative methods is that, qualitative methods are very beneficial to use on researches. Some qualitative methods that I have studied both in my paper and in the seminar such as interviewing, focus groups provides in-depth understanding about the subject which greatly contributes to collect the expected, needed information about the area of research. However using these methods are often quite expensive and time consuming. For instance what we discussed during the seminar was that creating focus groups usually requires a strong research budget as often researchers have to pay the participants and interviewing is somehow dependent on the skills of the interviewer so to hire an experienced interviewer might cost quietly and may require a researcher budget too. What I see during the seminar is that sometimes qualitative approaches are used for defining the hypothesis rather than supporting, in one of the papers that we discussed the researchers first used qualitative methods to create their hypothesis and then by using quantitative methods they supported it. In my opinion this shows the one of the main difference between quantitative and qualitative approaches which is quantitative methods provides solid statistical data as a result that enables researchers to make generalizations and come out with strong conclusions whereas qualitative methods provide detailed information which is beneficial to use when researchers do not know what to expect as a result.

Unfortunately I could not attend the second seminar which was about case studies so I did not have a chance to hear other opinions on case studies. What I think and briefly learned by looking at other posts on blogs case studies provides and intensive definition and analysis of a “case”, individual or target group. Main advantages are case studies enable numerous of details to be collected that normally can not be collected by other methods. Moreover they can also be used to produce hypothesis. On the other hand data collected during case study researches can not be generalized to wider population. As a result data collected during the study may lose its relevance over time. It is also difficult to draw cause and effect conclusions. Furthermore there can be possible biases as single person or small group gather and analyze data.

Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

Journal :“Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication”. Impact factor: 2.067.

Paper “Dialectic Tensions of Information Quality: Social

Networking Sites and Hiring?”, written by Jacqueline C. Pike, Patrick J. Bateman and Brian Butler.

Paper examines the quality of information that is obtained via social networking sites during the hiring process which is a very challenging process because of the lack of quality in information prevents the discovery of truth about the candidates. Qualitative method of semi structured interviewing with hiring personnel were made for the research. According to the information quality literature, information quality is a multidimensional construct. As there is not an unanimous agreement on exact dimensions, there is a consensus that it has four dimension which are Accessibility IQ, Contextual IQ, Intrinsic IQ and Representational IQ. Qualitative interview data were collected and grouped by researchers which emerged the poles according to the tensions between these dimensions. Finally paper concludes that quality issue is a very complex subject because of these tensions and understanding these tensions is important and necessary to explain the nature of perceptions of social networking sites' information quality during recruitment process.

Semi structured interviewing method was used in the paper. It is a practical and efficient way of gathering detailed data which can not be easily gathered by observing. In my opinion the main advantage of this method is it provides detailed information as in those interviews participants are able to talk in depth with the little direction from the interviewer. Those little directions enable interviewer to collect the required data in detail. Moreover it gives chance to interviewer to ask spontaneous questions besides predefined questions. Whereas semi structured interviewing is expensive and time consuming. Moreover as few predefined questions are used, respondents may be asked different questions. Parallel to this it can be said that it is not totally but somehow dependent to the interviewer. Moreover answers do not enable researchers to make generalizations.

What I learned about qualitative methods by reading this paper is that it allows researchers to collect detailed data to be examined. In my opinion with an experienced interviewer's directions semi structured interviewing might provide very useful, in depth information which would be very beneficial for the research.

The conclusion that the paper put out is I think very open ended. I think not deriving more precise conclusion would be the main methodological problem about this paper. I think they could have directed the participants to give more detailed answers to enable them to drew more certain conclusion at the end.

Case study is study of a specific situation, person, event, social group or a specific “case”. It is a research strategy that focuses on understanding the dynamics present. Case study can either focus on single or multiple cases. Basically case studies combine data collection method such as archives, interviews, observations. They can be used to accomplish numerous aims such as providing description, testing or generating theory. (Eisenhardt, 1989)

Paper “The Presence of Hyperlinks on Social Network Sites: A Case Study of Cyworld in Korea”, written by Steven Sams and Ham Woo Park.

The research was conducted to determine the extent to which hyperlinks appear within user-submitted comments on Korean social network service Cyworld.(Hams, Park 2013). A software tool were developed to investigate comments that were made to the 130 Korean National Assembly Members' social network profile. As a result researchers found out that hyperlinks are solely targeted to Korean services, males are more likely to comment on political profile pages, profile pages of ruling politicians were found to be more prominent than opposition parties' politicians and Message Amplification and Network Building were found to be the two main reasons for submitting links. In my opinion paper defines the research questions and the aim of the study clearly which is to examine the comments on politicians network profile to point out to which purpose people comment hyperlinks, who post comments mostly women or man, which politician group get the most of comments etc. I think according to Eisenhardt's table this can be considered as a strength of the paper as a good getting started step. However at crafting instruments and protocols step I think this paper uses more quantitative data collection, in my opinion qualitative data collection is less that can be seen as weakness o the paper. Moreover the lack of qualitative data can be seen at step shaping hypothesis as answer for the question “why” here is not satisfactory enough in my opinion.

References

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

Pike, C. J, Bateman, P. J, Butler, B. (2013). Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol 19, pp 56-77

Sams. S, Park, H. P. (2013) Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol 19, pp 712-749

Reflection on Theme 5

This weeks topic was about design research which was a totally new concept for me and was really interesting to discuss.

During the first lecture Ylva talked about their study about controlling and programming robotic comsumer products. First she briefly explained what they did during the research which was by studying semiotics and other previous researches and findings, designing a new concept to control and program robots behavior through studying comics and fashion(clothes). After that, we had a discussion session which in my opinion was the most interesting part of the lecture. First we searched for the answer for the question what would be different if that research had been done today and one of the most important answer for the question was today there are lots of differences in products(robots) which probably would affect the outcomes of the research. In my opinion this could indicate how time dependent the qualitative methods are. According to her trying to understand and find out the challenges about the idea and design instead of presenting the results and the way they do analyzing were qualitative about their method. With the same qualitative approach as she mentioned I think they could find out new challenges or different outcomes today.

In the afternoon session we had a lecture with Haibo Li which was more interesting for me. He explained how to come up with an idea and how to become “successful” with that idea. Firstly the most important starting point is defining the problem. Not like the common approach in public which is solely concentrate on solving problem that is already defined by others it is better to step back at first and try to understand and redefine the problem. Second step is filtering ideas, at this point we have to think with a business mind. After that by using proof of concept we should be able to validate our ideas. Then by prototyping, ideas should be evaluated. In my opinion prototyping is very important step while evaluating the ideas. As Li mentioned, after building prototypes of new ideas and potential products based on our interest and needs, we could invite companies to look at our prototypes and learn their opinions on our prototypes. Moreover it enables researchers or producers to do usability analysis earlier and continue developing according to results. The last step he mentioned was how to communicate the idea. When we communicate our ideas we should neither use very scientific language nor salesman language. We should use a business language as an entrepreneur when we are presenting on our ideas.

It was really interesting and beneficial for me to learn design research from different lectures, perspectives. Briefly what I learned from both lectures is that knowledge about the previous studies and researches about the content is one of the key factors in design research. Furthermore while studying on new concept it is very important to define requirements clearly, validate and evaluate ideas efficiently and at the end communicate those ideas attractively.

Theme 5: Design Research

This paper is about designing physical language for robotic consumer products. Authors discussed controlling and programming robotic products by analyzing semiotics of theories fashion and comics. Though they develop actDresses concept as sort of physical markings which can be attached to the digital artefact and indicate actions or behaviors of the artefact. ActDresses were used on three cases which are Case 1: Role assemblage outfits for Pleo, Case 2: A behaviour pin collection for GlowBots,Case 3: Comic Signs for a vacuum robot.

What I learned from this paper is that while developing new concepts analyzing, having a deep understanding and a clarified knowledge on the fundamental theories which are on the same field of study or on different field of studies may provide benefits. Moreover in my opinion, designing, implementing, prototyping, testing with prototypes and gathering feedback are the also most significant parts of development cycle which are very well treated subjects within this paper. Furthermore this was the first time I have ever read and studied a paper about design research and I am really looking forward to following lectures to learn more about the concept.

In my opinion prototypes plays a very significant role in researching. Prototyping enables researches to test, try and sometimes prove their hypothesis, product, structure in early stages and provides them lots of new findings and datas to work on. It is the initial design of the final product and first object to be tested according to hypothesis. By building prototypes researchers can see and identify existing and potential errors, limitations on their design, early in the development cycle. According to the prototype results researchers can continue on development or they can change their design which can be more tolerable to do in early stages of the development. In this paper researchers benefit from prototyping in terms of testing efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. By providing prototypes researchers both tested their product and the user satisfaction which is the other advantage of prototypes. By providing prototypes researchers can test the acceptance level of the product both from potential customers or project sponsors. Users can get better understanding of the system being developed. Prototypes clarifies the idea of the the content, product of phenomena and puts it in physical stage. What happens in researchers studies and labs comes to real world and become tangible with prototyping.

As I mentioned above main characteristics of prototypes are that: firstly they are the primary design of the theory, first tangible, testable object for researchers. They provide specifications for actual working system rather than the theoretical one. It enables researchers or developers to detect errors in early stages and enables them to get feedback from users.

On the other hand using prototypes may increase the complexity of the designed system as they can provide unexpected or totally new findings, as a result scope of the system could enlarge and pass the first expected limits. In some cases developed prototype may not include some important parts of the system to get a fast working sample which could cause serious problems in future. Moreover cost of developing a prototype could be very costly and could require too much effort. Furthermore stereotype could not meet requirements and expected outcomes and may be refused by sponsors, customers or users.

References:

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

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

Reflection on Theme 4

This weeks theme was about quantitative research. I have studied papers “Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work?”and “Physical Activity, Stress, and Self-Reported Upper Respiratory Tract Infection” to analyze quantitative approach and understand how they can be used in researches.

During the seminar we have divided into groups as usual. After a brief discussion about our papers in group we select one of our papers to examine the usage of quantitative method in terms of developing a diagram which shows the relationship between research content and resulted conclusion by drawing patterns in between. Our group have chosen my paper for analyzing which was very beneficial for me to clarify my knowledge about the usage of quantitative methods in my paper and the link between hypothesis and conclusion.

Moreover the lecture on Wednesday was also very entertaining and interesting. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative and quantitative methods in a competitive way. Furthermore we talked about the benefits and disadvantages of web based questionnaires and paper questionnaires.

What I learned from both seminar and lecture was that qualitative research methods provides detailed and in depth information about the content. It enables deeper understanding about the subject. As being a heuristic approach, with the new information that qualitative methods provides as a result, researchers can create hypothesis and base it on those results. Furthermore qualitative methods answer question “Why?”. Another benefit of them is that participants can give open answers which could enable variety of data as a result.

On the other hand quantitative methods enables researchers to test and prove their hypothesis. It provides a statistical data which enable researchers to make generalizations. It requires less effort, with a single approach researchers can reach a large number of participants and ask a great number of questions. As predefined answers are being used within this approach, participant's answers are completely related to area of research.

Moreover in my opinion both questionnaire techniques(web-based and paper) have their own advantages and disadvantages. For instance web based questionnaire can be easier to conduct than paper one also response time can be very short. However it can only be used in places where people have computers or smart devices so it can not be suitable for the whole public. Whereas paper questioners are more environment friendly and require no additional equipment to fill in but they require more time and effort in terms of distributing and collecting results.

To conclude using both methodologies have their own benefits and disadvantages. In my opinion how to choose one of them is totally dependent on the subject. I think in some cases using both of them could be the best solution. 

Theme 4: Quantitative Research

This week I chose a research paper from the journal “Computers in Human Bahaviour”. The journal is published by Elsevier Publishers and has an impact factor of 2.067.

The name of the research paper is “Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work?”, written by Ioannis Leftheriotis and Michail N.Giannakos.

The article examines the usage of social media among employees of insurance sector in Greece. Authors investigates whether employees use social media for work purposes, what motivations increase usage of social media and impact of social media on employees' work. Their hypothesis were:

1. Social media use for work is positively and significantly related

with the utilitarian value (motivation) offered to employees.

2. Social media use for work is positively and significantly

related with the hedonic value (motivation) offered to employees.

3.Work performance is positively and significantly related with

social media use in the work of employees.

Behavioral measurement was made by researchers through conducting surveys and questionnaires in this research. During their study, researchers conducted questionnaires to 1799 employees in insurance industry. Questionnaires were distributed to the participants through e-mail, online links and printed papers. The most significant advantage of using this type of method is conducting surveys allows researchers to ask efficiently a lot of questions and to reach scores of people at the same time with less effort and material. Furthermore it allows them to make statistical inference easily by gathering a great number of data. On the other hand participants might give fallible answers to the questions that could mislead the results. Moreover results are only reliable at the time when the survey is conducted so there is no continuum. Furthermore stereotyped and predefined, answers might not reflect the correct feeling of the participants.

What I learned about quantitative methods while studying my paper is that using quantitative methods allows people to measure and analyze data with less effort and material in a short time. They also allow researchers to collect statistical data that enable them to test their hypothesis efficiently and to make reasoning in an easier way.

In my opinion one main of the problems about the paper is that research was conducted only in Greece which provides instability of the results. As usage of social media is very dependent on culture same survey may resulted in a very different way in other countries. Moreover it only shows results in insurance industry so again social media usage of employees from other sectors probably differ from insurance sector. Advantages of social media could have been better analyzed via qualitative methods which could also make some differences in results.

The article “Physical activity, stress and self-reported upper respiratory tract infection” analyzes the relationship between physical activity level, perceived stress and self reported URTI through conducting a survey on 1509 Swedish man and women between the age of 20 and 60. Participant was asked to fill in a questionnaires for every three week period of time which had lasted for four months. At the end researchers found out that high physical activity is associated with lower risk of contracting URTI. Moreover according to the research results, mostly men who perceive high amount of stress, highly benefit from physical activity compared to the ones faces lower stress levels.

One of the main benefits of using quantitative research method is that it provides researchers a statistical data to support and prove their hypothesis. Moreover it allows researcher to collect huge amount of data from masses in a shorter amount of time. In other words it enables a larger scale of research. Whereas the collected data only shows results about specific time period, the time when the research is conducted so same study may provide different results in another period of time. Moreover if the research is made only on specific geographic space again same problem may occur same study may resulted in a different way in another place. As surveys provides predefined answers participants may give false answers as no stereotyped answer choices might reflect their thoughts. In my opinion those are the main disadvantages of quantitative research methods.

On the other hand using qualitative methods provide better understanding of the target audience. As it is used on small scaled groups it is less costly. However it only allows making assumptions about small group so results cannot be generalized to the rest of the population.

References

Fondell, E., Lagerros, Y. T., Sundberg, C. J., Lekander, M., Bälter, O., Rothman, K., & Bälter, K. (2010). Physical activity, stress, and self-reported upper respiratory tract infection. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 43(2), 272-279.

Leftheriotis, I., M. N., Giannakos(2014) Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work?. Computers in Human Behaviour(31) 134-142.