Looking back at the entire course, there are several things which I would like to point out:
1) It was breaking grounds for myself, in terms of opening up entirely new field of studies, which I did not have any idea about. It was a great learning experience, because I had to leave the comfort zone of mine and actually plunge into the material which I have not necessarily understood :))) But I guess the class discussion really helped me in grasping the major ideas of the readings. After the class I always felt that finally I had a clearer perspective of the class readings. All unlcear moments were either discussed throughly or mentioned so it provided me with enough information to construct the final concepts related to the readings.
2) The readings in generally were very diverse. Some of the them easy to follow, some very tecnical and thus challenging. But I guess it followed the logic of the class - " leave your comfort zone," "try some new ideas." So, all the reading contributed to that final goal of the course:))) I especially liked the dissertation section - it gives really good examples of how to write dissertation. I think it would be useful to have those links as well as all class reading available after the course!!!
3) Class discussion. I found it fascinating to actually meet the author of one of the books we were reading online, it was very useful and insighful. I guess it is to our great advantage to read a book, to discuss it in class and then to ask questions to its author!
4) Field methods. Dr. Rickly asked us to give our own definition of the fields method. I would probably point out that the major element in the fields method would be observation of the users and how they use a certain artifact in their own natural environment, whether it is a workplace, online, etc. While doing research we should not try to impose any of our stereotypes or pre-defined categories. Althgough, i have to admit it is one of the major challanges for any researcher. All of us have some kind of ideas before we start research. To avoid or to decrease the amount of bias, we should try to triangulate our methods!
5) Triangulation. I guess that it is one of the key ideas which i took from this class! To ensure the reliability of the results we should always try to find the way to look at the data from different perspectives, asking other people to help us, or using different methods to cross check the findings. Spinuzzi talked a lot about that.
6) My own research. The project which I completed for this class, teh results of it, will be used for teh follow up study. I will continue to look at how finanacial blogs use their blogs. IN the future study i plan to triangulate the methods. One of the ideas is to conduct interviews (online, or interview) to ask bloggers themselves about how they use thier blogs. It will be very interesting to see what they think about it and if the data from the blog posts is the same or different.
Due to the short of time I could not do it for this class, but I will use in the future project.
One of teh biggest challanges in the project was to do teh data collection. It took most of the time. But it was a good learning experience for me, especially working with a second coder and trying to explain things to him:)
7) INformation managment. I found this type of task very useful. It was the first online course for me and it was interesting to observe the class dynamic and try to lead any type of discussion :)))) So i guess if i do it second time, it would be much better.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Dissertation Method Readings
The method section of Ross dissertation begins with the revision of the main purpose of the project. It was interesting for me to actually see this description in the method section. Usually, we primarily see how the researcher jump into explaining the methods without talking about purpose, but I guess, dissertation sections (chapters) , as we talked last time are supposed to be stand alone pieces.
If it is the case, the author did a great job of providing us with information about the goals as well as went into detailed discussion of the theories at the beginning of the method section, which also seemed a little bit out of place for me.
What I liked about the introduction part was how the author differentiated his research from other types of studies, which analyze persuasive messages or arguments created by media or other institutions. This kind of research is usually done in the mass communications departments. The purpose of the current research is to study the major themes, or as the author calls them commonplaces, recurring thematic elements, tropes or phraseology. Eventually as we saw the author came up with the 12 categories of response, which are the most prevalent and therefore viable in current environmental argumentation.
From my standpoint, it is a very valuable study, because we can analyze media and institution messages but never really know what works for the audience. Knowing those major themes, professionals in PR departments could create even more convincing and effective messages, I am not sure if that would be for good or bad???
I wonder who would be the potential audience for this particular study besides academic community?
The author spends a lot of time explaining and discussing the theories he is using in the study, clearly identifying where he is planning to fill the gap in the literature. It seems like that it is the first study which actually looked at the themes used by the audience in relation to environmental discourse and argument.
He lists several theories (p. 58) stating that none of those theories are actually applicable to his study. When I was reading his explanation of the purpose of the study and how it differs from other studies, I thought that framing theory (mass communications theory) does look at media frames and audience frames. By frames we mean major recurring themes, which I think would be appropriate to call commonplaces. The list of 12 themes, which is the result of the study, is exactly what the media scholars, who study audience frames, produce as a result of the research. Looking at audience frames within framing theory, we may use experiment as well as interview methods. The purpose of the study would be: to identify the major thematic categories employed by the audience. So while reading this part of the method section, I thought that framing theory might be an interesting theory to explore in the context of this particular study.
The author discusses main theoretical paradigms employed in his research. First is feminist methodology. I found his explanation very useful. The author clearly points out that neither his data nor his interpretation is a purely feminist approach. Although, some of the respondents talked about power hierarchy and complex communication strategies, where the feminist methodology may provide some guidance.
Another approach used by the author is a popular culture approach. As the author points out it should not be confused with contextualized inquiry. Popular culture approach looks not at the “real use” or intent of an artifact, but at social circumstances and beliefs that have created a certain phenomenon. In other words, this approach helps us answer the “why” question. By this I mean that, if we as researchers look at recurring themes used by the audience, it would be useful to find the roots of those themes. One of the possible “roots” could be the societal and cultural values, hold by the people. I have not read the results and discussion section, so I don’t know if the researcher actually employed this approach in discussing the results.
But to elaborate on this, I have a question: if we look at the 12 themes, identified by the research, which of those themes reflect the values of the western developed societies? For the sake of a comparison, which themes would be commonplace for the primitive societies?
The third methodological approach is the idea of popularization discourse. From my perspective, it is probably not the best fit to the goals of the current study, since the research does not really look at how the scientific messages are presented. The author does not analyze the representation of information, which according to previous studies, play a major role in rejection or acceptance of scientific information. What do you all think? Is it a relevant methodology approach in the context of the current study?
Reading the research question part of the method section got me thinking that to be successful communicator the most important thing we need to know is probably the “narrative and perceptions audience draws upon when are presented with an argument.” In the light of this discussion, trying to grasp how people understand the social context (power relationships, societal values) and its relationship to the phenomenon, in our case, dam, is the most important thing in developing the successful and convincing arguments.
In the data collection section the author discussed what kind of data he collected, he mentioned that it was interviews as well as samples of material given out at and around each dam site. It would be interested to actually compare the recurring themes in written (audio-visual) materials with the recurring themes used by the audience and see if they are the same or not.
I like how the researcher limited the time of the interview to 2-5 minutes, in this short time period the participants will probably be relying on short-cuts or schemas, stored and easily retrievable from the memory. So, I guess schema theory would be another theory which might be employed within the context of this study.
In the section where the author describes the process of collecting data, I liked how he provided details on his method polishing, i.e. he began with transcribing every single “hmm” and then realized that these data are probably irrelevant to the current study. Basically, during the pilot study and first attempts to transcribe he was able to focus and define the most appropriate methodology approach to be used in the study.
If it is the case, the author did a great job of providing us with information about the goals as well as went into detailed discussion of the theories at the beginning of the method section, which also seemed a little bit out of place for me.
What I liked about the introduction part was how the author differentiated his research from other types of studies, which analyze persuasive messages or arguments created by media or other institutions. This kind of research is usually done in the mass communications departments. The purpose of the current research is to study the major themes, or as the author calls them commonplaces, recurring thematic elements, tropes or phraseology. Eventually as we saw the author came up with the 12 categories of response, which are the most prevalent and therefore viable in current environmental argumentation.
From my standpoint, it is a very valuable study, because we can analyze media and institution messages but never really know what works for the audience. Knowing those major themes, professionals in PR departments could create even more convincing and effective messages, I am not sure if that would be for good or bad???
I wonder who would be the potential audience for this particular study besides academic community?
The author spends a lot of time explaining and discussing the theories he is using in the study, clearly identifying where he is planning to fill the gap in the literature. It seems like that it is the first study which actually looked at the themes used by the audience in relation to environmental discourse and argument.
He lists several theories (p. 58) stating that none of those theories are actually applicable to his study. When I was reading his explanation of the purpose of the study and how it differs from other studies, I thought that framing theory (mass communications theory) does look at media frames and audience frames. By frames we mean major recurring themes, which I think would be appropriate to call commonplaces. The list of 12 themes, which is the result of the study, is exactly what the media scholars, who study audience frames, produce as a result of the research. Looking at audience frames within framing theory, we may use experiment as well as interview methods. The purpose of the study would be: to identify the major thematic categories employed by the audience. So while reading this part of the method section, I thought that framing theory might be an interesting theory to explore in the context of this particular study.
The author discusses main theoretical paradigms employed in his research. First is feminist methodology. I found his explanation very useful. The author clearly points out that neither his data nor his interpretation is a purely feminist approach. Although, some of the respondents talked about power hierarchy and complex communication strategies, where the feminist methodology may provide some guidance.
Another approach used by the author is a popular culture approach. As the author points out it should not be confused with contextualized inquiry. Popular culture approach looks not at the “real use” or intent of an artifact, but at social circumstances and beliefs that have created a certain phenomenon. In other words, this approach helps us answer the “why” question. By this I mean that, if we as researchers look at recurring themes used by the audience, it would be useful to find the roots of those themes. One of the possible “roots” could be the societal and cultural values, hold by the people. I have not read the results and discussion section, so I don’t know if the researcher actually employed this approach in discussing the results.
But to elaborate on this, I have a question: if we look at the 12 themes, identified by the research, which of those themes reflect the values of the western developed societies? For the sake of a comparison, which themes would be commonplace for the primitive societies?
The third methodological approach is the idea of popularization discourse. From my perspective, it is probably not the best fit to the goals of the current study, since the research does not really look at how the scientific messages are presented. The author does not analyze the representation of information, which according to previous studies, play a major role in rejection or acceptance of scientific information. What do you all think? Is it a relevant methodology approach in the context of the current study?
Reading the research question part of the method section got me thinking that to be successful communicator the most important thing we need to know is probably the “narrative and perceptions audience draws upon when are presented with an argument.” In the light of this discussion, trying to grasp how people understand the social context (power relationships, societal values) and its relationship to the phenomenon, in our case, dam, is the most important thing in developing the successful and convincing arguments.
In the data collection section the author discussed what kind of data he collected, he mentioned that it was interviews as well as samples of material given out at and around each dam site. It would be interested to actually compare the recurring themes in written (audio-visual) materials with the recurring themes used by the audience and see if they are the same or not.
I like how the researcher limited the time of the interview to 2-5 minutes, in this short time period the participants will probably be relying on short-cuts or schemas, stored and easily retrievable from the memory. So, I guess schema theory would be another theory which might be employed within the context of this study.
In the section where the author describes the process of collecting data, I liked how he provided details on his method polishing, i.e. he began with transcribing every single “hmm” and then realized that these data are probably irrelevant to the current study. Basically, during the pilot study and first attempts to transcribe he was able to focus and define the most appropriate methodology approach to be used in the study.
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