Category: Jackie Kozma

Why is it when we learn that marketing was viral, some almost feel cheated by the company who created it? Does word of mouth marketing only work if it comes from somebody we trust or is it just another form of propaganda?

Popular media seems to be replacing thought-provoking works of literature, music, art, movies.Is the Commodification of Culture making us, on the whole, less intelligent?

Looking at McLuahan’s Technological Determinism Theory, even as we become more easily and globally connected, are we as a society becoming more detached due to our lack of physical involvement or more attached because we can learn more information and become more personal with a person or a cause, even if it’s halfway around the world?

In my first set of framing questions, the question that really interested me was the affect new technology has on research’s scope.

While doing research for my proposal, I tried to stick to more current information since I was looking into the digital divide and new technology.  I stuck to mostly information from the 2000s with some articles from the 1990s as well. What I generally noticed  was that there tends to be a lot of newer research that is trying to incorporate a global scope to their studies.

A lot of the earlier research is country-specific or even just audience-specific within a certain country. Some of the new research compares similar groups in separate countries. A lot of the research is trying to encompass global comparison – but they tend to break it down into the types of countries – developed or developing countries.

I feel like looking at the research, it’s rather hard to do global research. The scope is so vast and the time it takes to conduct research and aggregate the data would take so long. It’s easier for researchers to focus on their own countries, where they have a better idea of the motivations and cultural influences behind their subjects.

Also, I think you can draw on different sources to do a good in-depth anaylsis of the global situation of a certain topic as long as you can use good results. I’m still not sure how a global on-line survey would work, but I think in research it all comes down to specifically identifying the audience you are researching and reaching out to them, wherever they may be.

But when really looking at global research, it’s difficult to be parsimonious is any theories you may develop because there are so many exceptions, so many differences. Although to support theories, you need sound research, this research can come from individual countries and be used to support a general theory.

I found research from the US, England, Czech Republic, Korea, and China. I don’t know if I’ll be able to use some of those studies because I can’t really make knowledgeable statements about the cultural influences. Sure I could do even more research into those countries and I’m sure there’s information in the papers but it would be easier to focus on a smaller population to do more thorough research and to be more sure of whatever conclusions I may come to.

I just find it interesting how researchers choose their scope and methodologies and the future of research. Perhaps collaborative research across the globe can create comprehensive in-depth research papers in the future? I know these do exist, but maybe there will be more of them in the future?



With companies continuing to expand globally and reaching broader audiences especially through the internet, do these companies limit their research to a country by country or culture by culture basis? Depending on the culture, responses and the reasons behind them can vary greatly but do companies look to see if there are similarities in responses even though the cultures differ greatly? Is it feasible to conduct more globally representative research or is the scope too great?

If we were to conduct a survey on say, Facebook, where a person can have many friends, located globally, should all responses be counted or should we limit them to a specific region, such as the US, or if the survey encompasses a certain ideal candidate, such as music listeners or video game players, is it acceptable to include responses from different parts of the world? Or would it affect the validity and reliability of the results?

For our research paper, which type of data should we be more focused on collecting – qualitative or quantitative? Should we be collecting original data if it’s quantitative (would it even accurately represent a broad audience?) or should we be looking at research already done?