Sep 09 2010
Response-Theory Evaluation
After class this week, I definitely have a new-found respect for theory and the reasons it is applied and used so religiously. These first few chapters opened my eyes to the field of mass communications that had been neglected. Although in mass communications audience analysis is imperative, it was the theory aspect that really brought out a new world for me.
My first question was “Is Positivism an effective investigative method when studying the effects of social media or is it safe to trust results that are easily tampered with?” Although we did not discuss Positivism in depth in class, I was able to draw from the evaluation discussion of theories to help explain this investigative method. Positivism is not a theory but a research process. The developer of Positivism Auguste Comte defined positivism as “an investigative method of physical sciences such as experiments and objective measurement of specified criteria, to address and understand social phenomena.” I believe this would not be the best way to study the effects of social media because even though surveys are conducted and the research is able to be evaluated, researchers are starting to see a climb in qualitative research and not necessarily quantitative. Although I felt like this question was relevant, it was tough to respond too.
My second question was “Is theory truly imperative to study for broadcast journalism when it is an industry that is constantly changing and would it be beneficial at all to keep creating theories every time the industry shifts? After discussing the various theories such as the social information processing theory in class, I realized it is important for a broadcast journalist to understand the theories of mass communication to help when studying the trends of this growing media and to understand why their audience reacts and acts towards social media or new media in general. I do not believe there needs to be a theory created every five minutes in this industry but I have seen some of the openness and heuristic value of various media theories that allows “wiggle” room for growth in theory. One thing I learned in class in that “theory is not knowledge in and of itself but a tool for developing and working knowledge,” which is why these theories are essential to understand especially when working with large audiences.
My third question was “Can Media Determinism be an explanation for how society forms their “accepted” morals? Is the media convergence shift a reflection of social structure? After this weeks class, I realized this question is not as relevant to the weeks topic but it was still a question that was answered by evaluating theory. Media determinism described by Martin McLuhan was his central idea that the primary medium people use to interact with one another contributes to how society ends up being structured. There was a theory we discussed in class called the social processing information theory and although this theory was solely based on interpersonal internet/ face to face relationship and the eventual equalization, it showed that the interpersonal relationships are evolving which in turn allows society to evolve. As far as accepted morals, we know that “morals” have changed but is technology to blame for that because I believe that is a whole new can of worms.