Posts Tagged: week 2

The idea of what should be considered “mass communication” seems vague. While scale, direction, impersonality/anonymity, simultaneity, transience, and audience aim to restrict the definition, with new technologies emerging it seems to be task much like “nailing Jell-o to the wall”. With software that encourages 2-way communication, helps to better familiarize companies with their target audience and preserve messages for a long period of time to reference, how will we really define “mass communication”?

Agenda-setting… is this not a circular concept? If the media primarily functions as a business, they would need to show news that the majority of their viewers want to see. But, do the stories and material they show affect what the viewers than want to see? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

In reference to the catharsis hypothesis: ” … it was later discovered that those who weren’t allowed to watch their favorite programs were angry and acted out because of this…” I found this to be incredibly interesting and similar to what some may refer to as the “brat hypothesis” ha. I am interested in investigating this study further.

I decided this week to respond to my own questions.

The first question which regarded the idea of falsification was explained in class a little more thoroughly which increased my understanding a little bit. I am still a bit fuzzy on the notion of the logic that  “if something cannot be proved to be wrong, it cannot be proved to be right, either.” I suppose that falsification, then, is being able to easily identify when a statement is true or false and if in the case that it is easily false, then one can prove the theory wrong under certain conditions. If a theory can be proved wrong under certain conditions, then, it makes the theory testable and applicable which in turn increases its credibility. Unfalsifiable statements, therefore, would ultimately be unscientific because it would not be testable and hence more so of an opinion than a testable occurrence. You must have a counterexample that is logically possible in order to make the example (or theory in this case) credible. It’s almost like saying that you could not define the term “good” without defining the term “bad” in order for them to exist as terms.

The second question involves the difficulties of measuring human behavior in regards to drawing enough generalizations to form a theory. In class we discussed that the bigger a sample that is drawn and tested, the less the margin of error and more applicable to generalizations about various populations. There is no specific line that can be drawn on the question of how many is enough for a sample to be applicable to base a theory upon, but one thing is sure, once the size of the sample reaches a certain point, it kind of levels off in that it is just increasing the number size of those tested more so than really adding or affecting the results of the research that much. Considering the positivist method, there is no way of telling how each person in the sample  is going respond to the research method or what distractions and errors will become because of their inherent decision-making ability. This is a natural phenomenon in humans that researchers of social science can not account for, but have to assume and control to the best of their ability during the method stage. You can control only so many variables in an experiment that accounting for human variability in regards to their inherent mental processes is impossible. In which case, I guess most social scientists must generalize then that this uncontrollability is accounted for in all social scientific theories, which therefore makes it okay. It is an assumption then that is not questioned upon, for if it was it would make all the theories skeptical to the eye.

In response to the last question about the differences between the interpretive approach and the positivist approach use with the two different sets of data, quantitative and qualitative, I would have to say that each method really doesn’t use one specific data set. Instead, they both incorporate both data sets where it deems appropriate in order to enhance the study’s results. Both must strike a balance between the two so that both sets feed off one another and support the study.

However, the interpretive approach may use more qualitative data than quantitative data because it tends to focus more on the meanings behind communication and tries to answer the question of “why”. As the book states “the goal of the interpretive researcher is to understand how people in everyday natural settings create meanings and interpret the events of the world.”

On the other hand, positivist methods, incorporate more quantitative data because it’s research processes are more empirically set towards gathering numbers and statistically providing results that gather evidence that can be used to compare and test a formed hypothesis.

1. In Chapter 1, the authors state that “the logic of falsification is that if something cannot be proved to be wrong, it cannot be proved to be right, either.” Also, I noticed that on Pg. 15, they state that “theories can never be proved beyond all doubt; more commonly they say that theories are either supported or challenged by investigations into them.” So, my question is then, what exactly is falsification? Is it a series of specifics and “if’s, “ands” and “buts”? And in what ways does it allow a specific theory more credibility than before it was tested as the book states?  Can someone clarify this for me?!

2.In the discussion in chapter 2 about performing and measuring human behavior using typical hard-science methods and applying it to the social activities and behaviors of people the book states on Pg. 17 that “Human behavior can be complicated by the fact that people can behave in complex and abstract ways, and so many different things can cause a particular behavior”? If this is so, then how can we generalize from these situations and make an argument to support a theory? Where does one draw a line from an assumption to a theory?
3.The interpretive approach towards theory and research development often is referred in the book to be more of a “qualitative research method” due to the fact that its process is through inductive research where “data slowly resolve into concepts and specific research propositions through the investigator’s own increasing skill at understanding” (24). However, can it still produce quantitative data as well? And can the “positivist method” produce qualitative data along with quantitative data? Or are there specific guidelines?