Theme 3: Research and theory (After Seminar)

    After lecture,  reading and seminar, understanding the concept of theory became easier than before, but no less complex. The term "theory" could contain different types of interpretations; etymologically the word is derived from Greek and means contemplation. To formulate a theory of the same object could vary among people due to different views and knowledge they possess, as well as the concept of theory vary according to the subject and the type of analysis to be performed. A theory can be understood as a set of propositions that are intended to identify certain objects and the relationship between them. Sometimes the term theory is used to describe a hypothesis; however, the hypothesis is an idea that is assumed for a specific topic, while a theory defines why of these ideas. In addition, a theory can generate hypotheses that can be validated or refuted through different methods.

  Usually when the term "theory" is used, we are referring to scientific theory, which is based on the natural sciences, though that term can also be used to refer to theories based on the philosophy also known as philosophical theories. The difference is that a scientific theory aims to explain the nature of an event using the popular "scientific method", which can be falsifiable,  while a philosophical theory the main object of study is not real. In either case, a theory could be considered as a truth, while you cannot refute it. 

In history of science, it was believed that the bigger and complex was a theory, the theory was more reliable, however present day, the strength of a theory is more related to the amount of phenomena’s it can explain, which it can be measured by its ability to make predictions that can be right or wrong.  

The term research was also discussed during the Lecture and can be interpreted as a creative work that follows a system in order to obtain or increase knowledge of a certain subject. Research is a way to make knowledge and is designed to establish or confirm facts. When someone is referring to this term, you may be referring to scientific research, collecting data in a systematic way; applied research, focused on solving practical problems and usually used empirical methodologies; or artistic research. 

During the seminar, we discussed the different papers that everyone had selected, explaining the contents of it and trying to understand what theory(ies) were formulated. Particularly I think (and I think many agree with me) that in these kinds of articles, finding theories involved in the study is not an easy task and many authors do not make it easier to readers. Often hypothesis are implicit, and they are very difficult to find, especially if you have no knowledge of the field being studied. After discussing the different articles and understand the theories that explain them, we ended the seminar talking about the big question… What is Theory? A question that how you can see, is not very easy to answer concretely.

 

Theme 4: Quantitative research (Before)

      

      I   chose is called "Facebook use and depressive symptomatology" in which the impact of using Facebook on the mental health of young people (especially systems depression) led to concerns that currently exists for the increase is studied the use of social networks within the youth population. The desired goal is to study whether the association between the use of Facebook and depressive symptoms in young people, is due to individual factors or not. 

This study was performed using quantitative methods. As a quantitative method, online questionnaires were used to obtain the data required for the study. The questionnaire was administered to 237 young adults aged between 18 and 23, these data were further analyzed using statistical method and, hierarchical regression models. Using such methods allows you to collect large volumes of data in a relatively short time. This method allows you to not only save time, but also economical and also facilitates the study subjects to participate more comfortably and efficiently. In turn this has certain limitations such as the study of various factors that may affect the outcome, factors such as social and cultural as well as perform such youth survey is not always to obtain accurate data, since it is not known under the condition in which the subject of study is answering the questionnaire.

 
After reading the paper, I realized how using quantitative methods, you can achieve a bit complex and objectively discard or validate a hypothesis to become a theory. The use of quantitative methods can achieve concrete results.

1.   Which are the benefits and limitations of using quantitative methods?

   Using quantitative methods allow you to collect lots of data in a short time these data can be easily analyzed using statistics. This method requires that the hypothesis be concrete and well made in order to get a general conclusion of a particular topic on the basis of statistical data and analysis. This method has some limitations, the number of people taking part in the study should be representative to achieve conclusive results, if a research is made with few people, then is really hard to generate reliable results, in addition, a problem with many causal elements cannot be solved focusing the study in all of them. Another limitation is the fact that information can be collected from anonymous sources so the accuracy and objectivity of the data is not always the right one.

2.     Which are the benefits and limitations of using qualitative methods?

 Using qualitative methods, a research must be done deeper than using quantitative methods end it is really helpfully to solve complex topics where certain factors intervene like social, politics and cultural factors. This kind of research can allow you to research under different perspective analyzing the behavior of a certain individual in a specific situation. These methods also has some limitations, the time of research must be long and the conclusions sometimes cannot be generalized because of the different factor that lead to certain behavior of the subject. 

Theme 2: Critical media studies. (After Seminar)

  Both Lecture and Seminar concerning the second theme were quite interesting, thanks to both stay clear the idea that Adorno & Horkheimer and Benjamin wanted to transmit with your texts. Understanding the context and the cultural situation in which the text was written is critical in order to understand the intentions of the authors, and thanks to this idea became easier to achieve understand the idea that these authors wanted to express. For example in the case of Benjamin is important to understand that he is a Jewish philosopher pursued by the Germans at the time he wrote this text in 1936, shortly before the start of the Second World War, in order to understand the cultural situation to which he is referring in his texts. It is also important to understand how in the case of Benjamin’s  ideals had different changes since starting with ideals of Jewish theology and then base their texts on Marxist ideals, due to various circumstances which he lived.

  Another issue that I am more clear about it, is the concept of nominalism, which aims to make understand how two objects of the same name have nothing in common but the name. Thus if we have two chairs, they can have the same name but are not considered to be the same object, I just grouped them under the same name, which was given to me by culture and society. From a nominalist view, generalize objects allows you questioning the world, and not only adapt and accept the worldview that you already have. However according to the readings and discussed in seminars, have an extreme nominalist ideology makes that do not exist a structure because nothing can be generalized. We cannot have a change if we accept things as they are presented to us.

   The above concept is also related to the Enlightenment, which according to the understood texts, intended to free humanity from fear of the unknown and eliminates the world of magic to supplant them with knowledge. However, the Enlightenment not only brought development of societies but also consequences. While it brought whit it scientific revolution, creating industries and technologies, emerged consequences for society as were poor living conditions in industries and wars. In the seminar we also talked about industrial culture and how Adorno and Horkhermer see it, authors were disagreed with this culture despite being a product of the Enlightenment. According to these authors the art produced in the industrial culture is not what is known as art, but are now mere products of capitalism. On the other hand if we compare the texts of Benjamin and Adorno and Horkhermer you can see how Benjamin is expressed more optimism and Horkhermer Adorno, in particular as regards the power it possesses culture as a revolutionary potential.

 At the end of the seminar, we discuss the concept of aestheticized politics, we discussed about what this means and how it emerged as a result of Enlightenment and lead  to movements like fascism and Nazism. Finally we ended the seminar the following question: today we can still see these concepts in any culture? I believe that globally, in many systems of government still exists aestheticized politics and the greatest example I can give of this is in my country, Venezuela. Currently Venezuelans live under a government that relies on the support of the media to show society "good conditions" under which we are living, and the progress being made with the current government. This is achieved by showing only a small part of reality through the media which are censored and controlled by the government, preventing Venezuelans know about the sad reality in which we are living.