Arozin - Research and theory

1. Research journal

I read the chapter Social media, Network Heterogeneity and Opinion Polarization from the journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916 which have an impact factor of 2.011.

the chapter tries to define if social media facilitate or attenuate polarization on the political scene, to investigate if people who get exposed to a more diverse media communication will pose significant ramifications to the future of democracy. Another goal was to examine if man could expand her daily network beyond the boundaries the physical relationships if their friends and family, since social media gives her the opportunity to connect and maintain a larger network with less investment-

One hypothesis was that new media will enable individuals to encounter more diverse views and opinions, and tried to do so through two steps. By shifting the focus from offline networks to social media networks. and secondly they attempted to find out if there are any links between network heterogeneity, social media and opinion polarization.

2. Research paper

As for a research paper I chose A very popular blog: The internet and the possibilities of publicity by Brenton J.Malin which has been published in the journal New Media & Society (impact factor of 2.052) by Steve Jones.

the research paper aims to explain the difference between traditional broadcast versus modern media, due to the evolution of the internet and a digitized market. The author also enlighten us with the question of publicity on the internet, and how to mold, understand and control it.

The author collected empirical data by analyzing statistics collected over the years, and also used a method of qualitative interviews with several big names in the media industry. The data confirmed that todays broadcasting networks and media companies do not hold the same power as they did several years ago due to the possibility of a new form of intelligence. the collective intelligence, which is formed through communities with common interests on the internet.

The openness and convenient use of the internet have created a change in the public sphere with increased democratic and radical possibilities.

3. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.

After reading the text by Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. M. (1995) I came to the conclusion that we have to distinguish three terms to define what theory is and is not.

Theory: Emphasizes the behaviour of causal relationships and thereby identifying what happens before and after an event. A theory explains why  empirical data were observed or are expected to be observed

Empirical data: describes which empirical patterns were observed.

Hypotheses: Should explain what  is expected to occur before observing empirical data and shall not contain logical  arguments about why empirical data are expected to be correct.

Theories shall have a logical explanation to why some results from empirical data occurred or are anticipated, and empirical data can prove useful when constructing a theory, but should not be a interpreted as a theory themselves. Theory is crafted around data and a theory should also explain why certain variables or constructors are connected, otherwise it will become a weak theory which are often rejected due to lack of precision on either of the fields. An indicator of a strong theory is that it has the ability to discern conditions and possibilities of the hypothesis to be correct.

My conclusion is that these three have a general connection to each other, that they are near ineffective when alone, but strong when used together. the one can’t live without the other.

4. Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?

The theory used in the research paper is an explanation theory since the majority of the paper explains causal relationships of the changes in modern times media. She also explains the weight and impact of openness in todays media, that every internet user acts both as a producer and a consumer and therefore have a bigger responsibility. She also predicts that misusing the power of internet will cause a series of publicity problems which will have an impact on the modern democratic communication.

“the more open a channel of communication, the more diverse opinions it can include, but the less clearly it can focus attention on any particular topic”

5. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?

The benefit of this theory is that it presents a strong case with different angles of approach based on numerous and different occasions throughout history, were you later on can predict the outcome of radical changes in different areas of the segment at hand. There are not any specific predictions in this paper that makes the theory an explanation and prediction (EP) theory, even though it has the possibility to become one.