Importance of Seeing

After really getting a better understanding for qualitative research I think that my plan for a documentary will work extremely well because when conducting interviews and catching it on film you are able to see facial expressions and hear changes in tone. If I were to just write a paper you would be more likely to get my bias account of the interviews, but when you are catching everything on film it is less likely, although keep in mind that editing, camera angle etc. will contribute to my biases. 

While trying to get a better understanding of qualitative research and the power it can have I came across the phenomenological method (I know big word, and don't worry I can't pronounce it either). But according to Spiegelberg who describes the method, it is important to "become highly aware" of your subjects and your subjects surroundings (Bruyn 284). How much more could you become aware of your subjects and their surroundings then by filming them! Another part of the phenomenological method that Spiegelberg stresses is the importance of "'watching modes of appearing' [which] stresses the importance of seeing objects as they actually exist rather than as we imagine they exist" (Bruyn 284). A-ha! Don't you love a good "A-ha!" moment. That's exactly what I will be doing by filming them, I will be capturing students and faculty as they exist instead of trying to describe them and projecting my views through words. 

Works Cited:

Bruyn, Severyn T., "The New Empiricists: The Participant Observer and Phenomenologist." 
             Qualitative Methodology. Ed. William J. Filstead. Chicago: Markham Publishing, 1970.
             283-87.

Methods of Research

For those of you just joining us, it is my senior spring semester and as a Performance and Communication Arts major and to capitalize on my tenure here I at SLU I have come up with the thesis, does Computer Mediated Communication (texting, facebook, twitter) bring us as together as a community or tear us apart? To find the answer to this thesis (there may not be an answer, which is fine) I am going to create a documentary where I plan on interviewing students and faculty. This blog is going to serve as a way for me to keep you all up to date on the process of my project as well as have the opportunity to contribute to the conversation.

However, before I dive into conducting my interviews I need to do some research. I am not the first person to come along and think hey, is this really beneficial? No, there have been plenty before me, Marshal Mcluhan, who said the "medium is the message" and Joseph Walther who came up with the Social Information Processing Theory. So before I go around talking to people I need to understand what I am doing, am I preaching?

The first step is to understand how to conduct proper research, without letting your biases influence your subjects. Having a thesis is one thing but I cannot go into my research with a hypothesis. Instead I need to take a step back and approach these interviews with an open mind. According to Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss' research and The Discovery of Grounded Theory, researchers (me) must free themselves of all prior knowledge because this will allow me to conduct research in an unprejudiced way (Flick, Kardorff and Steinke 154). Although this sounds ideal, it is important to remember that you are never truly objective you just need to make sure you develop your theory at the end of the research not before or after. I don't mean to bore you much longer but there is one other crucial important thing I feel the need to mention, which is that having prior knowledge isn't necessarily bad, instead it gives us the capability to create meaning out of what we are observing (Flick, Kardorff and Steinke 156). Just always remember...

KEEP AN OPEN MIND!

Works Cited:

Flick, Uwe, Ernst von Kardoff, Ines Steinke. A Companion to Qualitative Research. SAGE Publications,
                2004.

Breaking News

Today is the last first Friday of my senior year, or to those who tweet it is FollowFriday (#ff) and right now known as "Angry Friday" because of the events occurring in Egypt.

What's interesting about the events occurring in Egypt is the role that Social Networks are playing in the movement. The protesters had been using Computer Mediated Communication as a way of organizing their movement. In response the government has disconnected the internet as well as blocked text messaging to stop the protesters from organizing.



Now I am no expert on the events occurring, most of the information I have received has actually been through twitter. How you may ask? Because people have been tweeting links to news articles non stop to CNN and Wall Street Journal describing the events occurring.



Tweets from Mohamed El Baradei (Click to Enlarge)

The Beginning of the End

Welcome back fellow students, professors, and stragglers who have crossed paths with this blog. It is officially spring semester of Senior Year, scary thought, but here's an update on the beginning of the semester so far, the end of the beginning if you must.

I have officially started to do some research for my project specifically on methodology. Understanding what form of methodology I am going to use is an important place to start for my project because I am going to conduct interviews of fellow St. Lawrence community members to try and get a better understanding of how they use computer mediated communication. I am not going to explain my methodology findings quite yet, however I can let you know that I am doing qualitative research as opposed to quantitative, but there will be more to come in the following days.

As for now I wanted to let you all know that the movie, The Social Network has won numerous awards these past couples months in the Golden Globes, Critiques Choice Awards and is currently nominated for 8 Academy Awards. And if you want my opinion I think they will win Best Picture (you heard it here first). But this isn't the reason I am mentioning the film in blog, although there numerous accolades are note worthy, it is really the premise and plot line of the story that deserves mentioning. For those of you poor souls who haven't had the chance to see this wonderful film yet (it's being shown in the Winston Room this weekend so get a move on it), the movie is about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook, which is one of the social networks I am going to focus on for my senior project. I have actually seen the movie twice and the second time I watched I had my thinking cap and critical lens goggles on and Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) actually states that the creation of Facebook was for college students to be able to see what their friends are doing on the Internet. And here's some food for thought, one of my favorite quotes in the movie said by Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake):

Sean Parker: We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're gonna live on the internet!

Do we?