Theme 3: Reflections after the Lecture and Seminar

This week we discussed about theory and research. We had to find a journal and a paper with high quality and related to media technology field and discuss about them. Also we read the articles “The Nature of Theory in Information Systems” and “What Theory is Not” and try to answer some questions.

My first thought about theme 3 was that it would be an easier one compared to the others, but this was not the case. I found it difficult to define exactly what the media technology field is containing, and as a result it was difficult enough to pick a paper. At the seminar we discuss a bit about that since other students faced the same difficulty.

At the lecture the professor explain to as what theory and research is about. A detective could say that theory is a hypothesis, but we as scientists couldn’t say that theory is a hypothesis; theory is about looking and seeing, seeing not only with our eyes but with our mind.  The word theory is a Greek word that means looking and perceiving. A reason why humans construct theory is because they want to make connections between phenomena. Research is done to confirm facts, solve problems and define new, develop new theories and produce knowledge. Scientific research is a systematic way of gathering data. Data is never given to us in itself, we have to gather them. However, data are not always objective since we choose which data to collect.

We also talked a bit about truth and paradigm. Truth is related to a state of knowledge that is true and valid now. Once can say that truth is a prior knowledge and that there is not a disciplinary on producing truths. Paradigm as I perceive it is a way of thinking. We have old and new paradigms. A new paradigm can be a good one and replace an old one or can be a weak one.  For example, quantum changed complete the way of thinking that we had before (Newtonian).  Constant paradigm shifts also has happened on Human Computers Interaction field, the last years.  For instance we changed the way of thinking from how fast the user is clicking to the aesthetics and the importance of the whole experience of the user in front of the computer. 

At the seminar we first discussed in smaller groups and the professor joined for a few minutes each team to help us out. It end up, that our team and another one had the same misunderstanding. We divided the theory in two categories, scientific theory and humanistic/philosophical theory. This was not correct because theories are based on previous theories and we cannot separate, categorize them or define clear limits between them. 

In conclusion, theory is built on theory or in contrast to other theories. Theory is about why something is happening, not what is happing, means that theory explains. There are weak and strong theories. A way to clarify if a theory is good could be to try to apply it in other context and see if the explanation makes sense. Theory is our starting point, we lead by it, and we build on it. Nothing starts from scratch. Nothing starts from scratch.

Theme 2: My comments

1. http://thetheoryandmethodofeverything.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflections.html?showComment=1443262198508

2. http://mediafluttery.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflectioncritical-media-studies.html?showComment=1443264197493#c1327508527861932601 

3. http://u1ifqcuc.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2_83.html?showComment=1443265288029#c4531387196328278050

4. http://tamfmtol.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-post-critical-media-studies.html?showComment=1443267174143#c1332131424148272308 

5. http://denise-theoryandmethod.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-critical-media-studies-22.html?showComment=1443268569277#c3880120265698700603

6. http://thewind-egg.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflection-for-this-week-we.html?showComment=1443270799276#c6965576392082778085

7.http://vadfinnsegentligen.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-reflection.html?showComment=1443275958920#c399902759400297068

8.http://aris-totall-loss.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-in-retrospect.html?showComment=1443341166881#c5974245756363877011

9.http://rickardsdm2572.blogspot.se/2015/09/theme-2-post-seminar-reflections.html?showComment=1443342519764

10. http://theoandmeth.blogspot.se/2015/09/reflection-theme-2.html?showComment=1443344116531#c5568277423796785391

Theme 4: Quantitative research

Paper “Effects of Interactive Sonification on Emotionally Expressive Walking Styles” published in “IEEE Transactions on Affective computing” journal with impact factor 2.68.

The paper is a research that contains two experiments. The first experiment is about emotional walking and how the audio feedback of the steps is affecting the performance of the walking. The participants have to walk with sad, happy, fear, aggressive, tender and natural emotion. Different footstep sound feedback was produced in case of metal, wood, gravel, snow ground materials. In the second one the participants were different and they were asked to recognize the most characteristics sounds that were performed it the first experiment.

The quantitative methods that are used in this paper are surveys and laboratory experiments.  The benefits of surveys are a lot. The data of the surveys are easy to collect, to be analyzed and to be compared. The participant can answer them quickly and easy. The limitation is that the participant cannot describe his experience the way he wants to. However, the participants could leave an open comment about their experience at the end of the questionnaire. Lab experiments provide to researchers perfect conditions to perform and record the experiments, also to use equipment and anything else needed. The experiments would be difficult to perform in real world and the final results could be wrong. Nevertheless, the equipment should well design in order not to distract or be inconvenient to the participant.

The researches wanted to know the level of individual awareness achieved after the end of each experiment, so the questionnaires in the end were necessary. A graphic representation with the answer of the surveys has been done. In the laboratory experiments a lot of technologies were used. The main equipment (active shoes) was created by the researchers according to the needs of the experiments. Participants also had to practice before the lab experiments and familiarize with the systems.

There were not methodological problems in the questionnaires. The questionnaires involved 3 parts, the participant had to answer all the question of each part, and then he was able to read and answer the questions of the next part. The open comments of the participants were interesting and several. As concerns the laboratory experiments, the active shoes that the participants wore, could be designed better, in order to be more convenient to the participant, when he performed the walking styles.

Reflections on Drumming in Immersive Virtual Reality

Immersive virtual reality is about transporting people to virtual place, where they can not only “be there” but also “act there”. That is to say that they have a “presence” there, they can experience new things and take part in activities. Virtual body ownership illusions refer to the feeling to see your body in a virtual environment in a different body type and also have bodily sensations and notion that is directed by you. These two concepts were unknown to me. The differences between virtual reality and immersive virtual reality were clearer after I read the paper. It was very interesting to read and learn about virtual body ownership illusions and the results on humans’ behavior. The experiment shown that when people own a different body type tend to change their behavior according to that, despite any demographical characteristics. In other words by using the correct body type in the IVR we can direct how people we want to perform and behave. This can be used in a lot of different fields like education, psychotherapy and rehabilitation in order to help people perform better by seeing and using a specific body type in a specific virtual environment.

Quantitative methods

Benefits: data can be collected and analyzed quickly. When the data are numerical, the results are objective and cannot be misinterpreted. In addition, the results of a sample can be generalized to the entire population if the response rate is high enough. In the case of statistical methods, we can understand huge amount of data after the statistic analyze. Also, the results of the quantitative methods are reliable enough to help us direct our future plans.

Limitations: a study that uses this method is related to the people that take part. The participants have to be a lot, in order to have a big sample of the population, which also leads to a bigger cost of this method.

Qualitative methods

Benefits: we can explore a topic with more details. So it is offering richness and depth of understanding of a field. Also, provides insights into the setting of a problem, the generating ideas and the hypotheses for later quantitative research. The method is more flexible in time and place and has a smaller cost than the quantitative method, since there is no need to interact with a lot of people or recruit them.

Limitations: in process and metrics the method is essentially subjective. Also it is not possible to track the risks. Finally, the results cannot be generalized to entire population

Theme 2: Reflections after the Lecture and Seminar.

This week we read Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity" (1936) and Adorno & Horkheimer’s "Dialectic of Enlightenment" (1944).

The meaning of nominalism was the most difficult part of Theme 2. No matter how many sources I searched to understand it, I couldn’t have a clear explanation of it in my mind. The lecture and the seminars helped me a lot to sort things out. At the seminar we have time to discuss all the main ideas with our team. We exchanged opinions that in some pointes there were much different. In the second hour of the seminar we had an interesting and helpful conversation with the professor, and I really hope that we could have more time to discuss.

In order to understand nominalism, we have to know first what Platonic realism is. Platonic realism says that the perception we have about the things it’s just a reflection of the real things, we have to look back to understand the concept. The allegory of the Plato’s cave helped a lot. Imagine that you are a prisoner in a cave and you can only look at the wall. Behind you there is a fire and objects that are reflected on the wall. You can only see and hear the shadow of the object and the echoes cast by objects. For example you think that you see a book but this is just the reflection of it. If you want to see the real book you have to look back. Nominalism is the opposite of Realism. In nominalism everything that you see is real. Every object is individual and there are no general ideas, apart from the name. 

The relation between nominalism and enlightenment is that we have to get rid of the concepts, the opinion of the others, the opinion of society, we have to observe things as unique and that they don’t have anything in common. However, according to Adorno and Horkheimer nominalism position is dangerous because if we just observe stuff that exists, we don’t make questions and we become slaves. We need ideas to make changes in the world, and concepts are also important. This is why nominalism is also related to fascism. Because also in fascism we do not have changes, for example poor should always be poor.

Enlightenment also has similarities with mass media. Both of them shows life as it is and fail to show any alternative. For example the movies mirroring the actual conditions but also lead us to think that this is how life should be. As a result to that, Adorno and Horkheimer believe that things aren’t going any better and that there are not revolutionary potentials. In contrast with Benjamin who is more optimistic and believes that culture will change society. 

In the seminar we also had a discussion about nowadays media and how the effected superstructure. Even though we cannot see the results right now, the results will come. In 80’s there was big enthusiasm about computers and communication, but this now has come to integrate social bones. We talk also about natural and historical perception and how art and media combine characteristics of different times and change our perception. For instance, a politician wearing the clothes of Plato makes him look clever.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have so much time to discuss about aura. But one important thing I want to point out is that aura is the key against fascism. Reproduction free art and gives potation to all people, not only the rich ones.