Theme 3: Research and theory

Journal: New Media & Society

Impact factor: 3.11

This journal[1] is involved in the different critical discussions around the development of new media. Topics like interactivity, contemporary and historical development, digitalization, community and identity in electronic spaces etc. are covered. The journal is seen as a source to use if you want to stay up-to-date regarding media technology topics. Peers review the articles and this is done anonymous on both theoretical as empirical research. 

Chosen article:“The computer-mediated communication network: exploring the linkage between the online community and social capital” by Junghee Lee & Hyunjoo Lee

Summary

The article[2] is about the relationship between online community and social capital factors: trust, generalized norm and life contentment.

Earlier researchers have argued that Internet has a negative effect on the social capital of individuals, but this research shows the contrary. People who access Internet for online community purpose are more social and have more friends than the people who don’t use the Internet. But the traditional way of communicating (face-to-face) is still important to keep the feeling of a community.

The researcher analyzed the impact of social capital by looking at different social capital factors, traditional media and how socio-demographic factors impact the use of online community.

The findings of this research are based on an online survey of college students at the University of Buffalo in New York. The survey was held over five days and 327 people participated. 133 of them used online community and 194 didn’t.

Critical examination

The author uses the Media displacement and the supplementation models to explain the relationship between old and new media. Its not clear that this model is part of her theory, as it isn’t pointed out as ‘theoretical framework’ but its rather converged in the rest of her research.

There are different definitions given for ‘social capital’ from earlier researches, but it is not clear which definition the author is using in her research. Another point is that the information from earlier researches are rather used as references than as theory, as she just mentions them, but doesn’t make any link to her own research. According to the text ‘What theory is not?’ just referring to researches is not theory.

As over 70% of the respondents were white male students, the findings of this research can’t be generalized, as it is not a representation of the society. Another point that should be taken into consideration is the fact that 194 out of the 327 respondents didn’t use online community, as this also has an impact on the answers that were given. Part of the results was that face-to face contact is important to have a feeling of a community, but it is not clear if this answer is representative for the whole group or only for the people who don’t use online community. In my opinion the researcher should have clarified this part, as it also has an impact on the way the results should be interpret.

Another point is that she used different socio-demographic factors, also gender, but in the results there is nothing said about if gender has an effect on the use of online community or if this effect is relevant or not. While there is pointed out how many man and woman participated in the survey, but nothing was done with this results. In this case I do think that this result would have been relevant as it is part of her research question.

1.What is theory?

A theory is a concept that is set to explain certain events or facts regarding a certain subject. 

What theory is not?

A theory is not a list of references that are used in an article and its not the data that was gained during the research, except from if they are explained with good arguments.

The use of diagrams is also not a theory, because these diagrams are not explaining ‘why’ something is the way it is. Hypothesis or predictions are also not theory, cause they don’t explain ‘what’ is expected to happen but only ‘why’ it is expected to happen.

2. In this research there were different theories and models used. The first two research questions have their own model or theory that it is based on.

The term social capital is part of her theory, she use this term to explain the factors that she presents in her research (trust, generalized norms etc.). She mentions the different definitions from earlier researches.

Media Displacement and Supplementation models are also part of her theory.

Media displacement model: people intent to use traditional media less, because they have to divide their time between traditional and new media.

Supplementation model: people use traditional media and new media as a complementary.

The conflicting results of earlier research done made her decide to research what the relationship is between online community use and other media consumption. So she uses these models to explain that what she wants to research is relevant, because the earlier results on this study wasn’t clear.

According to Gregor’s theory types ‘analysis’ is the type that was used in this research, as the theory describes what is already done in her field of research.

3.Benefits

-Describes and analyses specific parts of a subject
-Its valuable when little is know about a certain subject

Limitations
-There are no predictions made that could be tested empirically
-There are no causal relationships
-There are no accepted statements

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[1] http://www.newmediaandsociety.com/nmsstyle/NMSsubguidelines.pdf (2016-09-13)

[2] Lee, J. and Lee, H. (2010) ‘The computer-mediated communication network: exploring the linkage between the online community and social capital’, New Media & Society vol.12 no.5 :711-727.