Designing Methodologies for Studying Media
6549 - NMDS 5026 - A
School of Media Studies
The New School
Spring 2016

Instructor: Peter Asaro asarop AT newschool.edu
Time: Tuesdays, 6:00 - 7:50 pm
Location: 6 East 16th Street

Course webpage is here: http://peterasaro.org/courses/2016SMethods.html

Course blog is here: http://designingmethods16s.wordpress.com

Course Description

This course explores the design of research methodologies for the systematic study of media--how and why media are made, distributed, used, and understood. Because media systems can be very complex, and studied from various perspectives, it is important for media researchers to be able to deploy a range of techniques, and especially to combine techniques, in ways that allow for meaningful, clear, and critical research. The course emphasizes the framing of questions, as well as the choice of best methods for research, and how the choice of methods influences the significance, meaning, and impact of the results. This includes ethical considerations of research, such as protecting subjects' privacy and anonymity. The class will give a survey of various types of empirical methods, including qualitative ones, such as ethnography, participant observation, focus groups, interviews, auto-ethnography, and rhetorical analysis; and quantitative ones, such as sampling, surveys, content analysis, audience analysis, and visual techniques. We look at different examples of how these methods can be effectively combined, and at various resources or studying media, especially on-line information and data. Assignments will consist of several small research projects involving different methods, leading up to a larger research project employing an original methodology, on a subject of your choosing.

The goal of the course is to prepare you to design your own methodologies to better answer your own research questions. As such we will focus more on the concepts and issues involved with various methods, rather than with the details and specific techniques of the various methods. That said, you will be asked to prepare research questions and employ various research methods through short assignments. It is expected that you will bring your own research interests to class to help guide your projects, as well as class discussions. The final project will be developing a complete Methods section for a potential masters thesis.

OFFICE HOURS: By Appointment

Please email me to setup an appointment.

 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS & GRADING:

Class Attendance and Participation: 20%
Short Projects and Blog Assignments: 40%
Final Paper, Draft and Presentations: 40%

You are expected to have thoroughly and thoughtfully read the assigned texts and to have prepared yourself to contribute meaningfully to the class discussions. For some people, that preparation requires taking copious notes on or abstracting the assigned readings; for others, it entails supplementing the assigned readings with explanatory texts found in survey textbooks or in online sources; and for others still, it involves reading the texts, ruminating on them afterwards, then discussing those readings with classmates before the class meeting. Whatever method best suits you, I hope you arrive at class with copies of the assigned reading, ready and willing to make yourself a valued contributor to the discussion, and eager to share your own relevant media experiences and interests. Your participation will be evaluated in terms of both quantity and quality.

There will also be at least two in-class presentations, which will contribute to your grade (details below). The first short presentation will count for 5 points towards class participation, with attendence each week counting for 1 point.

As this is a methods course, regular attendance is essential. You will be permitted two excused absences (you must notify me of your inability to attend before class, via email or phone). Any subsequent absences and any un-excused absences will adversely affect your grade.

 

Short Projects & Blog Assignments: 40%

You will be required to make blog entries each week. Usually this will require you to conduct a short research project or exercise, and then report on it with a brief summary on the blog. Sometimes, the weekly assignment will simply ask you to comment on the readings for the week, or answer a question. Regardless, the assignment for the week will appear on right column of the blog.

You will be required to create an account on WordPress, and send me an email with the EMAIL ADDRESS used to creat the account, so that you can be added as authors for the collective course blog. Everyone will be posting to a common blog page, and this will be readable by your classmates, but access will be limited to only other class members, and not the whole internet. When writing and making comments, you are expected to treat other students with the same respect and courtesy as you should in the classroom. You are also expected to respect rules of academic integrity, research ethics, and copyright when posting to the blog.

Blog assignments will not be graded, per se, but I will read them and occasionally comment on them myself, and they will be read by the Teaching Assistant.

Blog posts will be due before the start of each class. They are time stamped when you post them. On-time posts will receive 3 points, late posts will receive 1.5 points. With 10 blog assignments, there are 30 points possible for the blogs.

In addition to posting your own entry each week, you are require to post at least 2 comments each week on the entries of other students. Because some students wait to post their entires, these are not strictly due before class, and do not have a strict deadline. But you should get in the habit of posting two comments each week. Each comment will receive 0.5 points each with 10 points possible

Discussion questions for the next week will be posted shortly after each class.

 

Final: 40%
Draft Presentation=5%, Draft Paper=5%, Long Presentation=10%, Paper=20%

Draft Presentations: Weekly & March 8 (sign-up)
Length: 5 minute presentation, 5 minute discussion

Project Draft Due: March 15
Length: 1000 words (approx. 2-3 pages)

Final Presentations: April 26, May 3 and May 10 (sign-up)
Length: 5 minute presentation, 10 minute discussion

Paper Due: May 13
Length: 2500-3000 words (approx. 6-10 pages)


There will be no final exam. Instead, you will be asked to design an original research project. This will consist of motivating and framing a research question, operationalizing the question, designing and choosing a methodology, explaining how you would gather the necessary data, and how you would analyze the data and what conclusions you might reach.

Because we are concerned here with the methods, you will not be asked to actually carry out the project, or to collect and analyse the data. But it should be a project that you could reasonably carry out, such as for a masters thesis project.

This is really a semester-long project, with several parts that should evolve and come together for your final assignment. The blog assignment each week will ask you to explore a different aspect of your research project, or consider the applicability of a new methodology. You will make in-class presentations of some of these, and eventually of your entire project. You will submit a draft of the project mid-semester, for detailed comments from me. And you will submit a formal written final project at the end of the semester.

You should choose a topic and research question at the start of the semester, though you are free to change it at any time. Indeed, the question should evolve, mature, and grow more focused and refined with each assignment.

Each week, one or two students will present their research project. Dates will be assigned by a sign-up sheet passed around the first day. This will be the "short presentation" and counts as part of the class participatin grade. We will discuss the project as a class, to offer ideas and suggestions. There will also be a class set aside to discuss projects, for those presentations that don't fit into the weekly format.

This next big step of the process with be to motivate, frame and operationalizing of your research question. This will be done in a formal written Draft. This will consist of a 2-3 page (1000 word, Times New Roman, 12pt font, double spaced) paper which must be emailed to me before class on the due date. This draft should focus on the motivation, framing and operationalization, and discuss some possible methods.

The Final project will build on the draft by elaborating on the methods to be used, and address the various issues that might arise in implienting those methods, as well as speculate as to what conclusions might be drawn from various results.

The last three class sessions will be devoted to student presentations of their research. This will allow the class to collectively discuss each project and offer suggestions. You are encouraged to use this feedback to improve your project before submitting your Final paper. Each student will be given approximately 15 minutes, and will be expected to describe their project in 5 minutes, allowing 10 minutes for discussion. You may use visuals, including powerpoints or videos, if you choose, but are not required to.

Research topics can address any aspect of media research, including (but not limited to) documentary, oral history, audience studies, or studies of media objects/products, practices or organizations/institutions.

Your Final paper should be submitted to me in electronic form (Word Perfect, MS Word, PDF, HTML and plain TXT are all fine). The final paper should consist of a 6-10 page (2500-3000 word, Times New Roman, 12pt font, double spaced) paper which must be emailed to me by the due date. Late papers will not be accepted, as I must turn in grades shortly thereafter.

The Final paper should be roughly equivalent to the "Methods" section of a masters thesis. As such, it should start with a clear statement of the research question, motivate and frame the research question, articulate how you intend to operationalize this question, the methods you intend to your, how you will implement these methods, and what results you expect the methods to reveal. Your final paper will be graded on the basis of each of these requirements.

Again, you need not actually conduct the research, this might be better thought of as a proposal for a project, as you might submit to a potential funding agency.

 

READINGS

All readings will be available electronically, via the web, in PDF, MS Word, HTML, or similar format.

 

Part I: What are Research Methods?

Week 1: January 26
Introduction

Course Overview

How to create a WordPress Account, and make a Blog Entry

Watch: The Persuaders (2004) PBS Frontline

 

Week 2: February 2
Empirical Research and the Scientific Method

Required:

Thomas S. Kuhn, "Chapters I-X," The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd. ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962, pp. 1-135.

Paul Feyerabend, "Introduction, Analytic Index, and Parts 1-5," Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge, 1975, pp. 1-53.

Recommended:

Frank Pajares, "Outline and Study Guide: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Emory University

"Thomas Kuhn," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions

Watch: Neil DeGrasse Tyson talks about The Argument From Ignorance, YouTube, 9 mins.

 

Week 3: February 9
Research Ethics

Required:

Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki, "Only Human: A Reflection on the Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Working with "Difficult" Stories," Oral History Review, Volume 37, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2010, pp. 191-214.

Tracy E. K. Meyer and A. Glenn Crothers, "'If I See Some of This in Writing, I'm Going to Shoot You': Reluctant Narrators, Taboo Topics, and the Ethical Dilemmas of the Oral Historian," The Oral History Review, Vol. 34, Issue 1, pp. 71-93.

Nancy Janovicek, "Oral History and Ethical Practice: Towards Effective Policies and Procedures," Journal of Academic Ethics (2006) 4: 157-174.

Provost's Office, "Institutional Review Board for Research Involving Human Subjects" The New School University

IRB FAQ for Class Projects

Boellstorff, Nardi Pearce & Taylor, (2012) Ethnography and Virtual Worlds, "Chapter 8: Ethics," Princeton University Press, pp. 129-150.

Recommended:

Robert V. Kozinets, "Chapter 8: Conducting Ethical Netnography", Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online.New York: SAGE, 2009, pp. 136-156.

Stephen A. Small, "Action-Oriented Research: Models and Methods,"Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Nov., 1995), pp. 941-955.

Week 4: February 16
The Research Question: Formulation and Operationalization

Required:

Earlene Lipowski (2008), "Developing Great Research Questions," American Journal of Health System Pharmacists, Vol 65, Sept. 1, 2008, pp. 1667-1670.

Jack Raymond Baker and Allen Brizee, "Writing a Research Paper," Purdue OWL, Purdue University.

Martyn Shuttleworth, "Operationalization," Experiment-Resource.com

Heinz von Foerster, "Perception of the Future and the Future of Perception," Instructional Science, R.W. Smith and G. F. Briske (eds.) New York: Elsevier, 1972, pp. 31-43.

Davydd J. Greenwood, "Theoretical Research, Applied Research, and Action Research: The Deinstitutionalization of Activist Research," in Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship, Charles R. Hale (ed.), Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 319-340.

Shoshana Zuboff, "Notes on Fieldwork Methodologies," in In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power, New York: Basic Books, 1988: 423-429.

Recommended:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operationalization

 

Part II: Qualitative Methods

Week 5: February 23
Ethnography I: What is Ethnography?

Required:

Clifford Geertz, "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," in The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 1-30.

James Clifford, "Introduction: Partial Truths," Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 1-26.

Mary Louise Pratt, "Fieldwork in Common Places," Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 27-50.

James Clifford, "On Ethnographic Allegory," Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 98-121.

Douglas W. Maynard and Teddy Kardas, "Ethnomethodolgy" Sociology Encyclopedia.

Recommended:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sociological_Theory/Ethnomethodology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology

Watch: Jad Abumrad, MaxFunCon Lecture on Producing Radiolab, December 1, 2010

Clifford Geertz, Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988, pp. 1-48.

George E. Marcus and Dick Cushman, "Ethnographies as Texts," Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 11 (1982), pp. 25-69.

 

Week 6: March 1
Ethnography II: Interviewing

Required:

Robert K. Merton and Patricia L. Kendall, "The Focused Interview," The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 51, No. 6 (May, 1946), pp. 541-557.

Howard Becker, "Problems of inference and proof in participant observation," American Sociological Review, Dec. 1958, 23(6): 652-660.

Mark Feldstein, "Kissing Cousins: Journalism and Oral History," The Oral History Review, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Winter - Spring, 2004), pp. 1-22.

George Marcus and Judith Okely, "Debate Section: How short can fieldwork be?" Social Anthropology (2007) 16, 3, 353-367.

Recommended:

Howard S. Becker and Blanche Geer, "Participant observation and interviewing: A comparison," Human Organization, 1957, pp. 28-32.

Paul Atkinson and Martyn Hammersley, "Ethnography and participant observation," Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1994.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participant_observation

 

Week 7: March 8
Project Presentations, Project Q & A
 

Week 8: March 15
Case Studies
PROJECT DRAFTS DUE

Required:

Michael Burawoy, "The Extended Case Method,"Sociological Theory, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 4-33.

George E. Marcus, "Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography,"Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 95-117.

Denzin, Norman (2000) "Aesthetics and Practices of Qualitative inquiry." Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2), 256-265.

Recommended:

Leon Anderson (2006) "Analytic Autoethnography," Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Volume 35 Number 4, August 2006 373-395.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoethnography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_study

George E. Marcus, "Ethnography Two Decades After Writing Culture: From the Experimental to the Baroque,"Social Thought & Commentary, 2006, 1127-1145.

George E. Marcus, "The End(s) of Ethnography: Social/Cultural Anthropology's Signature Form of Producing Knowledge in Transition," Cultural Anthropology, 2008, Vol. 23, 1, pp. 1-14.

"The Case Study as a Research Method" Univesity of Texas iSchool

Week of March 22
Spring Break
NO CLASS

 

Week 9: March 29
Virtual Methods & Netnography

Required:

E. Gabriella Coleman, "Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media," Annual Review of Anthropology, (October 2010)Vol. 39: 487-505.

Christine Hine (ed.), Selections from Virtual Methods:: Issues in Social Research on the Internet.New York: Berg Publishers, 2005, pp. 1-34, 199-207.

Robert V. Kozinets, "Chapters 3-6", Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online.New York: SAGE, 2009, pp. 41-117.

Boellstorff, Nardi Pearce & Taylor, (2012) Ethnography and Virtual Worlds, "Forward, Chapter 1, Chapter 2," Princeton University Press, pp. xiii-28.

Recommended:

Heather A.Horst and Daniel Miller (eds.), (2012) Digital Anthropology, "Chapter 7, Social Networking Sites," Berg Publishers, pp. 146-161.

E. Gabriella Coleman, (2012) Coding Freedom: THe Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking, "Chapter 1, A Tale of Two Worlds," Princeton University Press, pp. 1-22.

Suzanne C. Beckmann and Roy Langer, "Netnography: Rich insights from online research," Insights, 14(6), September 2005.

John P. Davis, Keith Steury, and Randy Pagulayan (2005) "A survey method for assessing perceptions of a game: The consumer playtest in game design," Game Studies, volume 5, issue 1, October 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netnography

Watch: Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now, 2010 TED, 20 min.

 

Week 10: April 5
Visual Methods

Required:

Gillian Rose, "Introduction, Chapters: 1, 2," Visual Methods: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, London: SAGE, 2001, pp. 1-53.

Marcus Banks, "Visual research methods," Social Research Update,Winter 1995.

Robert Hariman, "No Caption Needed" blog.

Recommended:

Bradley L. Garrett, "Videographic geographies: Using digital video for geographic research," Progress in Human Geography, 6 December, 2010, 1-21.

 

Week 11: April 12
Close Reading & Discourse Analysis
Guest Lecturer: Prof. Diana Mincyte

Required:

"How to do a Close Reading" Harvard University Writing Center

"Introduction to Practical Criticism" Cambridge University English Department

Sue L. T. McGregor "Critical Discourse Analysis--A Primer"

Teun A. van Dijk (1993) "Principles of critical discourse analysis," Discourse & Society, vol. 4(2): 249-283.

Recommended:

David Wong, "5 Ways to Spot a B.S. Political Story in Under 10 Seconds," Cracked.com, April 30, 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~palmquis/courses/discourse.htm

 

Part III: Quantitative Methods

Week 12: April 19
Quantification: Sampling and Counting Things
Guest Lecturer: Prof. Diana Mincyte

Required:

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, "Chapters 1 and 3," Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. New York: Harper Collins, 2002.

Nikolas Rose, "Governing by Numbers: Figuring Out Democracy," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 16, No 7, 1991, pp. 673-692.

Jeff Bladt and Bob Filbin, "A Data Scientist's Real Job: Storytelling", Harvard Business Review, March 27, 2013.

Sonia Livingstone, "The Challenge of Changing Audiences: Or, What is the Audience Researcher to Do in the Age of the Internet?" European Journal of Communication, March 2004, vol. 19, no. 1, 75-86.

David Brooks, "The Philosophy of Data," New York Times, February 4, 2012.

American Statistical Association (2016) "Statement on Statistical Significance and p-values," March 7, 2016.

Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels (2016) "Film Dialogue from 2,000 screenplays, Broken Down by Gender and Age," Issue 1, A Polygraph Joint.

Watch: David McCandless: The Beauty of Data Visualization, TED Talk 2010, 18 min.

Recommended:

Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics (illust. I. Geis), Norton, New York, 1954.

J.M. Steele. "Darrell Huff and Fifty Years of How to Lie with Statistics." Statistical Science, 20 (3), 2005, 205-209.

Louise Story, "How Many Site Hits? Depends Who's Counting," New York Times, October 22, 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling (statistics)

"Survey Sampling Methods," Stat-Pac

"Sampling," Research Methods Knowledge Base

Wolfram|Alpha Computational Knowledge Engine, Examples

Pew Internet and American Life Project, Data Tools

Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement

Watch: Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks), TED Talk 2010, 6 min.

Watch: Stephen Wolfram: Computing a Theory of Everything, TED Talk 2010, 20 min.

Watch: Gary Wolf: The quantified self, TED Talk 2010, 5 min.


Week 13: April 26
Final Presentations
Content Analysis

Required:

Gillian Rose, "Chapter 3: Counting what you (think you) see," Visual Methods: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, London: SAGE, 2001, pp. 54-68.

"An Introduction to Content Analysis," Colorado State University

Recommended:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_analysis

John W. Pracejus, G. Douglas Owen, and Thomas C. O'Guinn, "How Nothing Became Something: White Space, Rhetoric, History, and Meaning, " Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 33, 2006, pp. 82-90.


Week 14: May 3
Final Presentations
Mixing Methods

Required:

Bowker, Geof, "Emerging Configurations of Knowledge Expression" in Media Technologies: Essays on Communication Materiality and Society, Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot (eds.), MIT Press: 2014: pp. 99-118.

Gillian Rose, "Chapters 8, Other Methods, Mixing Methods" Visual Methods: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials, London: SAGE, 2001, pp. 187-204.

Mia Consalvo, Nathan Dutton (2006) Game analysis: Developing a methodological toolkit for the qualitative study of games," Game Studies, volume 6 issue 1, December 2006.

James Clifford, "On Collecting Art and Culture," The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988, pp. 215-251.

Recommended:

Watch: Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to global voices, TED Talk 2010, 20 min.

Week 15: May 10
Final Presentations

 

All Final Papers Due Friday, May 13 by 8pm.