I’ve chosen the journal “Media Psychology” (see link below) with an impact factor of 1.1, and a five-year impact factor of a whopping 2.457. The journal publishes about 4 issues a year, with empirical research within the intersecting field between media, communication and psychology. The research topics include media use and its effect on people and society in general, where the most popular articles seem to be about media and gaming addiction, body images and how television/internet affects our behavior, which all sound interesting and relevant to me.
http://www-tandfonline-com.focus.lib.kth.se/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=hmep20#.VfhyH53tmko
Select a research paper that is of high quality and relevant for media technology research. The paper should have been published in a high quality journal, with an “impact factor” of 1.0 or above. Write a short summary of the paper and provide a critical examination of, for example, its aims, theoretical framing, research method, findings, analysis or implications.
The article I chose is named “Unregulated Internet Use: Addiction, Habit, or Deficient Self-Regulation” by Robert LaRose, Carolyn A. Lin and Matthew S. Eastin. As the title states, it’s about addiction to media (or “dependency on media” as the authors prefer to call it), and different factors that might cause or contribute to addiction in certain individuals. The authors propose a range of hypotheses of how it’s all connected which is best described by the image below.
(Note: Here ‘self-efficacy’ means how well one uses internet. ‘Self-reactive Outcome Expectations’ is basically why we use it in terms of rewards, eg. to relieve stress, boredom or depression).
The research was done by letting 465 college students in three communication classes at two different universities answer a survey with questions regarding their use of internet and television. I immediately reacted to this method as a non optimal decision, since
1. The students are all studying communication and therefore probably use internet a lot more than others, which could be compared to ourselves at the Media Technology program (this was actually mentioned further down in the “Limitations” section in the article, so they are aware of this problem).
2. They might not be aware of their own addiction and/or usage, or simply denying it which would lead to different answers to the survey. A complementary method would probably be to study them for a couple of days as they use internet or watch television. However, all questions were based on certain scientific models for addiction and the data actually proved the majority of the theses, albeit with a more complex correlation as seen by figure 2.
1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
When speaking of theory, it is easy to confuse it for a synonym for ‘hypothesis’ (I know I did), which apparently is not the case. Long story short, a theory is “the answer to queries of why” (p.378. Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. M). In other words, it is a logical explanation of why something is or has happened, learned from empirical studies. Secondly, it’s also supposed to be “testable” and raise discussion (Gregor, S). However, writing a strong theory is not as easy as it seems, and there are almost more don’t:s than do:s. For example, a theory shouldn’t be crammed with references, but come from your own mind. Nor should it consist of pure data, lists of variables or diagrams, which rather answer the question of ‘what’ instead of ‘why’. Although, these aspects may be used to back up a theory.
2. 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?
In the article, the authors criticize two external theories, one that explains addiction as a result of a certain personality prone to addiction, while the other explains it as a conditioning process. The first theory is argued against by data showing “low to moderate correlation among television, Internet, and video game addictions, and alcohol addiction” (p.229, Larose et al). The article also mentions that any correlations could be a result of culture or lifestyle. Depression seems to be linked to any addiction, but is most likely a result of the addiction itself, and not a cause. The other theory explains addiction as a progress in four stages: initiation, transition to ongoing use, addiction, and behavior change (p.230, Larose et al).
The authors themselves proposes many hypotheses, but since none of them explains exactly why addiction occurs, I’m guessing that they are just that and not theories. After having scanned through the article, I draw the conclusion that the authors don’t really have any theory of their own, but base the research around the two external theories. These two theories are probably “Analysis”-type since they explain addiction as a result of two different causes, both of them discussable as theories should be. If they weren’t that, they could also pass as “Description”-type.
3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
The benefits of using several theories could be that it gives an opportunity to truly investigate the subject from different perspectives, and also question earlier belief and opinions. However, there can also be limitations on using other people’s theories as a foundation of your own research, as it might stand in the way of new ideas when only focusing on old ones. But that probably depends on how they are used.
Sources
Robert LaRose , Carolyn A. Lin & Matthew S. Eastin (2003) Unregulated Internet Usage: Addiction, Habit, or Deficient Self-Regulation?, Media Psychology, 5:3, 225-253, DOI: 10.1207/S1532785XMEP0503_01. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S1532785XMEP0503_01
1. The students are all studying communication and therefore probably use internet a lot more than others, which could be compared to ourselves at the Media Technology program (this was actually mentioned further down in the “Limitations” section in the article, so they are aware of this problem).
2. They might not be aware of their own addiction and/or usage, or simply denying it which would lead to different answers to the survey. A complementary method would probably be to study them for a couple of days as they use internet or watch television. However, all questions were based on certain scientific models for addiction and the data actually proved the majority of the theses, albeit with a more complex correlation as seen by figure 2.
1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
When speaking of theory, it is easy to confuse it for a synonym for ‘hypothesis’ (I know I did), which apparently is not the case. Long story short, a theory is “the answer to queries of why” (p.378. Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. M). In other words, it is a logical explanation of why something is or has happened, learned from empirical studies. Secondly, it’s also supposed to be “testable” and raise discussion (Gregor, S). However, writing a strong theory is not as easy as it seems, and there are almost more don’t:s than do:s. For example, a theory shouldn’t be crammed with references, but come from your own mind. Nor should it consist of pure data, lists of variables or diagrams, which rather answer the question of ‘what’ instead of ‘why’. Although, these aspects may be used to back up a theory.
2. 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?
In the article, the authors criticize two external theories, one that explains addiction as a result of a certain personality prone to addiction, while the other explains it as a conditioning process. The first theory is argued against by data showing “low to moderate correlation among television, Internet, and video game addictions, and alcohol addiction” (p.229, Larose et al). The article also mentions that any correlations could be a result of culture or lifestyle. Depression seems to be linked to any addiction, but is most likely a result of the addiction itself, and not a cause. The other theory explains addiction as a progress in four stages: initiation, transition to ongoing use, addiction, and behavior change (p.230, Larose et al).
The authors themselves proposes many hypotheses, but since none of them explains exactly why addiction occurs, I’m guessing that they are just that and not theories. After having scanned through the article, I draw the conclusion that the authors don’t really have any theory of their own, but base the research around the two external theories. These two theories are probably “Analysis”-type since they explain addiction as a result of two different causes, both of them discussable as theories should be. If they weren’t that, they could also pass as “Description”-type.
3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
The benefits of using several theories could be that it gives an opportunity to truly investigate the subject from different perspectives, and also question earlier belief and opinions. However, there can also be limitations on using other people’s theories as a foundation of your own research, as it might stand in the way of new ideas when only focusing on old ones. But that probably depends on how they are used.
Sources
Robert LaRose , Carolyn A. Lin & Matthew S. Eastin (2003) Unregulated Internet Usage: Addiction, Habit, or Deficient Self-Regulation?, Media Psychology, 5:3, 225-253, DOI: 10.1207/S1532785XMEP0503_01. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S1532785XMEP0503_01
Sutton, R. I. & Staw, B. M. (1995). What Theory is Not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371-384.
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