Journal: I have chosen the Social Networks journal with an impact factor of 2.931. The journal consists networking and social capital and how it could treat differently depending on the social networks/relations you are using. This journal is focused on social networking but in a variety of context.
Paper: The paper I chose is Internet and Social Media Use as a Resource Among Homeless Youth written by Eric Rice and Anamika Barman-Adhikari from the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (impact factor: 1,778). Rice and Barman-Adhikari explains that more than 80% of the homeless youths, get online at least once a week, and roughly one-quarter are online for at least one hour, every day. They therefore want to examine the youths through three different perspectives. These are:
Online Activities - Due to homeless adults using their time online to socialize, job searching, pursue medical care etc, the writers want to examine if the youths use their time online in a similar way, or do they use their time online to do more youth-activities like playing games, listen to music, stream movies etc. Therefore in what different ways are the homeless youths, using their time online.
Online Sociability - The paper also examines how homeless youths use the internet and social media differently, depending on whom they are communicating with. For example the youths may use e-mail to connects with parents, but other social media platforms to communicate with friends.
Social Capital and Online Resource Seeking - The authors examines if internet makes it easier for the youths to for example find a job, or a place to live.
The authors collected quantitative data containing 194 homeless youths from Los Angeles. The research method they used was a computer-administered self-interview (CASI), which is a survey questionnaire they answer on the computer(1). The results indicates that a majority of the homeless youths use their time online to send and receive e-mail, and more than half used their time online to visit social networks such as Facebook and MySpace. The homeless youths also use different means of communication to connect with parents, caseworks, employers and peers. This was email resp. social media. The internet does make it easier for homeless youths to search jobs online, and that is what they prefered. The average age among the homeless youths was 21 years-old.
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1) Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
Theory in the opposite of praxis. In praxis you perform an action and in theory it is the knowledge that occurs. How you try to understand things and find a certain pattern ‘in nature’. Sutton & M.Staw defines theory as the answer to queries of why. In the text The Nature of Theory in Information Systems the author define theory as A metal view. I interpret that theory is a statement to examine alternatives, testing, comparison etc with questions like why, how, what is, when, where, what will be etc.
How I interpret what theory is not after reading Sutton & M.Staw’s text, is the concrete facts that you don’t have to examine, to receive. For example Sutton & M.Staw writes that references, data, diagram, lists of variables and hypotheses is not theory. But these ‘tools’ may help you to base your theory on.
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?
I thinkt theory (III),prediction, is the most common theory that is used in this paper. According to Gregor “Theories aiming at prediction say what will be but not why”. Because a similar study has not been examined on earlier bases, they predict the results with hypotheses for each research question. They also base their research questions on earlier studies that been done, though with homeless adults. I would also say that the paper includes theory (II), explanation, due to the research questions is based on both facts and previous studies.
3) Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
I think a selected theory will make it easier for the authors to examine their research question(s). It becomes a “red thread” through the whole paper which also makes it easier for the readers to follow. For example, in the paper I chose, I knew in an early stage what the paper was about, and how they would proceed to answer their research questions. Thus the authors base their research questions on research and results among homeless adults, is it not necessary that their result will imply to be similar.
I wouldn’t say that this is really prediction since it doesn’t predict anything for the future but instead just build their hypothesis from earlier studies. Maybe the researchers rather use Theory of Analyzing? Explaining what is, and not really why and how.
SvaraRaderaHey Steph! Yes I realized it during the seminar that I had chosen the wrong theory. Thankyou for making it more clear and I do agree with you. I thought it was predicition at first because they somehow predicted how the result would turn due to their earlier studies. But I interpreted the term "prediction" wrong. Theory of Analyzing sounds like a good suggestion! Due to that their build their hypothesis on earlier studies which "is", as you mentioned :)
RaderaHi Hannah,
SvaraRaderaI like to describe a theory like Sutton & M.Staw defines it “as the answer to queries of why” and that the data are tools that we can base the theory on.
Was it something special benefits or limitations with the selected theory of your paper? I mean was it something that prevented the researchers for thinking in a certain way or draw conclusions?