Theme 3: Research and theory (before)

• Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.

In their article "What Theory is Not", which was published in the Administrative Science Quarterly (Vol. 40, No. 3 (Sep., 1995)), Sutton and Staw argue that many researcher papers are not written in a proper way. They therefore identify five important elements which are sometimes mistaken as theory but are not really theory - references, data, lists of variables, diagrams and hypotheses. Thus, following their argumentation, theory is first put into a context (references) which helps to establish a theory because it provides background information and a causal line of thought leading to the theory. Based on this framework, the theory is developed and specific hypotheses are formulated which can then be tested through the research. With the help of empirical data, theory investigates reasons for results or patterns, i.e. it aims at explaining why data is as it is. In order to collect relevant data, lists of variables for the research process have to be developed. However, these only derive from the theory and enable its investigation but they do not construct a theory. Diagrams are used to visualise data and research results of the investigation of the theory. 

• Select a research journal that you believe is relevant for media technology research. The journal should be of high quality, with an “impact factor” of 1.0 or above. Write a short description of the journal and what kind of research it publishes. 
• 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.
• 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 selected the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication which is a web-based scholarly journal which is published quarterly. It mainly focuses on "communication with computer-based media technologies" and has a two-year impact factor of 3.117 and is ranked 2nd out 76 communication journals (Wiley Online Library). Out of this journal, I read the research paper "News Recommendations from Social Media Opinion Leaders: Effects on Media Trust and Information Seeking" by Turcotte, York, Irving, Scholl and Pingree (available at Wiley Online Library). The paper is about a research on how Facebook users' perception of the trustworthiness and relevance of news media changes in connection with opinion leaders from their network. Following Sutton and Staw's definition of theory and what a research paper should consist of, it can be said that Turcotte et al. published a relevant and valuable paper. They start by giving a background introduction into the topic of decreasing perceived reliability of news media, Social Media behaviour around news and opinion leadership. Concerning opinion leadership, for example, there are two theories - the two-step flow (opinion leaders and opinion followers) and the revised one-step flow (direct effects on isolated receivers). Throughout their research, Turcotte et al. discover that the older theory of the two-step model actually still has more relevance in their context. The authors discuss relevant research and show a lack of exploration of how opinion leadership can influence Facebook users' perception of news sources and their intent to further investigate a topic. From their theory about this, they formulate four hypotheses which they want to test. Turcotte et al. conducted an online survey with a sample of 364 undergraduate students at a U.S. university. They deliberately chose a young sample because previous research suggests that mainly the younger audience moves away from traditional news sources. However, I think that their sample could have been chosen better - it was very homogenous because all participants were from the same university, which the authors also named as a factor in their critical discussion, and most of the participants (80.0%) were female. It is questionable if the research results had been the same with a more diverse sample. The research design, however, was very well though-through and also conducted professionally which helps the relevance of the study. Participants were randomly distributed into an experiment group and a control group and all of them were carefully briefed about the research and even debriefed after the study because the researches had manipulated the participants' Facebook news feed via the social network's API. The evaluation of data and discussion of results - all hypotheses could be verified - was performed well and the researches also discussed further research potential and relevance of their results in the study's specific context. 

All in all, I think that Turcotte et al. conducted a relevant research based on a theory according to Sutton and Staw's definition.

• Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?

Turcotte et al.'s theory is that news media's decreasing popularity can be influenced via Facebook by utilising opinion leadership. This theory and the conducted research are beneficial for traditional media outlets which are facing decreasing readership numbers. Following their theory, the researchers could prove their hypothesis that opinion leadership can positively influence a user's attitude towards news media. The limitations of this theory and the research around it, however, are that they do not aim at investigating the motivation behind this behaviour which makes it harder to draw strategic conclusions from the research results.