4 ms·

I like Shirky's writing very much, he is fluent and brings great perspective and ideas, not to mention great soundbites, but i will admit that the problems pres

by doron 16y ago

I like Shirky's writing very much, he is fluent and brings great perspective and ideas, not to mention great soundbites, but i will admit that the problems presented in this counter article make sense. It seems digital media analysis and the media studies derived from them share this mild case of schizophrenia, or put another way a case of academic attention deficit disorder, the nature of the commentary is similar to the environment in which it is conceived. I probably muddled what i was trying to say, but when you actually slog through a scholarly work (of say historical analysis) that presents an exhaustive attention to details, and reference you are struck by a wholly different kind of academic style, one that seems increasingly old school and unfashionable, which is very sad. This mode still exist in the hard sciences, but in certain humanities it is viewed with suspicion, even disdain, at least that is my anecdotal observation. It can be summed up as brilliant ideas, that fall apart due to lack of rigor in research.

frossie 16y ago
It can be summed up as brilliant ideas, that fall apart due to lack of rigor in research. The insidious part of this is that brilliant ideas and pithy quotes and the essays that result from them are so memorable, that in a way the bar for research disproving them is even higher that it would be if the statement in question was some dusty historical or physical science hypothesis.
Alex3917 16y ago
"It seems digital media analysis and the media studies derived from them share this mild case of schizophrenia" Then again, the philosophy underpinning all of modern science was supposedly delivered by an angel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pBIw0f_Og http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pBIw0f_Og
- ableal 16y ago
  Hmm, thanks. For those with no 'tube', I found a bit of text here: http://www.dedroidify.com/science.htm http://www.dedroidify.com/science.htm
_delirium 16y ago
I'd say media studies is actually one of the better areas for that, because its methodologies are so varied that there's quite a lot of good stuff. Marshall McLuhan's ideas, while at times extreme, are pretty rigorously developed, for example. There's a lot that imo really has problems in the other direction. A huge part of modern media studies is obsessively empirical, not publishing a paper unless it has a study and a p-value (see e.g. all the people publishing papers on MMOs). Empirical research can often be great of course, but I feel there are significant areas where nobody's really done the conceptual or philosophical work: just reporting the outcomes of studies is very surface-level knowledge, not really getting at mechanisms and relationships and how or why they exist.

by doron 16y ago

frossie 16y ago

It can be summed up as brilliant ideas, that fall apart due to lack of rigor in research. The insidious part of this is that brilliant ideas and pithy quotes and the essays that result from them are so memorable, that in a way the bar for research disproving them is even higher that it would be if the statement in question was some dusty historical or physical science hypothesis.

Alex3917 16y ago

"It seems digital media analysis and the media studies derived from them share this mild case of schizophrenia" Then again, the philosophy underpinning all of modern science was supposedly delivered by an angel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pBIw0f_Og http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pBIw0f_Og

ableal 16y ago
Hmm, thanks. For those with no 'tube', I found a bit of text here: http://www.dedroidify.com/science.htm http://www.dedroidify.com/science.htm

_delirium 16y ago

I'd say media studies is actually one of the better areas for that, because its methodologies are so varied that there's quite a lot of good stuff. Marshall McLuhan's ideas, while at times extreme, are pretty rigorously developed, for example. There's a lot that imo really has problems in the other direction. A huge part of modern media studies is obsessively empirical, not publishing a paper unless it has a study and a p-value (see e.g. all the people publishing papers on MMOs). Empirical research can often be great of course, but I feel there are significant areas where nobody's really done the conceptual or philosophical work: just reporting the outcomes of studies is very surface-level knowledge, not really getting at mechanisms and relationships and how or why they exist.