Reflections "before" / Theme 2

In very general words, theory could be explained as providing explanations, predictions and being testable.  Theory has nothing to do with a subjective opinion of a researcher. Theories are always abstract and general, and they aim to describe, explain, predict what is going to happen in the future, reveal the relation between cause and events and give a basis for intervention and action. 

Theory is the answer to the rows of WHY. Theory is about the connections between phenomena, a story about WHY acts, events, structure, and thoughts happen. References, data,  variables, diagrams and hypothesis are not theory itself. They could support the theory and be some  kind of evidence. 

I chose the research paper “A game of win–win or win–lose?Revisiting the internet’s influence on sociability and use of traditional media” from the research journal “New Media & Society” (IF=1.394) 

The article examines the influence of internet adoption and internet usage on sociability and use of traditional media. It’s difficult to allocate their theory to one class. In my opinion their theory is primary analytic and explanatory but with the elements of perspective statements. They discuss and consider the impacts of the internet on sociability and use of traditional media, and   monitor closely the connections and relationships between sociability and traditional media, which is in their turn will head them to the determination of a false connections between the sociability, use of traditional media and the internet. 

As far as their theory on one the hand is analytic they use words, diagrams and tables to represent their research. They describe what they understand under the definition of traditional media and what had happened in the past when one traditional means of media replaced another. On the other hand, their theory in explanatory (according to Gregory we could label it as a theory for understanding, type II), because they are figuring out what is the connections (and kind or connection it is) between internet’s using and sociability and spending time on traditional media. They use primary constructs, statement of relationship, scope and causal explanations. The data of this study come from a series of annual telephone surveys that were primarily conducted  in Hong Kong at the end of 2003, 2004 and 2005. They use such measurement as Internet adoption status, Sophistication of internet usage, Diversity of Online Method, Adoption history and Control variables.

I think that authors are using these theories in an excellent way because their main questions are HOW and WHY this phenomena occur – and the explanatory theory fits them perfectly. But definitely there are some limitations of it, e.g. the first limitation of the study is that now we can't clearly figure the a product of the scopes between the internet, traditional media, and sociability because there technologies is rapidly changing in the contemporary world. The second limitation is the way of causation was hypothesized. It is could be fair to argue that if the person is an introvert, he will be use internet to socialize more than to enlighten and entertain (as extroverts for example).  The third limitation is about the method that was used to evaluate the interaction influence of adoption history.