Theme 3: Research and Theory

I chose a journal called New Media & Society with an impact factor at 1.824. It is an international journal that publishes research articles within the subjects; communication, media and culture, but also sociology, geography, anthropology, economics, the political and information sciences and the humanities.

In the journal New Media & Society I chose to read the article Morality and ethics behind the screen: Young people's perspectives on digital life by Andrea Flores and Carrie James. 61 qualitative interviews were held with youth from a few high schools and colleges around Boston. The paper had a focus on moral and ethics and the main questions to the students were what they thought when posting something online.

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

Theory is a term that is hard to define, since it’s defined differently depending on the discipline. It is a lot easier to define what theory is not. Theory is for example not references, data, variables, diagrams or hypotheses. References, data, variables, diagrams and hypotheses can rather be seen as parts that back up a theory. A theory tries to answer the question Why something happens.

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?

The main theory in the paper I chose was a moral development theory that can help understand young people’s approaches to online life. The theory is based on studies in psychology (Kohlberg, 1981, 1984; Piaget, 1965; Selman, 1975; Turiel, 1983). Kohlberg’s stage theory can help people understand how youth thinks when they’re online. The stage theory describes an evolution of moral thinking in different stages; with focus on the self, to known others, to society and toward the establishment of abstract principles, such as justice.

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

The benefits of using this theory are that it can easily be used to discuss some of the results from the qualitative interviews. The interviews showed that many students don’t think about the consequences when they post things online, which shows that the students are at the first stage in Kohlberg’s stage theory; they only think twice when they think the post can affect themselves. I think the theory is a good choice for this paper because it kind of gives a clear view of at which stage the students are and you can easily see which stages that follows and how they can reach them.