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[ecrea] PhD seminar - Asking questions that can be answered - from epistemology to methodology

Thu Feb 17 13:39:53 GMT 2011



Asking questions that can be answered:
from epistemology to methodology

PhD intensive seminar
*Preliminary program*

Time: October 3-7, 2011
Place: University of Copenhagen, Southern Campus

Credits: 5 ECTS

Instructors: Professor W. Russell Neuman, University of Michigan, USA; Professor Klaus Bruhn Jensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark


One of the key challenges of developing, conducting, and completing a PhD project is how to turn grand theoretical issues into concrete empirical questions that can be answered ­ in time, and as a specific contribution to its area of study. This was brought home in an imagined dialogue between two figures of twentieth-century American social science ­ C. Wright Mills and Paul F. Lazarsfeld. Mills reads aloud the first sentence of The Sociological Imagination (Mills, 1959): ?Nowadays men often feel that their private lives are a series of traps.? And Lazarsfeld replies: ?How many men, which men, how long have they felt this way, which aspects of their private lives bother them, do their public lives bother them, when do they feel free rather than trapped, what kinds of traps do they experience, etc., etc., etc.? (Stein, 1964: 215). Both perspectives are needed; the question is how to join epistemology, methodology, empirical evidence, and theoretical interpretation in practice.

The intensive seminar provides a forum for PhD students in media and communication studies to meet this challenge. It invites the participation of PhD students at different stages of their dissertation projects: the relationship between questions and answers is integral to the design of studies, but also to the analysis of evidence, as well as the interpretation of findings and insights. The organizers, further, invite participants with qualitative, quantitative, and multi-method projects: there are important similarities as well as differences in the kinds of questions that different methodologies ask ­ and in the answers they can provide.

The intensive seminar is co-taught by two experienced researchers with complementary competences in the humanities and the social sciences, both with a strong international and interdisciplinary profile. They will share book projects in progress concerning communication theory and research methodology (Jensen, in preparation; Neuman, in preparation) ­ these volumes will constitute the central readings for the seminar. The summer school as a whole will emphasize intensive collaboration about the general challenge that PhD students share, departing from the projects of the participants.


Preparation and participation

·      15 page paper on the PhD student?s own project

·      5 page commentary on another participant?s paper

·      Approximately 600 pages of readings

·      Presentation of own paper

·      Response to other participant?s paper


Day format

· ?Keynote? lectures ­ one by each instructor ­ on the theme of the day, followed by plenary discussion

·      Lunch

·      Group exercises: participants? projects related to the theme of the day

·      Debriefing and plenary discussion

·      Informal advising session with instructors, and among participants

·      Dinner

·      Social activities


Week format ­ themes

·      Day 1: Knowledge interests: why do you want to know ­ about what?

·      Day 2: Research design: what can(not) be known about the question?

·      Day 3: Data collection: what is (not) relevant?

·      Day 4: Data analysis: coding, categorization, interpretation, modeling?

·      Day 5: Publication / making public: who wants to know?


References
Jensen, K. B. (Ed.). (in preparation). A Handbook of Media and Communication Research: Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies (2nd ed.). London, New York: Routledge. Mills, C. W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. London: Oxford University Press.
Neuman, W. R. (in preparation). The Structure of Communication.
Stein, M. (1964). The Eclipse of Community: Some Glances at the Education of a Sociologist. In A. Vidich, J. Bensman & M. Stein (Eds.), Reflections of Community Power. New York: Wiley.


For updated information and signing up, http://phd.hum.ku.dk/mediacom/courses/asking_questions/
(kbj /at/ hum.ku.dk)


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Klaus Bruhn Jensen
Professor, dr.phil.

Film and Media Studies Section
Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication
University of Copenhagen
DK-2300 Copenhagen S
Denmark

(kbj /at/ hum.ku.dk)
www.media.ku.dk

Tel +45-35328100
Fax +45-35328110

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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