Theme 3

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Impact Factor: 1.778

This journal is focused on social science research on computer-mediated communication on the Internet. It have been published continuously since 1995.

Example of articles in the journal:

Are We All Online Content Creators Now? Web 2.0 and Digital Divides

An Analysis of Language in University Students' Text Messages

I’ve picked a article from the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication about

Channeling Science Information Seekers' Attention? A Content Analysis of Top-Ranked vs. Lower-Ranked Sites in Google (published online 14 Nov 2013).

The authors to the article have conducted a content analysis regarding the search results on Google about nanotechnology. According to them are there are not enough empirical research if search engines shapes information by making big popular websites even more popular while discriminating others. And this is also causing a risk of possible skew information sources. According to the authors Googles most high ranked results where the technical, environmental, and risk related aspects of nanotechnology. The more low ranked search results hade instead significantly different themes.

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

Theory is for example a set of hypotheses that are logically linked together into a coherent explanation of some aspect of reality. Which individually or interconnected provide any empirical support for the theory. References, data, variables, diagrams and hypotheses etc on they own are not theory but they can be a part of a theory.

2. 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?

In my selected paper they are using using “Analysis” as the theory type.  Since their results came from computer-assisted sampling of the Google search results over one and a half year, a lot of their results is dependent on how this sampling was done. They don't really go beyond analysis and description therefore they spend the majority of the discussion on just “analysis theory”.

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

The benefits of using “analysis theory” is that it tries to avoid any speculation and instead rely on the actual facts that are present and available to the reader.  This makes it more easy to follow the author's arguments since everything is more based on facts than speculation, but it can also make the paper feel a bit too simplistic.