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constructions

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

meeting the pupils

I was somewhat worried on my way to Fredrikstad yesterday - would the pupils throw bits of rubber on me or fall asleep while I was talking or roll their eyes demonstrating their aggravation with me? Of course not. I had a great time, although my introductory 2 hour lecture might have been shortened somewhat. I had a lot of things to say though. All three groups intend to present their research as movies/documentaries. They are 2nd year pupils at media and communication, which means creating and creativity is important. The option of writing a 4000 word essay isn't as interesting to them. Oh, I was rather curious about the second research question of group 1: How do they [youth] cope living without [media]? Turns out they will do an experiment: they are going to live withouth media for two weeks. They will have to use computers for school-work, but that's it. No TV, no papers, no music, no IM, no e-mail, no phones. Oh, there's an additional exception. They are going to document their media-free lives through video-diaries.

I'm a little worried that they are more journalism-oriented than research-oriented, but I'm very excited to see how their projects will progress.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

youth researching youth

Next Tuesday I'm going to Fredrikstad to talk with pupils at Glemmen upper secondary school. They are one of six schools that are part of this year's The Holberg Prize school projects in which youth research youth. At Glemmen, they have chosen "youth and media influences" as their primary research theme. The pupils have formed three groups with the following approaches:
1. Are young people dependent on mass media? How do they cope living without?
2. What are the differences between the means of communication for youth today compared to those of their parents?
3. What media do youth use to develop love-affairs, and how are they used.

There is a lot to be said about the research questions they have chosen, and whether they are appropriately formulated. My assignment is to guide the pupils, and to give them an introductory talk about researching such themes. My own phd-project is clearly relevant, and I will obviously give examples from my work. I'm also supposed to talk about methodological approaches. Guess they'll have a few questions to ask as well. Cool project though.

Monday, August 22, 2005

blog-fun

One of the rather funny things with having a blog, is watching who comes to visit and why. Fragments from different posts end up matching interesting search strings. Today's best: somebody searched for Free pictures of girls smothered in oil, and ended up here. There are quite a few of those pictures in my blog, right.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

so what

I have written the first draft of an article about how personal communication media are used to keep in touch with friends and in extending social networks. Unfortunately a tiny so what? keeps bothering me. What can I explain? How can I help develop theory on the social significance of communication media, as there are hardly any general tendencies? My informants have so different experiences. I'm somewhat annoyed by some of the articles I've read on these matters: whether they are based on quantitative or qualitative methods, general tendencies seem to exist. In my material, diversity rules the world. Which means I have to explain the complexity of online/offline socialising in terms of something. I argue that the different social functions personal media may have, can be explained as consequences of 1) social competence and personality; 2) Geographical and or urban/rural location; and 3) Specific needs and patterns of using personal media. Maybe I could use this to develop some kinds of ideal-types and create a lovely yet meaningless model describing what doesn't exists.

Monday, August 15, 2005

unfocused

Trying to work when I can't concentrate at all makes no sense. I loose the context when I read or write, and my mind drifts. It might be a consequence of three days of pure happiness: Øyafestivalen with great music, good friends and generally good times.

Monday, August 08, 2005

flickr-cats

lovely eyes
originally uploaded by ella19.
Just browsed the latest 50 interestingness-photos on flickr and counted five photos of cats (and one lion). I wish I had a cat...

I love the new explore-features on flickr though. Actually I thought about it on my way to work the day they launched it: "I wish they made it even easier to find the coolest photos." And then they aldready had!