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.
4 Comments:
Thank you Arnte. Much needed.
so what?
There's a funny story about Luhmann that maybe could help you... (I hope). When Luhmann was asked to fulfil a form for his university founding he wrote something like that:
research time: 20 yrs.
/Research topic: write the theory of the society
/founding requested: none
so what? should we all develop a brand new social communication theory ? I don't think so, I guess that a lot of useful work could be done starting from the bottom, from real world usage.
so what?
So your work is damn focused on how the real world is changing and would be useful.
surely online/offline is a complex topic, but why to keep a point of Geographical and urban/rural location? Isn't it possible to observe geographical location as an aspect to develope social competences?
feeling despondent about the "so what" question is, as others say, part of the "getting in close" part of completing your project - it's a good sign! Second, in my world, the complexity *is* the model, and the problem you've articulated here *is* a finding, right? Seems you have something to say to the assumptions of social scientists...good luck, and keep us posted!
Oh I love getting supporting and constructive comments. Thanks :-) My supervisor said the article looked promising. Or something. And he had some suggestions.
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