Intellectual Craftsmanship

The presentations below will prepares students to analyze quantitative and qualitative data in a way that isn’t confusing and overly complicated but are presented in a clear and accessible way. It provides an insight on method selection and the interpretation of research findings. It offers the students an analytical framework for their dissertation and essay writing. The emphasis is on offering a range of student-friendly pedagogical features and instructions specifically designed to help art students use quantitative and qualitative methods they might otherwise not come into contact with. The use of informative examples drawn from a wide range on writing on art (some of these are audiovisual presentations) familiarizes the students with the nature and process of social research and its relationship to the writing process.

The students are progressively encouraged to develop a more thorough research design with adequate research methods that enable them to write up their results more effectively. The course also attempts to be lively and engaging in how it guides the students towards the principle social research techniques and methodological approaches. In practice I tended to give one or two of them to the students in relation to what they were studying. So they are an introduction to research methods and act as reference to social research methods that covers a broad spectrum of both qualitative and quantitative methods. They explain both terminology and the philosophical roots of research approaches, synthesize a broad range of source material and have an active component that encourages the students to use the methods.

Starting Social research: this is a short guide to how to (1) Define the problem (2) Form a hypothesis (3) Build a research design (4) Collect the data (5) Analyze the data (6) Draw conclusions to form a theory (7) Test the study for validity and reliability. (19 pages)

1a. Carrying out a simple subject search: this sets out the general principles of effective searching including how to recognize common search features across different databases, how to use appropriate quality criteria to evaluate resources effectively, how to record search results accurately and other features. (25 pages)

1c. Beginning Writing: this includes simplified advice on how to write a ‘research question’, types of research questions, the literature review, the essay structure, general guidance and advice and notation using the example of Walter Benjamin. (41 pages)

2. Rhetoric: this distinguishes rhetoric from analysis, looks at the origins of rhetoric with Aspasia and how Aristotle viewed it a systematic method of persuasion and the counterpart of Dialectic, it outlines the three types of rhetoric, the three categories and the five canons, rhetorical devices, the role of theory, values and the significance of assumptions and examples drawn from Shakespeare and Martin Luther King. (46 pages)

2a. Visualisation: this is a fairly extensive outline of data visualisation including its early history, Florence Nightingale and the pie chart, Charles Joseph Minard and visual comparisons, Otto Neurath and pictograms, Edward Tufte’s graphical excellence and sparklines, Kurt Vonnegut’s theory of storytelling, Juxtaposition, Herman Chernoff’s symbolic data, Krzywinski’s algorithm visualization, Miriam Butt & Dominik Sacha use of Gestalt Theory, Olaudah Equiano, Category Theory and Semiotics, The London Underground Map by Harry Beck, regression analysis, infographics or data art, Datamatics, Refik Anadol’s (2012) Melting Memories, a brief look at Saussurian semiotics, and Category theory. (76 pages)

2b. Research Strategies: this is a broad outline of social science research strategies including: a speculative approaches, choices in the type of research, method, design and procedure, different research strategies, research methodologies such as experiments, quasi experiments and thought experiments, surveys, interviews, Rensis Likert, analysis of archival materials, analysis of interactional data, meta-analysis, inference and causation, deductive and inductive approaches, types of causes, sampling, conceptualization, dependent and independent variables, other types of variables, the Literature Review. (57 pages)

3. Qualitative Research: this is a brief introduction to the interpretative approach including: what research questions should be; Descriptions. Understanding, Interpretation and Perspectives; what qualitative methods aim to describe and display, the functions of qualitative research in terms of Contextual description, explanatory examination, evaluative appraisal, generatiing the development of theories; the Ontological and Epistemological positions; Realism, Materialism, Idealism; Max Weber; Positivism and problems; Ethnography; Phenomenological studies; Symbolic interactionism; Social Constructivism and Critical theory. (21 pages)

3a. Interviews: interview techniques ranging from structured, semi-structured and unstructured approaches are outlined in terms of the nature of interviews, the selection of a type of interview, how to use them to gather data, how you position the interviewee, how many people to interview and the tools to use to record & transcribe; The S.T.A.R. method; Coding in terms of organising and sorting data; The Life History Method, pioneered by W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki; the process of Triangulation; C. Wright Mills’ concern with the relationship between biography, history; The Biographic-Narrative Interpretive Method; The Group Interview; Types of interview; Design and Evaluation; Ethical Issues in Qualitative Interviewing; Kvale’s six steps of analysis; Generating meaning through ad hoc methods (49 pages)

3b. Methodology: this briefly explains methodology as a preliminary step in planning your research design; it outlines how the philosophical and theoretical approach to research you choose should underpin how you understand and interpret your subject matter; it outlines methodology as the approach to your system of methods procedures, strategy and plan; it explains methodology as how you understand and interpret your subject matter and how these two elements are linked; how to design questions; Paradigms as the philosophical framework within which theories, laws and generalizations are formulated. (22 pages)

4. Content Analysis: this outlines content analysis’ history and it terms and how to engage with it including: the work of Harold D. Lasswell; Themes and Primary & Latent content; understanding media; how Quantitative Content Analysis provides systematic procedures and criteria of judgment; symbol analysis; Who says what? In which channel? To whom?; Key words, Circulation, Frequency and with what effect?; Objectivity: Tackling the polysemic problem; a brief summary of de Sola Pool’s four major functions. (23 pages)

4a. Semiotics: Semiotic is introduced as the study of signs and symbols (the general theory of signs) and their use or interpretation is outlined. Content analysis, semantics and semiotic analysis are differentiated. Semiotics is presented as the study of meaning-making using Charles Pierce’s ideas relating to: Sign, Object, Interpretant (26 pages unfinished)

4b. Social Network Analysis: John Scott’s social science work is introduced. How anything can be turned into network analysis is explained and presented as very visual and easy to understand. The concept of ‘networks’ is explained. The tools of sociometry and the sociogram are outlined. The specialized language for describing the structure and contents of the sets of observations is outlined (nodes, relations, matrix). How Actors are described by their Relations, not by their Attributes is set out along with how Conventional surveys are Monadic, while SNA is Dyadic. Types of visualisation are given. Types of Networks, Properties of Nodes and Properties of Networks are explained. (40 pages, unfinished)

5. Critical Discourse Analysis: Discourse Analysis is explained as an approach to language that can be applied to forms of communication such as texts and media analysis. How its models view language is explained along with its theoretical roots in Bakhtin, Erving Goffman and Gramsci and others together with its relationship to Analytical philosophy, Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology. What Discourse Analysis studies is outlined and its three main dimensions outlined. How discourse analysis offers methods to study the structures and functions of underlying ideologies is explained. How the discourse-historical approach concentrates on discursive Strategies is outlined. What the researcher should do is explained along with what Critical Discourse Analysis aims to do (what it looks for). Jürgen Habermas’ communicative action is given as an example. (61 pages)

5a. Hermeneutics: The study of interpretation ‘hermeneutics’ is introduced as theory to interpret existing works and/or a theory to invent forms and practices (theories about interpretation, understanding and the meaning of texts). How hermeneutics helps us to understand the basis of meaning in terms of how people’s outer actions can be used to explore inner meanings is explained. Linguistic and non-linguistic meaning is related to hermeneutics in terms of how it offers a strategy to address a broad range of questions about gathering and interpreting information. How to evaluate the credibility of sources in primary and secondary sources of information is explained. The most basic hermeneutic questions to ask of a text are outlined. (23 pages)

5b. Heuristics: Heuristics is described as creative problem solving that is not necessarily systematic, analytical and rational: the point is to find out and discover. Seurat’s La Grande Jatte is used as an example. Heuristics represent ways of knowing in three main ways are empiricism, rationalism and intuition. The three general-purpose heuristics are outlined as availability, anchor and representativeness and how these can create errors in thinking as well as creative possibilities is explained. The advantages and disadvantages of the experiential and intuitive approach and rational and analytic systems are explained. Intuition is explained contrasting Rene Descartes and Albert Einstein. Paul Klee’s ‘Pedagogical Sketchbooks’ are examined including his ideas on ‘psychic improvisation’. Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies are explored in terms of their study of the ‘Thoughts Behind the Thoughts’—how they were intended to expose the principles underlying the creative process using Cybernetics as defined by Norbert Wiener. Intuition as the ‘intelligence of the unconscious’ is explored in terms of how Heuristics involves creative processes and self-awareness to discover in-depth meaning. Michael Polanyi’s six-part research method involving: Initial Engagement, Immersion, Incubation, Illumination, Explication and Creative Synthesis is outlined. Suzi Gablik’s outline of René Magritte’s heuristic is outlined. Charles Peirce’s theorisation of intuition is explained along with Wittgenstein’s interest in language and games. (49 pages)

6. Thematization and Framing: A general guide to research is offered and how the tasks involved in writing is to capture and record your reaction to what you read. Thematization in discourse analysis is presented as a process involving the selection of particular topics as themes. Thematic Structure Analysis is explained as based on Theme-Rheme, Given and New Information. How Discourse constructs the meanings of texts is explained. How Discourse not only constructs the social meanings and values, it also constructs social reality is outlined—how discourses have a schemata that represents collective social beliefs. Frame Analysis is explained as a research method used to analyse how we understand situations and activities. Central concepts such as the ‘key’ and and ‘fabrications’ is introduced drawing on Goffman,’s Frame Analysis (how the frame organizes more than meaning; it also organizes involvement) that encourages using many frames to organise our knowledge. How Goffman developed his idea of definition of the situation by adopting the term frame from Gregory Bateson’s ‘A Theory of Play and Phantasy’ is explained. How to use frame analysis to ask what holds the diverse idea elements of a text together? is explained using Gitlin’s (1980) The Whole World Is Watching. (48 pages)

6a. The Shock of the New: The Shock of the New by Hughes, Ways of Seeing by Berger and On Photography by Sontag are critically assessed. (38 pages unfinished)

7. Document Analysis: using film posters as illustrations, document analysis is explained by how it can be used on just about any type of evidence. It examines how messages are encoded, whether they are manifest, latent or hidden. The type of document, its unique characteristics, when it was written, the author/creator and their intentions, he audience, and the purpose are set out as key questions. The three traditions are outlined. Deconstruction and Reconstruction are explained along with the Rules of Standard Form. Further guidance is offered in relation to how to Capture Key Information, Scott’s (1990) ideas on mediate access as opposed to proximate access. (43 pages)

7a. Combining Theories: A theory is described as a generalisation that can be proved right or wrong. You can either confirm a theory, disconfirm it or infirim it. How to followa specific theory or argument developed over time to trace its roots, or combine and compare specific theoretical aspects of different, possibly opposing, arguments is explained. Historical interpretation and inter-comparison of theories is highlighted. To illustrate how to combine theories the Commodification of Art is used as a subject stressing that with such a huge subject you need ways to focus—a theoretical perspective. The need to develop a coherent position is highlighted and how to arrive at this is explained. Christopher Lasch’s and J. K. Galbraith’s theoretical perspectives are analysed: this leads to how to conduct an analysis of ‘branding’ in advertising. How combining theoretical perspectives should advance your argument is explained using three general models of ‘Artistic Success’. Adding additional insight by way of the theoretical framework is briefly outlined in terms of how it should strengthen the research design, along with how theories give meaning to information. C. Wright Mills’ ideas on grand theorists and intellectual confusion are outlined. (58 pages)

7b. Quotation & Paraphrasing (unfinished)

8. Experiments and Ethics: The 1961 Milgram social psychology experiment to explore the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience is outlined along with its critical reception. Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment is outlined along with ‘The Robbers Cave Experiment’ on Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: Art events that involve ethical issues are explored, such as Chris Burden’s. (29 pages unfinished)

8a. Statistical Analysis: Darrell Huff’s 1954 How to Lie with Statistics is explained in terms of: the Sample with the Built-in Bias, the Well-Chosen Average, the Little Figures That Are Not There and Much Ado about Practically Nothing, that deal with introductory statistics. His ideas on the Gee-Whiz Graph, the One-Dimensional Picture and the Semi-attached Figure are also outlined. Selection Bias, Ecological fallacy and the Exception fallacy are explained (unfinished)

9. Intellectual Craftsmanship: This is based on C. Wright Mills’ advice in the Sociological Imagination on systematic ways of thinking, that lead to greater intellectual relevance and a more directed experience in writing. This is presented as the process of learning and developing a craft: “Imagination is often successfully invited by putting together hitherto isolated items, by finding unsuspected connections“. (23 pages)