Monday, June 13, 2011

Media Freedom Measures

现在,国际上做 Media Freedom Measures的机构主要有三家:
  1. Freedom House
  2. Reporters sans frontières(RSF,无国界记者)
  3. IREX
其中,Freedom House是历史最悠久的。它于1941年在美国纽约成立。几十年间,它的研究兴趣也在不断变化。对于媒体自由的研究应该开始于二战之后。当时,美国人对 德国如何用宣传为人民洗脑非常感兴趣,于是学术界开始了一系列针对别国媒体结构的研究。著名的《报刊的四种理论》(Four Theories of the Press)就成书于50年代。

媒体自由度调查只是Freedom House全球自由调查的一部分。在Freedom House的网站,你可以下载到近几年的调查报告。(国内的朋友可能需要翻墙。)
Freedom House媒体自由度量表由三个维度构成:
  1. 法律环境(legal environment)
  2. 政治环境(political environment)
  3. 经济环境(economic environment)

每一个维度包含7-8个indicators,每个indicator又包含若干问题。例如:政治环境维度里有一个indicator是:
“你们国家有官方审查制吗?(Is there official censorship?)
这个indicator下面又包含若干问题,例如“你们国家有官方审查机构吗”“印刷出版物或者电子出版物在出版之前或者之后需要接受审查吗”等等。

与此类似,其他两家机构也有各自的量表。IREX虽然资历最短,但是它的量表独辟蹊径,关注的是 媒体可持续性(Media Sustainability)

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Heat Map of China’s Environmental NGOs from 1950s to 2000s.

This map is an illustration of the development of China’s environmental NGOs from 1950s to 2000s.
Data: 济溪环保公益百科社团名录

 Made by QinJieⓒ2011

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Resources of Hyperlink Network Analysis

The North/South Divide in NGO
Michelle Shumate and Lori Dewitt in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (2008)

Online Collective Identity: The Case of the Environmental Movement
Robert Ackland, M O’Neil in The Australian National University (2008)

Hyperlink Analyses of the World Wide Web: A Review
Han Woo Park and Mike Thelwall in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (2003)

Mapping the e-science landscape in South Korea using the webometrics method
Han Woo Park in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (2010)

Citation and hyperlink networks
Andrea Scharnhorst, Michael Thelwall in Current Science (2005)

Social Network Analysis : A brief theoretical review and further perspectives in the study of Information Technology
Francesco Martino, Andrea Spoto in Social Networks (2006)

Cyberspace, the web graph and political deliberation on the Internet
Kenneth N Farrall, Michael X Delli Carpini in Symposium A Quarterly Journal In Modern Foreign Literatures (2004)

Cyberlinks between human rights NGOs: A network analysis
Sangmin Bae, Junho Choi (2000)

超链接网络分析的理论与应用研究
庞景安(2005) in 《信息系统》

Gillan, K. (2009) “The UK Anti-War Movement Online: Uses and Limitations of Internet Technologies for Contemporary Activism,” Information, Communication & Society 12(1): 25-43.

Dr. Kevin Gillan
Exploring hyperlink networks with Issue Crawler: methodological issues

Monday, April 4, 2011

Map of Doctoral Programs in Communication in USA

Data source: National Communication Association Doctoral Program Database

Click the red spot you will find more details about the program.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

感悟《治史三书》

所谓“三书”,是指本书集合了严耕望先生的《治史经验谈》、《治史答问》及《钱宾四先生与我》这三本小书。书中总结了先生如何与史学结缘、如何师从几位史学大家、自己如何做研究、如何处世等等。文字朴实,情真意切。

我对学者的认识始于张载:“为天地立心,为生民立命,为往圣继绝学,为万世开太平。”当时我方入中文系,第一次班会,同学们自我介绍。一位有家学渊源的同学以这“四为”做结尾,说到:“我要做这样的学者。”

今天,吟出这句话的同学已赴德国攻读西方哲学。每每提及此事,他只是慨一句“年少轻狂罢了”。孰不知,这句话对我的震撼。生命中,总是有些话,偶尔听到看到,便萦绕耳旁,挥之不去。就好像严耕望先生的人生际遇、治学之道与我的心灵所产生的共鸣。

我家所在地是商都朝歌,诞生了中国最早的商人。我家祖上行医,近几代转作药行生意。虽然我是个女孩,但毕竟是第一个孙子辈,爷爷、外公家里都十分新鲜爱惜。双方老人为我制订了十分周详的培养计划——背诗、写字便成了我从三岁到六岁每天的功课。

学而时习之,不亦乐乎。但是对我来说,背诗是乐事,因为我总是背得又快又准;写字却是一个苦差事:坐在小板凳上,把一个“永”字描上一百遍。如果应付了事,还要罚写更多遍。后来,长辈告诉我,是看出我性格中的浮躁,特意让我“磨一磨”。玉不琢,不成器。古人说,玉有五德:仁、义、智、勇、洁。这便是我名字的来历。不过直到今天,严耕望先生所提到的为学“八决”中的“恒”和“毅”,依旧是我的这块顽石上最大的瑕疵。

上学之后,家人还是希望培养我经商。无奈,我对数学直到十岁才开窍,在此之前,家人的耐性早就被磨光了,已经对我采取了放任政策。对我的期望,也从经商转向了从政。商人怕官,但是又想做官。所以,当我考上有“党校”之称的大学时,其毕业生60%以上的从政率着实让父母欣慰了许久。

我也不负众望,很快就成了各个学生社团里面的活跃人物,因为做学生领袖是从政的捷径。但是,在逶迤逢迎、觥筹交错之间,我却不快乐,就好像老子说的“纯白不备”“神生不定”,有时甚至觉得自己面目可憎。反而,每当我在图书馆,一纸在手,或吟或诵,且歌且咏,任自己思想天马行空,随意随兴,或而抚掌大笑,或而凝眉深思。书中深意,细细玩味,如曲径通幽,无桥无路之所却微现曙光,穷追探视,忽而豁然开朗,如醍醐灌顶,顿悟之时会心一笑。这方才是我的快乐!

然而,世人都晓读书好,但是读好书却不易。一次,教授要检查全班背诵《唐诗三百首》的情况。检查方法是:他翻书到哪一页,被抽到的人就要背出哪一篇,背不出则不及格。轮到我时,我闭上眼睛,冲刺似的将脑中存货脱口而出,终于完成任务,长吁一口气。我之后的一位男生,被抽中背诵李白的某诗,但是他说:“我不会背这首诗,因为我不喜欢。”全班顿时哗然。教授倒是开通,说:“那你就背诵你喜欢的。”“我喜欢李白的《月下独酌》。”于是,缓缓诵来,念出了诗中微醺的气质。听罢,教授感叹道:“此君得法。”这时,再回想我为了完成任务而背诗,不得其法,真是糟蹋了这些好文字!

读书怎样才能得法?例如严耕望先生书中的一句名言“看人人所能看得到的书,说人人所未说过的话”,容易理解,却不容易做到。一方面,“看人人所能看得到的书”也要得法。严耕望先生和胡适先生都曾经提出,读书要既博且专。容易胡适先生曾经把读书比作金字塔,像程颐所说的“譬如为九层之台,须大座脚使得。”做专门的学问,往往容易画地为牢,如此视野就不容易开阔。“说人人所未说过的话”,正如张载所说的“于不疑处有疑,方是进益”。

一本好书需要咀嚼,如老牛反刍般咀嚼,因为它永远新鲜。能读到这样的书,我感到非常庆幸。尽管我们的时代是一个缺乏伟大的时代,我们还是能从像严耕望先生这样的学者身上学到很多。读《治史三书》,我能体会到朴实中的睿智,平淡中的喜乐。后人追忆严耕望先生,曾用“恬淡乃能自守,充实而有光辉”来概括其高风亮节。我这样总结本书的功效:浮躁时可以静心,惶惶时可以定心,意乱时可以净心,孤寂时可以暖心。

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Book Review: The Zen of Academic Writing

Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article
By Howard S. Becker. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1986, 187pp. Paperback

Academic writing is easy. That is a lie, but people do not want to admit. Because, at least, for a desperate graduate student who was staring at the blank page, it could be a stress-reducer. And for a best seller on writing tactics, it is a good slogan to satisfy the consumers.

However, Howard Becker is different. He tells his stories from a cub graduate to a well-established scholar. He tells the truth, although the truth is discouraging sometimes. But the readers can feel that they are having dialogues with a real person, not listening the monologue of a mythical figure.

I strongly recommend readers starting from the last chapter, and then chapter 2 to 9, and finally the chapter 1. Because at the last chapter, Becker declares that he is not the one having cures for writings. He tells the readers do not expect too much from this book. It is readers’ own business. Becker’s warnings sound like a Zen teacher drubs the followers and shouts: “Are you enlightened?” And he also tells the readers they can only get the transcendent wisdom through meditation, and then they can finally get ultimate freedom. Readers should keep his warnings in mind.

Chapter 2 to 9 are composed of many personal experiences. And chapter 1 is revised based on a journal article, in which readers can pick up many useful tips once for all. But I appreciate the personal experiences more. Because readers may find something new every time they revisit these parts, and readers will harvest not only writing tactics, but also reflections about the socialization of academic writing.

Practically, Becker offers many useful tips, such as “start writing early in your research”, “write introductions last”, “ put your last paragraph first”, “write whatever comes into your head, as fast as you can type”, “keep rewriting”, and so on. But these tactics are the fur of Zen (皮毛禅). More importantly, readers should find the logic embedded in the fragments of wit-and-wisdom.

First, being disenchanted. Max Weber rose the term “deenchanted” in his speech “Science as a Vocation”. This is also the gist of Becker’s book. “ I am lazy, don’t like working, and minimize the time I spent on that.” Becker tells readers that he is a scholar, but also an ordinary person. He hammered away at the point that there is no authority and there is no one right way. He tries to de-apotheosize the illusion of intellectual elite in readers’ mind. Because he understands that the readers’ fears are embedded in their imagination towards academic authority and elitism.

Second, realize the socialization of academic writing. Becker admits that academic institutions do exist. The criteria for good writing are ruled by several top journals. Becker queries the legitimacy of the rules and sticks to his own standards. For readers who feel powerless to resist the rules, Becker suggests that, on the one hand, believe there are good writings and read them to improve their academic taste; on the other hand, respect editors’ comments and keep positive attitudes when receiving rejection from journals.

Third, adopt heuristic rules not algorithms. Becker’s style is heuristic. For example, in chapter 2, Becker suggests, “To overcome the academic prose you have first to overcome the academic pose”. This tip is vague rather than precise. It is like the Zen of discourse (话头禅). Readers shall digest it through meditation.

Fourth, multiply identities and dialogues. In his book, Becker presents as a young scholar who get his doctor degree and can not find a job, as a assistant professor who is in a dilemma as whether to show the senior colleagues his writing or not, as a well-established scholar who is entangled with “ get it out” and “wait for a while”, as a chief editor who queries the legitimacy of the rules in academic community. As Everett Hughes told him, Becker tells his readers “ the intellectual life is a dialogue”. That’s why the book can strike a deep chord in readers of all ages.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Communication Pattern and Network Structure

A communication pattern specifies the source, destination and other parameters associated with the connection.
A perfect system will have 100 percent detection effectiveness and 0 percent false positives, but this is not always possible.

For communication scholars, we are all longing for a perfect communication pattern, which will make our world a better place. But this is not always possible in the real world. So we try to find out the important determinants or obstacles within communication patterns. Sometimes we find that gender, age, and other demographic attributes are important. Sometimes we find that people are embedded in a structure and we are manipulated by invisible hands. Which one is right? Maybe there is not absolute right or wrong. But I still want to know which one is more right?

Although the new science of network study is very popular in many fields, I am not convinced by the premise that communication patterns are heavily affected by network structure sometimes. How heavy is "heavy”? When is the "sometimes”?

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Three Faces/Phases of Chinese Civil Society

Yesterday I attended a lecture at Hong Kong Baptist University. The speaker was Professor Shi anbin from the School of Journalism and Communciation of Tsinghua University, which was my old school.

Here is a brief introduction about his lecture: 
In Chinese, the term "civil society" has been translated to "gongmin shehui" (i.e., citizen's society), "shimin society”(i.e., urban residents' society) and "minjiian shehui" (i.e. folks' society). These three "faces" or "phases" of "civil society" serve as the prism to help understand how the concept is reinvented and reconstructed in a totally different socio-political and cultural context. The present study aims to recontextualize "civil society" against the backdrop of the emergent "internet politics" in contemporary China. This research will also delineate the emergence of the Western-imported concept of "civil society" via the Internet in contemporary China, and analyze the implication of "internet politics" by way of reconstructing the interrelationship between the Party-state and the Chinese people.
This is not the first time I hear the idea of three phases of Chinese civil society. In fact, sholars in this field like Professor Wang Ming of Tsinghua University claimed that the main body of Chinese civil society was NGOs. Since 1980s, the development of NGOs in China can be divided into three decades, which led Chinses civil society go through three phases.

The new idea of this lecture is the notion of three faces of Chinese civil society. Faces here refer to mass media like BBS, blogs, microblogs that people use in three phases. Professor Shi mentioned that mass media functioned differently in each phase, according to the distinct civic needs of each stage. The evolvement of media function followed the way : self-protection --- social surveillance --- social reform. Although I may not agree with him on specific media functions, I approve his warrant that there is a interaction between civil society and media function. But how to specify the interaction needs to be further discussed.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Objectivity as Strategic Ritual


In the paper Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity, Gaye Tuchman claims that "objectivity" may be seen as a strategic ritual protecting newspapermen from the risks of their trade, because professions like lawyers and doctors have their operational definitions towards objectivity to protect themselves from the critics. So, as a profession, journalists also have their routine procedures to defend their objectivity. The evidences supporting the claims are analysis on ten news stories that Tuchman collected from his fieldwork in a newspaper and from a book on news practices, which are generalized into three factors that help newsmen to define an “objective fact”.
There are eight parts in the paper. The first part (Para.1-Para.5) is the introduction. Tuchman introduces various definitions of objectivity of different professions. He tries to say that the word “objectivity” is fraught with meanings. Not only the newsmen, but also other professions like lawyers and doctors do have their operational definitions towards objectivity. Despite the differences in definitions that are subject to different essence of business, lawyers, doctors, and newsmen all have some “rituals” and “strategies” to protect them from the risks of their trade. Here, Tuchman quotes Everett Hughes and other big names to justify his attempt, taking objectivity as strategic ritual.
In the second part (Para.6-Para.10), Tuchman tries to say newsmen are “men of action”; they only need some operational definitions of objectivity, rather than some epistemological examination. In the hierarchical structure of a newsroom, newsmen “second guess” the potential criticism from superiors and consumers. Superiors practice social control through “scolding and blue pencil” in the newsroom, according to Warren Breed. Tuchman suggests two factors, or two pressures/risks newsmen have to face: to meet the deadline and to avoid the libel suits.
In the third and fourth parts (Para.11-Para.34), Tuchman presents five strategic procedures enabling newsmen to claim objectivity. They are verification of facts, presentation of conflicting possibilities, presentation of supporting evidence, the judicious use of quotation marks, and using the inverted pyramid structure. These are the strategies related to news content, one of the three factors Tuchman mentions in the introduction. The fifth and sixth parts (Para.35-Para.49) deal with the other two factors, form and interorganizational relationships. The two factors lead to more strategies like using the label “news analysis” to separate “facts” from opinions, and three conventional procedures of news judgment. Meanwhile, Tuchman also mentions some problems of these strategies.
In the seventh part (Para.50-Para.53), Tuchman discusses newsmen’s “common senses”. He quotes Alfred Schutz to define common sense as “the knowledge taken for granted”. It is the fundamental determinant of “fact”. It is what makes the news judgment as sacred knowledge that lead journalism to a profession. It is always the target for critics. It is also the weakest link in Tuchman’s warrant.
The last part (Para.54-Para.61) is conclusion and discussion. Tuchman reckons that his readers would question he only examine newsmen’s use of the word “objectivity”. So he suggests that further studies in other professions should be carried out.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

What is Chinese Media Scholars Reading?

Netizens are interesting, and the people who study them are also great fun. They may do not know each other personally offline, but they do know each other well online. They meet on the Internet, get onto each other on the Internet, and creat an e-magazine on the Internet, which reminds me of the sory of Louis Rossetto establishing Wired in March 1993.

Here is the e-magazine named Reading Reports in the Digital Age. 

The first two articles are about Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means, and Kevin Kelly's Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World. Both of the authors are my colleagues.

The third article is about a new book on Chinese Internet marketers who stand to earn big money by thrusting the clients - and sometimes victims into the limelight. One of the authors are my classmates. The young lady is brave enough to work with some even illegitimate Internet marketers to collect the firsthand stories. I have not read this book yet, but I believe it must be excellent.

Others articles involve various topics, such as news objectivity, cloud computing, microbloggings,culture criticism, Internet policies and consumer behaviours.

Here are the download links.

Reading Reports in the Digital Age vol.1
Reading Reports in the Digital Age vol.2
Reading Reports in the Digital Age vol.3
Reading Reports in the Digital Age vol.4(new)

Friday, January 28, 2011

The Functions of Social Conflict


The Functions of Social Conflict: By Lewis A. Coser
When I stated reading Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien’s classic studies on knowledge gap, I thought they were Marxists, because they used the concept knowledge gap to deal with the inequalities caused by mass media. They argued that the mass media had a function similar to that of other social institutions: that of reinforcing or increasing existing inequities. This really smells like Marxism.
But CC told me I was wrong. “ They have nothing to do with Marxism. A democratic society also asks for equalities.” He said. I have to admit that this is kind of stereotype I have towards the westerns who concern about the moral issues within the social structure. The subtext is that not everyone except the Marxists would concern about that in the capitalist society.
In Marxism, inequalities are really bad things. But in Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien’s opinion, inequalities are not so bad. They quoted Lewis A. Coser many times, which indicated that they agreed with Coser ideas on social conflicts. For Coser social conflicts functioned as vaccines to the society. To some extend, social conflicts would make the society stronger. So, the knowledge gap and the inequalities caused by mass media may not bad things.

An Analysis of the Arguments in Three Papers


McCombs and Shaw in their study The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media made an arguments that the mass media set the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the salience of attitudes toward the political issues, because the media appeared to have exerted a considerable impact on voters' judgments of what they considered the major issues of the campaign, based on the finds from the Chapel Hill voters survey in 1968 that there were strong correlation between the major item emphasis on the main campaign issues carried by the media and voters' independent judgments of what were the important issues.
In Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien’s study Mass Media Flow and Differential Growth in Knowledge, they made an argument that as the infusion of mass media information into a social system increased, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status tended to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments, so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tended to increase rather than decrease, because the mass media had a function similar to that of other social institutions: that of reinforcing or increasing existing inequities, and highly educated persons were more likely to have been exposed to a heavily publicized topic in the past, based on the findings from one experiment which indicated a correlation between education and the understanding of certain issues with different levels of publicity.
In a following research of Tichenor, Donohue, and Olien, Mass Media and the Knowledge Gap: A Hypothesis Reconsidered, they found in the surveys that for the sixteen Minnesota communities as a whole, the size of the knowledge gap was only weakly related to the newspaper coverage index and in a negative direction. These findings suggested that the original hypothesis, however well supported by previous data, may not hold for all situations. So they made several modifications of the general knowledge gap hypothesis by employing some new variables:
1.     Where the issue appears to arouse general concern for a community as a whole, knowledge about that issue is more likely to become evenly distributed across educational status levels.
2.     This equalization is more likely to occur when the issue develops in a climate of social conflict.
3.     Such equalization in knowledge is more likely to occur in a small, homogeneous community than in a large, pluralistic one.
4.     Knowledge gaps on specific issues, if they appear initially, may tend to decline as public attention wanes.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Guanxi


Guanxi is a key concept in Chinese society. It is about how people are connected and the structure within Chinese society. The words like relationships, connections, or personal ties can be translated into guanxi in Chinese. However, it doesn’t work well in turn. Translations like relationships, connections, and sphere of personal influence do not fully cover the central notions of guanxi.

Compared with the value free concepts like relationships, connections, and personal ties, guanxi is involved with social norms and ethics. For example, in Confucianism, relatives and friends are two kinds of basic guanxi in people’s daily life. The guanxi with relatives is involved with the social norm of filial piety, while the guanxi with friends is involved with the social norm of loyalty.

Guanxi is embedded in the Chaxu Geju (the pattern of difference sequence) in Chinese society. In the book Rural China, Professor Fei Xiaotong described the Chaxu Geju as the water traces after throwing a stone in the lake. The person is at the center point and people who have closer guanxi with the person are in the central circles. For example, family members are in the first central circle, close friends are in the second circle, acquaintances are in the third circle, and so on.

In a narrow sense, we can see that guanxi refers in particular to the relationships with relatives and friends. In a general sense, especial in the modernizing process from acquaintance society to stranger society, when we talk about guanxi, we focus on guanxi as important resources rather than emphasizing the social norms and Chaxu Geju. Guanxi can be accumulated and used to generate more guanxi. In such as view, guanxi can be also called social capital in a metaphorical sense.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I am Penny, you are Leonard

To statistics

I am Penny, you are Leonard
We are different,
But I love you.
Vice versa.

--------------------------
P.S. I have to reinstall the OS tonight, so I will write more tomorrow.




Monday, January 24, 2011

Finding short cuts

Professor Chen discussed the graph theory today, including some fundamental concepts and simple applications. What I felt most interested was the Dijkstra's algorithm.Dijkstra's algorithm is also called the greedy algorithm that I think it is easier to remember. It is greedy because "every decision it makes is the one with the most obvious immediate advantage".

Here is a demonstration on how the algorithm works.

Dijkstra's algorithm runtime

Porfessor Chen didn't go further into the details about the algorithm.We didn't go further into the details of the algorithm. But I felt that finding a short cut should be a good application of graph theory; not merely in the field of computer science, but also in social science, even in our daily life.

An obvious example for this algorithm is how to find the shortest way to build a highway between several cities. Or, if I want to make $73, what and how many bills and coins I shall choose to make sure that I take the largest possible bill or coin. Another application occurs to me is finding the shortest path in the network of links of searching results to get the most helpful information, or how to make up the shortest and most informative reading list for literature review among countless references. I am greedy too :)

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Theory 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0

Neil Postman in his book Technopoly: the surrender of culture to technology pessimistically warned people there were three stages in human history, Tool-using-Technocracy-Technopoly. At the first stage, people had the ability to limit the tool-using. Until the technocracy stage, complex technologies like mechanical clock, printing machine, and telescope gradually created new culture other than melt in old culture. And now, we are in the technopoly stage, culture life bended to the throne of technology, and human have to search for the meaning of life in machines and technologies. As Neil Postman’s student, Paul Levinson proposed technology epistemology on the sublation of McLuhan’s communication technology determinism and Postman’s pessimism in light of the trend of digital technology. On one hand, his anthrotropic theory puts forward that technology will imitate or copy the way we feel and cognize, and will be more and more like real people. On the other hand, he proposed his technology epistemology, which expresses optimistic believe that we can control the media. If we use the newest technology tagging McLuhan, Postman, and Levinson, I think they can represent the web 1.0 or web 2.0. Comparing with them, Jean Baudrillard and his consumer society theory, his arguments about signs, simulacra, and implosion are more of web 3.0. The relationship of technology and us will be like users and their avatars in the 3D virtual game Second life, or like what the movie The Matrix predict.

Friday, January 21, 2011

debates vs. conversations

I used to be a member of the debate club in university. The biggest event in my first semester was a debating contest. I do not remember the topics now, but I still remember some details in preparations.

We usually had four or five players in a team, including one or two substitutes. Half of players prepared the arguments. The others prepared the counterarguments. Before the formal contest, we had two or three warm-ups. At the beginning, I didn't understand why I had to rack my brain for the negative side if I belonged to the affirmative side. However, the counterarguments we prepared turned out very useful, even much useful the our arguments in the real debating. Sometimes what the other side said was exactly what I had imaged. So my responses seemed prompt and easily hit the point.

The book The Craft of Research tells us that academic writings are conversations with readers. Well,the word "conversation" is elegant.In my opinion,it is more of a debate than a concersation. Readers are not merely your friends but also your friendenemies(friend+enemy).

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Reading Report: The Craft of Research, Part 3, Making a Claim and Supporting It

The word “craft” in the title reminds me of the distinction between scholars and craftsmen. Before the Renaissance, scholars and philosophers were supposed to master the arts other than the crafts. I remember Stephen Mason claimed in his work A History of the Sciences that the uniting of scholars and craftsmen gave birth to the modern science. So, learning arts as well as crafts has become scholars’ own business since then.

It is clear that the focus of the book The Craft of Research is some essentials in practicing scientific researches as techniques. The third part of the book deals with the most important part in scientific researches, making arguments. According to the authors, arguments are composed of claims, reasons, and evidence, and reinforced by acknowledgements and responses. Besides, the warrants linking claims and reasons are also discussed in this part.

Assume that there is an argument:

I claim that the communication technologies make the world a better place, because they make me happy, based on the example that I can call my parents at low cost.

The argument fits the basic formula; there is a claim, a reason, and evidence. However, it is not a good argument. If I was a skeptical reader, I would ask what are the definitions of “communication technologies” and “a better place” in the claim, because they are not clear; or being tougher, say that I don’t think this is an important issue worthy of study. Because the criteria for good claims are clarity and significance, but this claim fails to do so.

Moreover, the reason and the evidence seem weak. To support the claim, more than one reason will be needed. Skeptical readers would say there are plenty of better explanations than this one, or they do not think the reason and the claim are necessarily cause and effect. This is where the warrant lies. But in this argument, the warrant between the claim and reason is not so obvious. A more general circumstances and consequence should be stated in further explanation.

Last but not the least, the example in the argument may be the most apparent targets for critics. Readers would doubt that whether the example is representative enough or not? Further more, what if the evidence in the argument is some findings from a survey or an experiment, or some logical inferences drawn from theories? Are they accurate and precise enough?

As a conclusion, what impressed me most in this part is always keeping readers in mind and keeping questioning myself. The lists of questions that might arise from readers in the book are extremely valuable to young scholars who do not have so many readers yet.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

the Voice from My Heart

When he told me that I was not allowed to mingle with male scholars in the same conference hall and he would drive me to the female campus of King Saud University in Riyadh, Mohammed was too shy to look into my eyes. He was a junior student of this university who served for the Conference. Honestly, I felt OK about this. Since, on one hand, my optimism always led me to the brighter side even when things were at their worst; on the other hand, it was not the first time I came across gender inconvenience. I was the only child of my parents who ran a small pharmacy in a middle province of China. Unfortunately, I was not a son as my grandparents hoped. Although I may not share the same amount of love from them like my cousins did, a loss may turn out to be a gain. I grew up without so much pressure from expectations and developed an optimistic character and self-confidence.

I kept being a top student since primary school because I enjoyed studying rather than to full fill parents’ vanity. I won the national competition on writing and mathematics because I felt interesting in playing with sentences and numbers. I chose the School of Liberal Arts when I enrolled at the Renmin University of China with the confidence that multiple knowledge in humanities and social science would well prepare me for the future.

On the way to female campus, my only concern was how to make my presentation without being present at the same conference room. Mohammed told me they used videoconferencing system to solve this problem, which virtually shocked me when I saw the male scholars on the screen while they can only hear my voice. I had to wear the electronic veil to begin my presentation. Gradually, a strong voice from heart became louder and louder. I can do something no matter how tiny it was. It was the same voice when I quitted the well-paid internship in Microsoft and began work voluntarily for NGOs. Suddenly, I stopped presentation. “I give up the last two minutes of my presentation.” I said, slowly and firmly, through the videoconferencing, “I really appreciate the opportunity offered by King Saud University. But I hope next time when I come to Riyadh, I myself can virtually present the conference, not my voice.” When I met Mohammed at the front door of female campus, he told me that my absent presentation won the loud applause of scholars from all over the world.

This experience is significant in my academic career. It is a vivid demonstration of new media technologies and their influence – both in the sense of technological features that bring in transformations in production and distribution, as well as in the sense of users who are embedded in certain political, economic and cultural structures. What is more important, it makes me feel responsible to give help to the helpless and give voice to the voiceless through new media, especially when I am fully aware of the powers embedded in media as a communication major student.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Tao of Statistics

End of analysis,
Start of results,
Thin ice.

This is a poem for p values, a term in statistics. It is written by Dana Keller, the writer of the book The tao of statistics: a path to understanding (with no math). It was the first time for me to finish reading a statictics book at one sitting. It is like Laozi's Dao De Jing, which is concise and comprehensive.

I have never expected that there will be a statistics book like a novel or a comic book. Although I have taken at least two courses on it, statistics is supposed to be extremely tough and the learning process is really suffering. Every time I tried my best to remember a concept or an equation, but still did not know how to use it in analysis. Worse yet, I promptly forgot all about them after the course examinations. So, next time when I have to use statistics, it would be a new round of learning and suffering.

I used to lose all my confidence in statistics. I even doubted my own IQ or whether I did not work hard enough. Gradually, I found that it was not the problem of intelligence or diligence, but the problem of Tao, the ways. Maybe it is a suitable way for others, but it is not my way. Why I have to cut my feet to fit the others’ shoes. Why not to find my own shoes? There must be my ways somewhere. All I need is the confidence and searching. The tao of statistics: a path to understanding (with no math) gives me the confidence to going on.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Reviews of EE6605 Lesson 2

Last week, Professor Chen briefly introduced graph theories, three types of networks, and some fundamental concepts of the complex studies. This week, he focused on Paul Erdős and Alfréd Rényi's random graph theory.

Assume that there are N isolated nodes. Let's randomly link two of them to generate a random graph network. We use p to represent the probability of randomly linking two nodes. Here, the number of all links can be easily calculated, which is K (number of links) = p*N (N-1)/2. Professor Chen also demonstrated how to calculate L(the average path length) and C(the cluster coefficient) step by step.

http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v6/n7/full/nphys1665.html

What impressed me most was the comparison between various real networks, such as social networks, information networks, protein networks, and so on. Networks which have relatively small L and small C are more likely the random graph networks. Meanwhile, small L and large C are features of small world networks. Those that follow the power-law distribution are scale-free networks.

However, in our daily life, networks composed of isolated nodes are rare. What if the nodes are not isolated and the edges are not randomly linked?