7 August 2008 - Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic Interactionism (from Denzin)
- Born of american pragmatism (James, Dewey, Peirce, Mead)
- Also Cooley, Blumer
- Tortured history
- Many methods

"In its canonical form (Blumer 1969), it rests on three root assumptions: first, that 'human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them' (p. 2); second, that the meanings of things arise out of the process of social interaction; and third, that meanings are modified through an interpretive process which involves self-reflective individuals symbolically itneracting with one another" - Denzin, p. xiv




Phil asks:
Niamh,

Can you tell us what the working research objective is and specifically what the purpose of the framework is?

Phil

The answer is:
the plot is:

* Development methodologies don’t work … Determinism, techno centric, rationalistic – lots of reasons… that’s not really the point… in the end they are "Not true" in a pragmatic sense - they don't work .
* They also wont work in light of cocreation, wisdom of crowds, move to open source etc - This democratization of innovation/creation… which is new and ill suited for existing methodologies and best seen in virtual worlds… the net is creating a new development/usage paradigm where usage comes before or with development … usage and development in parallel and distributed across communities

the argument is:

* what we know of usage, acceptance, adoption: (theory planned behaviour, reasoned action, TAM et al), all of these hint at a symbolic interactionist perspective [human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them; the meanings of things arise out of the process of social interaction; meanings are modified through an interpretive process which involves self-reflective individuals symbolically interacting with one another - Denzin, p. xiv]

the study therefore:

* takes virtual worlds
* sees how they are constructed socially
* explores perceptions and usage and the relationship between the two [most beliefs research examines beliefs after adoption – this one maps the process]
* in order to inform development and design (something about the relationship between form, function and design)
* it uses educators because they have a longer than most history with these worlds and they see them as a solution to a problem and are very goal oriented making them interesting for this kind of study

how?:

* a survey is used to explore usage and development
* a classification is made
* archival analysis plus interview transcripts (from cases or field work or ethnography - not sure how to label this) etc are categorized using the classification and analyzed using grounded theory approach



this still fits loosely with:

RQ1 What are individual perceptions of virtual worlds, how do they change over time and what factors (e.g. human and technical) affect them? In particular, how do they relate to institutional perceptions?

RQ3 What is the nature of virtual world usage?

RQ4 What is the relationship between perceptions and usage?

As Phil pointed out, the research objective that I had was not sufficiently high level. I still haven’t come up with a new one. But I think you can see the idea… and that it means for now at least throwing out the institutional angle (RQ2)…

So why do I need a framework?

Pure grounded wouldn’t use one but this isn’t pure grounded. I need it to sensitize me for the discourse surrounding virtual worlds. I need something to structure the thesis itself and my own inquiry…

that's my stab
it changes daily
- another reason for a framework!