During this introduction week we started by
having one seminar about research publications. This seminar also familiarized
us a bit more with the topics in the class and we decided on the groups for the
project as well. The research papers that were presented varied a lot and it
became even clearer to me that “media technology” is a broad research area. Even
though most papers were in some way related to social media and social networks
there were also other papers with a more technical approach, like computer
graphics, simulation, visualization etc. I think it is a good thing that we’re
finally getting to focus a bit on what research areas there are and how to
search in journals and papers after articles related to curtain topics and
areas.
One thing that I’ve noticed that I believe
is a bit confusing is the value of the impact factor. I believe that this
number varies a lot also regarding to research areas. A specific impact factor
in physics doesn’t necessarily stand for the same quality as the same impact
factor in chemistry. Since media technology is a fairly new topic and subject I
would want to know where media technology is on this impact factor scale as
well.
During our second seminar (with Leif
Dahlberg) we spent most of the time discussing Bertrand Russell’s book “The
Problems of Philosophy”. I had a really hard time understanding the concepts of
philosophy while reading the book, but it made more sense after discussing the
questions in small groups. I still find philosophy rather complicated and it
definitely brings up a new way of thinking that I’m not used to. However, I
found it much easier to deal with the different theories and ideas connected to
the subject when discussing it in the group.
I wish we had spent a little more time on
the connection between engineering and philosophy. Even though most time was
spent on questions like “what is knowledge?” I still didn’t really grasp the
connection to engineering in a sense that philosophy could be a helping tool
for engineers.
However, I did noticed that when I was
reading a proposition about “innovation and research initiatives in the
Stockholm region” and they discussed the importance of keeping Stockholm on top
as a “knowledge-city” I found myself pausing for a minute…
"I wish we had spent a little more time on the connection between engineering and philosophy. Even though most time was spent on questions like “what is knowledge?” I still didn’t really grasp the connection to engineering in a sense that philosophy could be a helping tool for engineers."
SvaraRaderaI completely agree with this comment, on the one hand it's good to know epistemology because it's an essential part in gaining an understanding why we conduct research. But on the other hand in this course I would rather have an introduction to morals and ethics because of the engineers codex of honor. I think that morals is a better concept to introduce for an engineering audience (but in my studies of philosophy morals was introduced after epistemology).
"I wish we had spent a little more time on the connection between engineering and philosophy. Even though most time was spent on questions like “what is knowledge?” I still didn’t really grasp the connection to engineering in a sense that philosophy could be a helping tool for engineers."
SvaraRaderaI think that these philosophical questions could be very useful when you are conducting any research. And another thing, as far as I understood Leif, his main purpose was not to introduce this material to "engineers" or "media specialists" etc. His main point was to force us to think about it as a person)