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CTCS688/Class notes

2010-09-03T23:18:13Z

New page

[[Category:CTCS688]]
[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Historiography]]

Historiography and Historical Methods
* CTCS 688
* 2-6pm
* SCA 216
* Prof. Laura Isabel Serna
* Office hrs: Tues 3-5pm
** SCA 321

== Aug 27 ==

Prof Serna
* Film History in Mexico, 1917-1936
* Distribution
* Reception
* History of Latino moviegoing in LA

Ãdan Ãvalos, TA
* Scholar, artist
* Filmmaker

=== Going over a syllabus ===

"The historiography ''on'' something ... "
* Ramsey, Terry. 1920s history of Hollywood

"Cinema" as shorthand for the moving image

Practical challenges
* How-to write an answerable question
* Negotiating agency among viewers, industries, orgs, individuals

=== Two ways to become a historian ===

* Read good histories
* Write historical work

=== Requirements ===

* Book review (5pp), 10 min in-class presentation of that review
** Reading for the major arg, of the chapter, of the book
** Learning to read for exams
** Paying close attention to footnotes
* Final paper (15-20pp)

=== Field trip ===

* Margaret Herrick Library
* http://www.oscars.org/library/index.html

=== Gaddis ===

* Gaddis, J. L. (2002). "The landscape of history". [[The landscape of history]].
* Big picture: What do historians do?
* An illustrative, "literary" approach
* Attempting to appeal to a wider audience
* Drawing out examples, is there such a thing as too much description?
* Discussion of Machiavelli, [[The Prince]]
** Detachment and time enables a feeling of "objectivity"?
** "Compression of historical experience" (8)

==== Why history? ====

* People learn from the past
** "Doomed to repeat..."
* Give voice to people left out
** "'Presentism' is no complement among historians" (2)
* History is a form of representation
* "Truth"-telling
* To "smooth over the details" (Ãvalos)
** Or to return to details that have been smoothed over
* Details v Big Picture
** Tension between evidence (micro) and argument (macro)
** Temptation to include every little thing
* Presentism temptation
** Project contemporary ideas about race, gender, etc into past
** Where do terms, words, definitions come from ''in their contemporary moment''?
** ''Is it possible to be objective?''
* Crafting a story, a narrative
** Impossible to ever have "all the facts"
** Writing a monograph, no matter how dry, is telling a story

==== Diff between a chronicle and a history ====

* Chronicle is a chronology
* But history offers analysis, interpretation
* History involves abstraction
* Accepted facts do not make "historical truths"

=== Film history, Allen + Gomery ===

* Allen, R. C. and Gomery, D. (1985). "Film history as history". [[Film history: Theory and practice]].
* Were it written today, perhaps called "moving image" history
* Film history as a "third leg"/branch of film studies
* Offer a critique of film history for being "unselfconscious"
* How does film criticism differ from film history?
** Less emphasis on context
* Film history tends to involve larger scope than the text itself
** Production history

==== Politics, film history ====

* Integrating, managing the manifestation of one's politics
** Selection of topics, questions, areas of inquiry
** How do you reveal, work with your stakes?
** Film criticism and theory may have greater "aperatures" for one's own voice
*** Easier for a theorist to say "I"
** Film history and historians are engaged more in an objective, scientific tone
** Watch for '''tone''' in the writing of others
* Before the 1960s, much history is written with
** No ideological "flag planting"
** And a strong, authoritative voice
** Contemporary history, even ones that seem to be "safe", would not take such a tone

==== Writing about a history that folks wish to forget ====

* e.g. 1920s imperial moment in Mexican film-going
** Time when almost all film shown in Mexico was produced in America
** Important to return to this neglected time
** Unpack the politics, the nationalism

==== Do media historians not deal with questions of philosophy? ====

* Do they treat data as unproblematic?
* Does film history lend itself to popular histories that do not problematize their artifacts and assumptions?
* Film theorists have a stereotype of film historians based on this wealth of popular writing
* Introduction and Conclusion of a book are places where historians must consider the theoretical stakes of their work

==== Empiricism in history ====

* '''Climametric''' history, closer to a social science
** 1950s, 1960s
** Dealing with numbers
* One reason that history departments are closer to humanities or social science depending on university
* '''Realism''', like "realistic", contextualism
** We can't know everything, we don't know nothing, ...
** There will always be things that we cannot know

==== Collectors / Historians ====

* Similar value in the archive
* But different questions, frames
* Approaching the outsider archivist, collector
** Collector is a curator, author
** "Author"-izing access
** How do you speak to this person?

==== Selecting an argument ====

* Many arguments can be made about the same material
* Part of being a historian == "making decisions"
** What is included, excluded?

=== Exercise, reading textbook introductions ===

=== Jump offs ===

* Toby Miller all historical documents are texts to be read in a context
* Vivian Subcheck (sp?) exemplar of intermingling theory, history
* Tom Gunion (sp?) another person bridging theory, history, criticism

== Sept 3 ==

=== [[Before the nickelodeon]] (film) ===

What kind of story was it telling?
* "Pro-Edison", pro-Porter
* Narrative traces evolution of a medium to a single person
* Was there neg info about him left out?
** Patent troll
* '''Great man argument''', Thomas Carlyle, Herbert Spencer
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man_theory

Who is the audience of this documentary?
* Lay people

Use of tinting
* Why were certain images tinted?
* Who did the tinting?
* Significance of the coloring

"Pseudo-objective vibe"
* Documents from the time
* Reels of recovered film
* Talking heads make opinions, subjectivity seem more obvious

'''Visual essay'''
* Production choices are rhetorical choices

=== Carr ===

Carr, . () "[[The historian and his facts]]". What is history?.
* Series of lectures

=== Who was Carr? ===

* British historian
* 14 volume history of the Soviet Union
* Moved from Liberal to very far Left

=== Whig history ===

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history
* History is a long march toward progress
* Often used a pejorative
* Tied into Enlightenment, democracy
** All of history leads toward this period
** Was widely used by British historians

=== Positivism ===

* 19th c. historians
* "Facts are external to the observer"
* History is process of accumulating facts
* Facts are self-evident
** Ranke, "''wie es eigentlich gewesen''"
* Historian gathers, sequences, interprets

=== Are all facts historical facts? ===

* What separates a datum of the past from a historical facts?
* Historian can transform the quotidian into a historical fact?
** Power of incorporation into a historical argument

=== Historian selects facts ===

* But only a small subset of facts are available
* Artifacts are lost, destroyed
* Facts are deemed significant or not by previous historians
* How are some documents or facts deemed relevant?

=== Archives of documents, artifacts ===

* Organized, restored, identified
* Layers of processing
* Accessibility
** Technical
** Bureaucratic
* Document can only tell us what the author intended us to know

=== All history is contemporary history ===

A 2nd position against which Carr argues
* Past doesn't exist separate from the historian

=== Dialogic ===

* On-going interaction between past and present
* Only achieve our understanding of the past through the eyes of the present
* Can never be separate from the past

=== Final thoughts on facts ===

* Can't cherry pick the facts that make your argument work
* Continuous process of moulding his interpretation to available facts

=== Pragmatics of continuous history ===

* "Going fishing" in the archive
* "Publish or perish", productivity
** Sense that it's a luxury or a waste to not publish after a period of thought, exploration

=== De Certeau ===

De Certeau, . () "The historiographical operation". [[The writing of history]].

=== Social space ===

* Location, not geographical
* But a practiced place
** In relation with other people, norms, etc

=== History as a social space ===

* "Where" is within the discipline, field
* The Society for Cinema and Media Studies
** Many people ''do'' film studies but are not part of or in communication with the SCMS
* Process of '''authentication''' by which scholar assess each other + work
** Socialization process
** Screening, exams, accreditation, institutionalization
* De Certeau is referring to Foucault's writing about institutionalization
* Note: elsewhere De Certeau looks at how history has marginalized colonialized people and practitioners out of existence
* Social space, institution "shapes what they write"
** e.g. footnotes

=== "Denial of the specificity of a place" ===

* "The very principle of ideology" (69)
* By moving history into a non-place, ideology moves history away from being able to speak about society (69)
* Enables history within a specific institution to become dominant history

=== Making history as a practice ===

* From artifacts, historians "make history", something different
** An "artifice of nature" (70)
* There ''are'' techniques, technical work
** Archive, archiving, preservation
** Setting aside, curation
* Conventionally historians think of themselves as thinkers,
** and position archivists as do-ers, managers, but no interpreters
* Idea of history helps to hide the labor of doing history

=== Political aspect of making history ===

* History reminds us of what is lacking (85)
* Because you are always selecting, delimiting
* There are stories still untold, left out

=== Writing: history as representation ===

* Positivists might say they aren't representing anything, "that's just the way it was"
* But De Certeau says that the historian is always making, doing history
* Cannot possibly tell the whole story
* Creating something : creating texts

=== Crafton on Jazz Singer ===

Crafton, D. () [[The jazz singer's reception in the media and at the box office]] in Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, ed. . :
* http://books.google.com/books?id=ZUr4pRBZUcEC&lpg=PP1&dq=post-theory%20reconstructing%20film%20studies&pg=PA474#v=onepage&q=crafton&f=false

History has inflated the relevance of The Jazz Singer
* "Legends are also historical documents"

==== Why does this legend emerge? ====

* Al Jolson
* Investment in the star system

==== Must do source criticism ====

* Can't take sources as face value
** News sources, trades, etc.
* Investigating the LEGEND helps us think of new historical sources
** Helps us come to new questions

==== Finding similarities among historical accounts ====

* Seems that the same story is retold by multiple people
* From where does this legend emerge?

=== Lindstrom, on Chicago, Nickelodeons ===

* http://books.google.com/books?id=cB2MfzmdwYkC&lpg=PA217&dq=lindstrom%20moving%20picture%20audiences&pg=PA217#v=onepage&q=lindstrom%20moving%20picture%20audiences&f=false

Taking up a historical event that many people have focused on
* Who were the early audiences? What were their practices?

==== How does he move away from previous writing? ====

* Focusing on Chicago, not NYC
* Thought of cinema as just one factor of '''urban development'''
** Found that cinemas encouraged people to move around the city
* Calling on the tools of urban studies to address a question of film studies
* Appeals to a different set of facts
** And a different set of methods, techniques

==== Map-making ====

* Depth of geographic data

=== Jump offs ===

* Eric Hoyt, co-crediting two archivists on his diss

Main Page

2010-09-03T23:17:29Z

Coursework:

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	== Coursework ==		== Coursework ==
		+
		+	=== CTCS 688: Historiography ===
		+
		+	* [[CTCS688/Class notes]]

	=== COMM 650: Survey theory and methods ===		=== COMM 650: Survey theory and methods ===

Information rules

2010-09-02T06:47:09Z

Created page with 'Category:Internet Category:Networking Category:Economics Category:Industry Shapiro, C. and Varian, H. R. (1999) Information rules. Boston: Harvard Business S…'

New page

[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Networking]]
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Industry]]

Shapiro, C. and Varian, H. R. (1999) [[Information rules]]. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Goal: establish economic principles at play in information economies. Should be visible in telecomm since 19th c.

== Chapter 1 ==

"Technology changes. Economic laws do not." (2)

=== Information ===

* Anything that can be digitized (3)

=== Cost of producing information ===

* '''High fixed costs''': Costly to produce
* '''Low marginal costs''': Cheap to reproduce (3)
* Pricing must be done according to '''consumer value'''
* Natural connection to '''differential pricing'''
** because info has diff value to diff consumers (3)
** '''Delay'''
** '''Versioning''' (4)

=== Managing intellectual property ===

* Maximize value, not protection (5)

=== Information as an 'experience good' ===

* '''Experience good''' must be experienced to be valued (5)
* Can be hard to convince people to pay for something upfront
** e.g. a new product from a new company
* Overcome with '''branding''', '''reputation''' (5)

=== The economics of attention ===

* Herbert Simon, "a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention" (6)
* Challenge is to attract and hold the attention of consumers
* They value filtering, sorting, curating, recommending very highly
* Attention is also re-sold in the form of advertising that accompanies information

=== Technology, infrastructure ===

<blockquote>
"Content providers cannot operate without infrastructure suppliers, and vice versa." (9)
</blockquote>

=== Systems competition ===

* Firms must focus on collaborators along with competitors (10)
** e.g. Microsoft/Intel: "commoditize complementary products without eroding the value of its own core strengths" (10)
** (They suggest that Wintel was the better choice "in the long run" because Apple became too expensive and lost competitive advantage (11))

=== Lock-in and switching costs ===

* Classic example: music consumers own a ton of LPs, how do you convince them to switch to a new format?
** New format (CDs) offer significant advantage at manageable cost (11)
* Costs include: transferring data to a new format, purchasing new hardware, and training humans

=== Positive feedback, network externalities, and standards ===

* When the value to one user depends on the number of other users (13)
* Tend to follow long lead times followed by explosive growth (13)
** Due to '''positive feedback'''
** e.g. Fax machine more or less invented in 1843 but niche til 1980s
* These "networks" need not be tangible and may be virtual
** e.g. the "network" of mac users
** Creates conditions for significant '''demand side''' economy
* New standards require strategic '''timing''', '''compatibility''' choices
** '''Openness'''
** '''Licensing'''
** "Standards battles", Betamax/VHS, 56k modems

=== Policy ===

* Antitrust (17)
** Mergers, acquisitions
** Cooperative standard setting
** Monopolization

=== How we differ ===

This book is...
* Not about trends
* Not about vocabulary
* Nor analogies

"Seek models" (18)

Main Page

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COMM 570: Economics of media industries:

← Older revision		Revision as of 06:46, 2 September 2010
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	* [[COMM570/Class notes]]		* [[COMM570/Class notes]]
		+
		+	==== Readings ====
		+
		+	* Shapiro, C. & Varian, H. R. (1999) [[Information rules]]. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

	=== COMM 610: Media Effects ===		=== COMM 610: Media Effects ===

COMM395/Section notes

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== Week 1, Sept 01 ==

* Introductions
* Review syllabus
* What is good participation?
* Discussion expectations
** Respect
** Attention to others
** Privacy
* Review journal assignments from Allison
* What is a good journal?
* Introduce 2 min free writing exercise
** Clear your mind
** Give you something to say

=== Judith Lorber ===

Lorber, Judith. (1998) "Believing is seeing: Biology as ideology". The politics of women's bodies: Sexuality, appearance and behavior. New York: Oxford University Press. pp 12-24.

Key ideas
* Gender is socially constructed
* Sex is a physiological category, genitalia
* But binary sex/gender is not essential
** "female and male human beings have similar bodies" (1)

Quotes
* "Justifications for gender inequality" shift from social to biological? (1)
* "Analyzing the social processes ... uncovers the ideology and power ..." (2)
* "bodies differ in many ways physiologically but they are completely transformed by social practices to fit into the salient categories of a society" (2)
* "beliefs emerge from the imagery that pervades the way we think ... see and hear and speak ... fantasize ... feel" (20-21)
* METHODOLOGY: "when we rely only on the conventional categories of sex and gender, we end up finding what we looked for - we see what we believe, whether it is that "females" and "males" are essentially different or that "women" and "men" are essentially the same" (21)

Questions
* In cases of ambiguous genitalia, how do pediatricians determine a recommended course of action? (Penis size)
* Where does intersex appear in pop discourse?
** Tabloid rumors of female stars (often women of color) accused of being "hermaphrodites" or "really a man"
* What is the purpose of dividing men and women into separate sports arenas?
** How do the rules differ?
** How does access to capital change as a result?
* What would be a good exercise for a journal on this reading?
* When was this article written?
** How might it be different were it written today?
* First computer programmer = Ada Lovelace
** Yet, today CS is in dire need of female students
* What is the difference between equity and equality (20)?
* What are some terms of use for describing differences in sex, gender, and sexuality?
** Butch, femme, stone, straight, queer, top, bottom, trans, girly

=== 20602 ===

=== 20603 ===

== Week 2, Sept 08 ==

COMM395/Class notes

2010-08-31T23:34:24Z

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	* In unexpected dress		* In unexpected dress
		+
		+	== Aug 31 ==
		+
		+	How to apply what we talked about during week 1
		+	* Gender: masculinity, femininity, social construction
		+	* Sex: physiology
		+	* Close reading of ads
		+
		+	=== Media representation ===
		+
		+	* How are particular constructions represented/translated in popular media?
		+	* Advertising and narratives
		+	* Historical conventions
		+
		+	==== Why look at ads? ====
		+
		+	* Ads give you a small narrative
		+	** Little story, characters
		+	* How are masculinity and femininity represented?
		+	* How are the conventions of gender used to target consumers?
		+
		+	==== Ads since the 1960s ====
		+
		+	* Focus on one class of products: hair care
		+	* Are we progressing? Moving forward?
		+
		+	==== Discussion of the ads ====
		+
		+	* Dating scenarios, attracting partners
		+	* Introduction of comedy
		+	** Irony, subtlety
		+	* Men's routine, time, efficiency
		+	* Women taking (sexual) pleasure in grooming
		+
		+	=== How to read a media artifact ===
		+
		+	* Production characteristics
		+	** Color? Black and white?
		+	* Sounds
		+	** Music? Sound fx?
		+	* Dialogue
		+	** What is said? Who says it?
		+	** Language from other areas: science, fashion, pop
		+	* Casting
		+	** What do the people look like?
		+	** Celebrity?
		+	** Age?
		+	** Size?
		+	* Location
		+	** Recognizable location?
		+	** Indoors, outdoors
		+	* Action
		+	** What is happening?
		+	** Who is doing it?
		+	* Props
		+	** What objects are in view?
		+	** Labels? Logos?
		+	** Wealth?
		+	* Tone
		+	** Humor? Irony?
		+	** Sexy?
		+	** Romantic?
		+	** Serious?
		+	** Scientific?
		+	* Audience
		+	** Who is the imagined viewer?
		+	** Do you feel welcomed in?
		+	** Aspirational?
		+	** Inclusive? Exclusive?
		+
		+	=== Power of images ===
		+
		+	<blokcquote>
		+	"analyzing the social processes that construct the categories we call 'male' and 'female', 'women' and 'men', and 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' uncovers the idology and power congealed in these categories"
		+	(Lorber, 13)
		+	</blockquote>
		+
		+	==== Gender as ideology ====
		+
		+	* Why is it important to identify and understand the power in these categories?
		+	* Resistance? Deconstruct?
		+
		+	==== Gender and childrens media ====
		+
		+	* Interesting gender representation
		+	** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_and_Ferb
		+
		+	==== "Progressive" ====
		+
		+	* Loaded term
		+	* Ambiguous
		+
		+	==== Gender as symbolic system ====
		+
		+	=== Lorber and categories ===
		+
		+	Relationships among
		+	* Categories enable attributions that lead to assumptions
		+	* Assumptions feedback into attributions
		+
		+	<blockquote>
		+	"Neither sex nor gender are pure categories" (Lorber, 13)
		+	</blockquote>
		+	* Not all genitalia is clearly defined
		+
		+	=== Gender is a set of practices ===
		+
		+	<blockquote>
		+	"...differences are socially meaningless until social practices transform them into social facts" (Lorber, 19)
		+	</blockquote>
		+
		+	* Significance of understanding gender as practices?
		+	* Performing, functioning, enacting gender

Rig

2010-08-31T20:24:56Z

Hardware:

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	** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Intel_processors		** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Intel_processors
	** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_478		** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_478
		+
		+	=== Peripherals ===
		+
		+	* Canopus ADVC110 IEEE 1394/video interface
		+	* Edirol UA-25 USB/audio interface

	=== Programs ===		=== Programs ===

Main Page

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	== Coursework ==		== Coursework ==
		+
		+	=== COMM 650: Survey theory and methods ===
		+
		+	* [[COMM650/Class notes]]

	=== COMM 570: Economics of media industries ===		=== COMM 570: Economics of media industries ===

COMM650/Class notes

2010-08-30T23:06:18Z

Created page with 'Category:Class notes Category:COMM650 Category:Method Dr. Sheila Murphy * COMM650 * Office hours: Monday 11-1 == August 23 == === Who am i? === * SM came to ASC …'

New page

[[Category:Class notes]]
[[Category:COMM650]]
[[Category:Method]]

Dr. Sheila Murphy
* COMM650
* Office hours: Monday 11-1

== August 23 ==

=== Who am i? ===

* SM came to ASC directly out of PhD
** Straight thru U of Michigan (under thru phd)
* Institute for Social Research, UMich
** Destination for lots of exiled European scientists during WWII
*** Many stopped at MIT first and moved to UM
** Highly quantitative program
* Trained in experimental design
** In addition to survey, interview, focus group, etc.
** Still using "quasi-experimental design"
* "If you can put together a good survey, you'll never starve"

=== Surveys in Annenberg ===

* Need to practice
* Goal of this course, to assemble a survey you actually hope to conduct
* Draft of survey due at end of class
* 10 min presentation regarding the survey

=== 5 smaller assignments throughout semester ===

* All posted on Blackboard

=== Guest speaker, Sep 20th ===

* G/Jerry Power
* Former Annenberg grad
* "Non-traditional" careers
* Worked first at Magid (sp?) and Associates
** Media research firm, TV
* Moved to BBC World Service Trust (non-profit)
** Large-scale interventions
** Teaching people how to use media
** Inserting health, governance info into the media
* Moved again to Intermedia (US-based)
* Also giving the lunch talk on Sep 20

=== History of surveys ===

* Egyptian monarchs used surveys for taxation
* 1790: U.S. conducts first Census, repeat every 10 years
* 1889: "Life and labour of the people of London"
** Charles Booth
** More than "just a headcount"
* 1920: Introduction of standardized survey
** Previously, interviewers could word and sequence questions however they saw fit
* 1930: Rensis Likert developed a scale for measure
** Previously, questions tended to be comparative
*** e.g. 20 types of soda, comparing 2 at a time, very time consuming, complicated results
** '''Interval scale'''
*** Reduce number of questions without sacrificing accuracy
* 1946: Likert became head of Survey Research Center (SRC), UMich
** Primary peer: North american Opinion Research Center (NORC) at UChicago
* Late 1940s: George Gallop, young sociology student predicted outcome of 1948 presidential election
** Literary Digest, best known poll of the time, 6mil reader responses + telephone interviews
** Gallop identified selection bias: who is a subscriber? Who has a phone?
** Leading to new thinking around selection and sampling

=== Total survey error paradigm ===

* Assumption: Accept that truth exists
* Researcher's job is to represent or describe that truth as accurately as possible
* Many types of error threaten this task:
** Measurement error
** Sampling err
** Response err
** Nonresponse err
** Processing or coding err
** Statistical err

=== Initial steps constructing a survey ===

* Decide what you need to know
* Formulate a problem statement (either a research question or hypothesis)
** '''Research Question''':
Is there a relationship...?

** '''Hypothesis''': suggests a ''direction'' to the relationship
* Decide how to measure or operationalize your constructs

==== Example Hs, RQs ====

"The mass media portrays women negatively" (broad starting point)
* RQ: Is there a relatinoship between stereotyped media portrayals and the self image of young female viewers?
* H: Stereotyped media portrayals of women cause a more negative self image among young female viewers.

Still too broad
* "... portrayals in primetime dramas/telenovelas/reality TV/etc ..."
* Seek existing scales for measuring "self image", e.g. Rosenberg's self-esteem scale

=== Internal validity ===

==== Construct validity ====

Extent to which the measure is related to the underlying construct
* '''Discriminant validity''': Extent to which a measure distinguishes between individuals who do and do not have certain characteristics
* '''Convergent validity''': extend to which a new measure correlates with other previously validated measures
* '''Content validity''': extent to which a measure thoroughly assesses a particular domain of content
* '''Face validity''': how compelling the measure is on its face? Person on the street? "Common sense"?
* '''Criterion validity''': is validity compared to other existing criterion outside of the instrument
** '''Predictive validity''': extent to which forecasts future performance
** '''Concurrent validity''': extent to which predicts score on an established criterion measure administered at same time

=== External validity ===

* '''Generalizable''' to the wider world?
** Often the weakness of lab studies, student-sampling (freshman psych students)

=== Reliability ===

Reliability = true score/(true score + error)

Types of reliability
* '''Test-retest reliability''': same people, same result?
* '''Parallel forms reliability''': are diff forms equivalent? (i.e., SAT, diff q's, same test)
* '''Split half reliability''': half items on one version, half on other
** Not typically a good idea
** Often used when survey is too long
* '''Internal consistency reliability''': Do items assess one and only one dimension
* '''Interrater reliability''': Is there consistency between raters (e.g. in a content analysis)?
** (Number of agreements)/(Number of disagreements)

=== Jump offs ===

* Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing Systems (CATI)

== Aug 30 ==

<blockquote>
while you and i have lips and voices
which are for kissing and to sing with
who case if some one-eyed son of a bitch
invents an instrument to measure spring with
-- e. e. cummings
</blockquote>

=== e.g Identify factors that predict intervening in spousal abuse ===

* You COULD ask someone to respond on a 5-pt scale, how likely are you to intervene...?

==== Hypothetical scenario ====

* Present a hypothetical scenario about a couple who suspects that there is abuse in a neighboring apartment
* Ask about the characters:
** Should the people intervene?

==== Defining spousal abuse ====

* Be specific, what is of interest in "spousal abuse"
** Only physical abuse?
** Only between married (not cohabitating) couples
** Only male on female
* Write up a def: "Physical abuse by a husband such as .... meant to cause physical pain on his wife."

==== Defining intervention ====

* "Engaging in one or more of these behaviors."
* Should Nina ... ?
** Talk to abused spouse
** Talk to abuser
** Offer abused spouse a place to go
** Offer abused spouse other resources like money
** Try to physically intervene the next time it happens
** etc. (Are these all the interventions we need?)
* We could make an '''additive''' score
** 1 point for YES
** 0 for No
* We could make a '''weighted''' score
** Some interventions are worth more points than others
* We could also offer a Likert scale rather than a yes/no
** E.g. Talk to abused spouse, "Very likely, likely, somewhat likely, unlikely, very unlikely"

==== How do we know that this measures a single construct? ====

* We want all of these to combine into one construct
* Factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha
** Perhaps there are two or more subgroups that "hang together"

==== "Fence-sitting" ====

* Weakness of using Likert response scales
** People might only want to answer in the middle for each intervention

=== Variable ===

* Measurable counterpart of a construct
* '''Manifest variables''' are variables that have obvious measurements available
* ''' Latent variables''' are more difficult to measure
** e.g. intelligence, aggression

==== Dependent ====

* Variables being explained or predicted

==== Independent ====

* Vary naturally or through some sort of manipulation

==== Background variables ====

* Past behavior
* Demographic variables
* Attitudes toward targets
* Personality, moods and emotions
* Other individual differences such as perceived risk
* Exposure to a media campaign

=== Fishbein and Capella's integrative model of behavior ===

* Full model measures behavior
* Final product may be attitudes
** But people also use open-ended questions, focus groups to get preliminary info on attitudes
* '''Behavioral intent''' is imperfect but the best we have

=== Reality Isomorphism or "Fit" ===

* Measurements should be taken in a structure similar to off-line reality

=== Levels of measurement ===

* Progressive
* Each level has all the benefits of the former plus additional ones
* In general you want the highest level possible without sacrificing fit

==== Nominal ====

* "Name"
* Doesn't matter what number you assign to it
** Male/female, 0/1, 1/0, doesn't matter
* No particular order
* Nominal categories should be
** '''Exhaustive''': account for all possible responses
** '''Exclusive''': responses fall into one and only one category (including "other")
* "Please specify: ____" might accompany "Other"
** Which might inform future versions of the survey

==== Ordinal ====

* Relationship between categories
** You might order them
** But the distance between the choices is not equivalent
* e.g. Ranking football teams where team 1 is much better than team 2 and 3
* People have a tendency to treat these as they are interval
* Often possible to take something ordinal and bump it up to interval
** Preferable!

==== Interval ====

* Feels ordinal (low to high, high to low) but
* Assumes equal or roughly equal distance between each rank
* Most common level of measurement used in the social sciences
* Most common interval scale is the Likert scale
** Similar to "bipolar" scale
* Tend to either offer choices:
** Strongly disagree, disagree, ..., strongly agree
** Very minor 1 2 3 4 5 Very severe
** Could also be smiley faces (D:, ):, :|, :), :D)
* Advantage of a ten-point scale (1-10)
** Discourages fence-sitting
** May capture more slight variation
* Ideal scales might be:
** 7pts, all labeled, for bipolar
** 5pts, all labeled, for unipolar
* "Semantic differential scales"
** Good ... Bad
** Weak ... Strong
** Boring ... Interesting

==== Ratio ====

* Natural zero point signifies the complete absence of the variable being measured
* Can assume that the numeric values are ratios of one another
* Most physical dimensions can be measured in ratio scales, much rare that nonphysical variables such as attitudes can be measured this way

=== Scale or index ===

* Scales are groups of individual questions or items that all try to measure the same underlying construct
* Advantage of scales is that if they are measured on the same interval scales, you can group them into a single construct

=== Pre-existing scales ===

Advantages:
* Validated, "bugs out"
* Can make direct comparisons between your population and what others have found

Disadvantages:
* Constrained from changing the wording on a scale
* In general, you should use a scale in its entirety
* Or use complete scale followed by additional items that interest you

=== 7 decisions to make when using scales ===

* Number of response options
* Labeling of response options
* Physical format of the scale
* Balanced v unbalanced
** Balanced scales have equal positive/negative choices (bad/ok/good)
** Unbalanced scales don't and are not interval scale
* Odd v even number of categories
** Do you want a midpoint?
** Often you get fence-sitters with a midpoint
* Forced v nonforced choice
** If you offer a "don't know", you may get a lot of these responses
** Some people believe that it's important to provide these options so that people don't just pick the midpoint and skew the results
* Social desirability (or the extent to which people are willing to tell you the truth)
** If people are lying because they think that they "should", we have a problem

==== Reducing social desirability ====

* Online survey may reduce SD bias compared with in-person or phone survey
** Reduce "judgemental" aspect
* Anonymity
* Confidentiality
* Word questions according to "other people", "most people"
* Use indirect or nonself-report measures
** Observation, tracking, response time, software assistant
** Potential probs: observation apprehension, demand characteristics, internal validity

==== "Simpatico" ====

* People try to please the survey taker
* One way to circumvent this is to use a bigger scale
** If they are always choosing 6 and 7 on a 7pt scale, expand to 10pt scale

==== Response time ====

* Do you notify the respondent?
* How do you make meaning?