Old man in young age


By Prof Dr Sohail Ansari   Mankind was one single nation, and Allah sent Messengers with glad tidings and warnings; and with them He sent the Book in truth, to judge between people in matters wherein they differed; but the People of the Book, after the clear Signs came to them, did not differ among themselves, except through selfish contumacy. Allah by His Grace guided the believers to the Truth, concerning that wherein they differed. For Allah guided whom He wills to a path that is straight.” (Quran 2:213)  
    Never old in any age
·        Wise man beyond age is either an old man in young age or never old in any age.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Researcher Robert K. Yin defines the case study research method as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used
A case study is a report about a person, group, or situation that has been studied.[1] If the case study, for instance, is about a group, it describes the behavior of the group as a whole, not the behavior of each individual in the group.
Case studies can be produced by following a formal research method. These case studies are likely to appear in formal research venues, as journals and professional conferences, rather than popular works. The resulting body of 'case study research' has long had a prominent place in many disciplines and professions, ranging from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and political science to education, clinical science, social work, and administrative science.[2][3]
In doing case study research, the "case" being studied may be an individual, organization, event, or action, existing in a specific time and place. For instance, clinical science has produced both well-known case studies of individuals and also case studies of clinical practices.[4][5][6] However, when "case" is used in an abstract sense, as in a claim, a proposition, or an argument, such a case can be the subject of many research methods, not just case study research. Case studies may involve both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
Case studies in research may be mistaken for the case method used in teaching.

Research comprises "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications."[1] It is used to establish or confirm facts, reaffirm the results of previous work, solve new or existing problems, support theorems, or develop new theories. A research project may also be an expansion on past work in the field. Research projects can be used to develop further knowledge on a topic, or in the example of a school research project, they can be used to further a student's research prowess to prepare them for future jobs or reports. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole. The primary purposes of basic research (as opposed to applied research) are documentation, discovery, interpretation, or the research and development (R&D) of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge. Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences. There are several forms of research: scientific, humanities, artistic, economic, social, business, marketing, practitioner research, life, technological,etc.
Definition of case method. 1 : case system. 2 : a method of instruction used especially in colleges and universities that presents for observation and analysis actual recorded or current instances of the problem under study and often calls upon the student to render practical help.

The Media of Diaspora examines how diasporic communities have used new communications media to maintain and develop community ties on a local and transnational level.

Abstract

Diasporic media are a platform for self-expression, the representation of cultural artefacts and the contestation of negative stereotypes by migrant people in the public sphere. In the context of this anthology, diasporic media are perceived ‘as the media that are produced by and for migrants and deal with issues that are of specific interest for the members of diasporic communities’ (Bozdag et al., 2012, p. 97). Their functions have been articulated in previous literature, including the production of ‘culturally relevant and locally vital information to immigrants in the host society’ (Yin, 2013, p. 3); ‘orientation and connective roles’ (Ogunyemi, 2012b); ‘open space for a self-reflective discourse among migrants’ (Bozdag et al., 2012); ‘reinforce identities and sense of belonging’ (Georgiou, 2006); ‘the (re-)creation of alternative imaginative space alongside existing mappings’ (Karim, 2003); and contribution ‘to the ethnic diversity of a multi-ethnic public sphere’ (Husband, 2000, p. 206). However, we know very little about their production practices because they are hardly used in empirical studies. This hiatus in the literature is evident in the observation made by Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch that ‘the work of US news organizations is extremely well charted, whereas we know excruciatingly little about what goes on in newsrooms and media content in Africa, Asia and Latin America’ (Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch, 2009, p. 8).

Abstract

This thesis is a contribution to the debate on the role of diasporic media in effecting political change in Zimbabwe in the current period. Using a constructivist paradigm whose point of departure is that the world is changeable, the thesis uses three case studies to explore how a conscious engagement with these media helps understand how people using minimum resources can engage in an activity that has a potential to create change in a restricted political environment. The case studies are: a radio station Short Wave Radio Africa (SWRA), a news website NewZimbabwe.com, and the newspaper The Zimbabwean. These media are located outside Zimbabwe owing to the thinning of media democratic space in the country. In what ways do media created by nationals in the diaspora manage to use affordable communication technologies to link with the population, providing an alternative public sphere? Despite the Zimbabwean government’s control of the media, in particular, radio broadcasting, evidence shows the rise of an oppositional communicative space conducted by a small number of poorly resourced social players. Civilians are therefore able to respond to disenfranchisement using a few resources as part of democratic ideation in a hostile environment. This constructivist argument states that the social world is not a given, but is part of a marked discursive and communicative process. This thesis further argues that diasporic media play a pivotal role in the social world in influencing notions of human consciousness; as forms of social, political and economic interactions that project thoughts, world-views, beliefs, ideas and concepts that underpin their relationships.

a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model.
"society's paradigm of the ‘ideal woman’"

Paradigms in research; or, how your worldview shapes your methodology

Posted on  by Alison
In the introductory lectures for my master’s in organisational behaviour, we heard a great deal about paradigms. Indeed, we heard so much about paradigms that several of my classmates were quite keen to go back and get a refund on the course.
We – researchers, embryonic management consultants, careers counsellors and human resources managers – wished to get on with the simple business of learning all about human behaviour so that we could manipulate it for profit.  But first, we had to pass this module.
So.   Paradigms are, roughly speaking, coherent belief structures. Some people describe them as a lens through which to view the world.  A paradigm is a bundle of assumptions about the nature of reality, the status of human knowledge, and the kinds of methods that can be used to answer research questions.   The piece that follows is adapted from Guba and Lincoln’s seminal chapter in the massive tome, Handbook of Qualitative Research – a book which would be extremely useful in hand-to-hand combat.
Anyway. In social science, there are at least three competing paradigms: positivism, constructivism, and critical theory.
Do not panic.   You have been working with these all your life, without knowing it. Let’s take them one by one.
Positivism is where many of us live most of the time. The world is real, that chair is solid, my findings are statistically significant. Positivism is the world of science and testing hypotheses.
In the positivist world, researchers are objective and strive to minimise sources of bias wherever they can. Research is true, researchers exist apart from their data, and the best research (because you can use rigour) is quantitative.
Market research mostly exists in a rather positivist world.  Significance, return on investment, purchase decisions.  These are solid things.  When positivists do qualitative research, they worry about representativeness of findings, and how many people in Birmingham actually said they disliked the concept. (There is of course post-positivism, but I’ll skip over that lightly).
Constructivism. Constructivists wear corduroy trousers and like bright colours.   Constructivists argue that human beings construct their own social realities in relation to one another.  Reality is subjective and experiential : that thing over there that looks like a table is actually being used as a chair. My particular construction of reality might be shared with many other people, but other people could construct the same reality in quite different ways.
Political stances and religious beliefs are examples of large-scale competing explanations of similar realities. Knowledge is not absolute, and (the killer in terms of methodology) the researcher is no longer outside the system, but part of it.  Findings may be idiosyncratic, rather than generalisable; approaches are holistic.  The goal is of constructivist research is understanding and structuring, as opposed to prediction.
Qualitative research leans towards constructivism, as I think you would guess.  However, it also tends to be batted back towards positivism, because full-blown constructivism can be a little too relative for all concerned, especially as lots of market research is done in order to find out what large organisations can actually sell to lots of people.
I am a social constructivist in outlook, so I believe that qualitative researchers are inescapably subjective and research findings are co-created between the researcher and the respondents.   I also subscribe to social constructivism’s Achilles heel, the interpretation problem, AKA ‘Why should I believe your version of events over anyone else’s’, although fortunately social constructivism has a handy get-out-of-jail-free card for that one.*
Which brings us to critical theory.
An observant reader who hasn’t run away screaming might have noticed that positivism and constructivism have slightly different implicit values. Positivism doesn’t really mention values, but its value centre is really data and rigour. Constructivism, all fluffy and relative, is very concerned about the participant, and explaining the participant’s point of view.
In contract, critical theory is all about value, or more precisely, all about power and politics.  Critical theory is concerned with power relations and patterns of dominance.  You’ll also see it described as neo-Marxist theory and indeed a good way of getting into the spirit of critical theory is to analyse any given situation in the manner of Rick from the Young Ones.
Critical theory looks at the world through a political lens, in which certain groups – rich people, politicians, men, capitalism in general – exert power and influence over other groups. If you like, critical theory takes a historical perspective. The goal of critical theory is emancipation of the oppressed.
It was more or less at this point that my fellow Organisational Behaviour students got very, very angry indeed. This was rubbish, one person said. He wasn’t here to learn about stupid critical theory; he was here to learn all about how people worked so he could go back to his company and learn how to manage people better.
The lecturer smiled.
Someone else said: this is total gobbledygook and anyway, it’s all just useless theory – how on earth could anyone take it seriously; and more importantly, how could anyone make a living being a consultant who depended on critical theory??
The lecturer smiled a great shark-like smile.
I love Critical Theory.
Critical theory helps you look at assumptions, and at power relations. In organisational research, you can look at the ways in which management organises and represents certain kinds of meanings. You can look at career progression and the definition of high-flying careers. You can create new concepts, such as the role of emotional labour in customer service jobs. In science communication, you can look at the problematic issue of public engagement, and whether it is meaningful to assume it is value-free.
In market research, you can look at corporate attempts to structure the meaning of a brand, and consumer resistance to such meanings.  You can look at Twitter, or Facebook, or OpenID with your Critical Theorist hat on. Who profits from certain meanings? What actions does the system permit or forbidden? How do users react?
In terms of method, critical theorists use analysis (historical, situational, textual) and qualitative interviewing.   Qual interviews are quite interesting, although most critical theorists will come over all critical while writing it up, rather than when wielding a tape recorder.
Positivism wears a white coat, constructivism accepts a cup of tea, and critical theory is SUSPICIOUS.
I think there’s a kind of paradigmatic mash-up, too: large corporations act in their positivist way, expecting thanks from the masses, and instead of being complicit, the masses are suspicious. They distrust your motives. They rebel. At other times, they carry your message quite happily to the ends of the earth.
Personally, I move between these three paradigms. I spend most of my time being a constructivist with post-positivist leanings: understanding responses and creating persuasive accounts.  I will often flick into a critical perspective, at least in analysing a brief, because critical theory shakes everything up in ways that can be very helpful.  It is perhaps not cricket to use critical theory as a tool for maintaining power relationships, but, well, needs must.
Anyway, that’s it for now.




The starting point of a line of thought or course of action; an initial assumption.
‘Keynes took these current events as his point of departure’
an example serving as a model; pattern.
Synonyms: mold, standard; ideal, paragon, touchstone.
3.
a.  a framework containing the basic assumptions,ways of thinking, and methodology that arecommonly accepted by members of a scientificcommunity.
b.  such a cognitive framework shared by membersof any discipline or group:

Cultural homogenization

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cultural homogenisation is an aspect of cultural globalisation,[1] listed as one of its main characteristics,[2] and refers to the reduction in cultural diversity[3] through the popularisation and diffusion of a wide array of cultural symbols — not only physical objects but customs, ideas and values.[2] O'Connor defines it as "the process by which local cultures are transformed or absorbed by a dominant outside culture."[4] Cultural homogenization has been called "perhaps the most widely discussed hallmark of global culture.[2] In theory, homogenization could result in the breakdown of cultural barriers and the global assimilation of a single culture.[2]
Cultural homogenization can impact national identity and culture, which would be "eroded by the impact of global cultural industries and multinational media."[5] The term is usually used in the context of Western culture dominating and destroying other cultures.[6] The process of cultural homogenization in the context of the domination of the Western (American), capitalist culture is also known as McDonaldization,[2] coca-colonization,[7]Americanization[8]or Westernization[9] and criticized as a form of cultural imperialism[3] and neo-colonialism.[10][11] This process has been resented by many indigenous cultures.[12] However, while some scholars, critical of this process, stress the dominance of American culture and corporate capitalism in modern cultural homogenization, others note that the process of cultural homogenization is not one-way, and in fact involves a number of cultures exchanging various elements.[2][3] Critics of cultural homogenization theory point out that as different cultures mix, homogenization is less about the spread of a single culture as about the mixture of different cultures, as people become aware of other cultures and adopt their elements.[2][3][10][11] Examples of non-Western culture affecting the West include world music and the popularization of non-Western television (Latin American telenovelas, Japanese anime, Indian Bollywood), religion (Islam, Buddhism), food, and clothing in the West, though in most cases insignificant in comparison to the Western influence in other countries.[3][11][13] The process of adoption of elements of global culture to local cultures is known as glocalization[3][5] or cultural heterogenization.[14]
Some scholars like Arjun Appadurai note that "the central problem of today's global interaction [is] the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization."[7]

Perspectives[edit]

The debate regarding the concept of cultural homogenization consists of two separate questions:
·         whether homogenization is occurring or not
·         whether it is good or not.
John Tomlinson says, "It is one thing to say that cultural diversity is being destroyed, quite another to lament the fact."[15]
Tomlinson argues that globalization leads to homogenization.[15] He comments on Cees Hamelink, "Hamelink is right to identify cultural synchronization as an unprecedented feature of global modernity."[15] However, unlike Hamelink, he believes in the idea that homogenization is not a bad thing in itself and that benefits of homogenization may outweigh the goods of cultural diversity.[15]
Appadurai, acknowledging the concept of homogenization, still provides an alternative argument of indigenization. He says that " the homogenization argument subspeciates into either an argument about Americanization or an argument about commoditization.... What these arguments fail to consider is that at least as rapidly as forces from various metropolises are brought into new societies, they tend to become indigenized."
Although there is more to be explored on the dynamics of indigenization, examples such as Indonesianization in Irian Jaya and Indianization in Sri Lanka show the possibility of alternatives to Americanization.[16]
Generally homogenization is viewed negatively, as it leads to the "reduction in cultural diversity."[3] However, some scholars have a positive view on homogenization, especially in the area of education.[17] They say that it "produces consistent norms of behavior across a set of modern institutions, thus tying institutions such as the modern nation state and formal education together in a tight political sphere."[17]

Teaching universal values such as rationality by mass schooling is a part of the positive benefits that can be generated from homogenization.[17]

Comments