Sun Ho: Thoughts from week one - posting for Week 3

I'm working on my program of work these days and this is the first question I have in my little diagram: "Quantitative or qualitative?" Then it goes to my area of interest, committee chair, available courses, etc. After our first and second classes, I've decided to take some time pondering how to answer this question.

I've always been interested in doing quantitative work, but at the same time I wonder: "Where do we find more meanings and values?"; "What is another way to interpret my results other than doing it only in a statistical way?"; or "Let's say I'm conducting a research study on journalistic practices and routines, where do I share journalists' voices if it's entirely done in a quantitative way?" I ask these questions because they are what I'd like to see from other's work as well as my own.

I've read works of Marx, Gramsci, Adorno, Benjamin, and others mentioned in this class but those were from courses offered by non-journalism/communication departments. In this class, I look forward to relating our readings more to the media.

Question to Dr. Harp:
During our first class, you told us that theory comes first and then methods, while I was thinking about it the other way around. Could you explain more about it when we meet next time?