POST seminar 6

Seminar 6 the last seminar of the course.

The topic was case studies and qualitative research. We mainly focused on the case study part and began with discussing the questions "what is acually a case study?" Before the seminar I had some idea about that it was a research that studied one or more real life cases to build an hypothesis about something or study a phenomenon within the chosen area. Preferably in my predefined idea about case studies my mind was set at some sort of industry case study where the focus was on how one or more companies manages a specific issue or process. After the seminar I have realised that a case study is much more. However exactly what it is, is still a bit blurry to me since i've come to the understanding that it can be more than one thing. But i'll to break down what I learned:

In a case study the object that is studied is usually an accepted phenomenon. For example, if doing a case study about a how companies use social media. Social media is already defined.

In a case study the researchers delimits the area of focus. Usualy to a couple of cases and a specific question. This is one of the hardest parts of doing a case study from what i've understood. To set limits that is not to wide nor to small.

A case study usually examines a very complex phenomenon and requires researchers to look at the context of the phenomenon to understand the problem.

An important part in a case study (maybe even mandatory?) is to use different methods to understand the complex processes and questions posed.

A case study uses an inductive method and researchers should try to contain their predefined hypothesis when diving into a case study and draw the conclusions simply of what they learn.

One of the main points of doing a case study is to generate new hypothesis, which requires the case study to look at something unique or look at something in a unique way.

These are my new understandings of what a case study is and how it's used. I think my predefined understanding of a case study was a little bit affected by our case solving problems in our other media management course which gave me a wrong impression. But even if I still think it's the whole case study concept is a bit cloudy i've atleast got a much more correct view now.