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projectproposal
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Project proposal - objects to data

Lecturer: M. Koolen 
Student: Evelijn Martinius, 10293841. 

Often schools or trends in cultural theory collide with social economic events. For example the financial crises. Since the global financial crisis of 2006 we might notice more articles about alternative theories besides (neo)liberalism. In the NY Times of September 11 2014, Alex Ross wrote a piece on the Frankfurter School. Their theories were very popular in the 70's and 80's, but they were unable to explain the digital and economic boom in the 90's, and liberal schools took over their role. Alex Ross now notices that they are reread and there theories seem applicable again to many current events. 

There could be two reasons why the works of Frankfurter theorists are discussed more often now then before 2006: First the financial crisis, and the digitalization that set in in the 90's and continues till today. We have become more critical of the digital, as are their theories. 

For these two reasons we could ask the following research question: Is there a revival of attention for critical theory in the New York Times after 2006 compared to before 2006? 

Method of investigation: 
 
First of all, the definition of critical theory has to be operationalized into search strings. Critical theory is also an umbrella term used in development studies, or related to feminist theories. These articles should be filtered out. We are in this case looking for very particular scholars within the field of critical theory, only those who also wrote about digitalization. Also, we don't want to include ancestors of the Frankfurter School. For example Adorno, Horkheimer and Habermas should be included, but Marx should be excluded. This part will consist of a small literary search to determine which words we need to find a representative set of articles. 

Also, the New York Times is less likely to use the scholarly labels like critical theory, therefore we will have to look for more popular words that we count as a kind of synonym to academic labels. We will not look at the appreciation of the theory, but just at its presence in the database over the time of the 1900-2014. 

Second,if the search string is representative enough we collect the years in which we find a match. The research period consists of two periods that we want to compare with each other. However, the first period covers much more years than the second. Therefore, we should give a different weight to the output before 2006 than the output after 2006. By giving the output a new weight we should be able to make a fair comparison between the two periods.

Finally, we could sort our results in two ways: 
First, in sections, to see what in what section the theory occurs most frequently over time. 
Second, by context, to see in relation to what event they are mentioned. Are they mentioned in relation to digitalization or the financial crisis, or something completely different? 

Expectation:

This investigation into the occurring of a theory within the New York Times database could shed light on whether there is a newfound interest in critical theory after the start of the financial crisis. I expect no data before the 1930, when the term was coined (McLaughlin, 1999). I do expect that after 2006 they are also discussed in the financial section. The Frankfurter School has published no theories about economics, but maybe pluralist economists, feminist economists etc. started to cite those scholars to draw on their own arguments. Finally looking at the context might give insight in whether the match in the words actually has anything to do with either digitalization or the financial crisis. 


Bibliography: 

McLaughlin , 1999. Origin myths in the social sciences: Fromm, the Frankfurt School and the Emergence of Critical Theory. The Canadian Journal of Sociology (24:1), 109-139. 

Ross, A. 11 September 2014. The Naysayers. Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno and the critique of Pop Culture. New York Times. Attained at 13 September 2009, from : http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/naysayers?src=mp