{"id":195,"date":"2018-02-25T12:20:29","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T17:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/?p=195"},"modified":"2018-02-25T12:20:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T17:20:29","slug":"journalism-masking-as-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/third-blog-the-science-of-political-science\/journalism-masking-as-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalism Masking as Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The claim that a group of people are \u201cdying of broken hearts\u201d is a challenge to fathom, let alone empirically prove. However, Masha Gessen tries to do so for the reader by using the language of scientific and cultural reasoning, though her conclusion becomes more like sensationalist journalism. She begins her piece on what appears to be a strong, ethnographic footing as she briefly describes her research, presents anecdotal evidence, and goes on to cite Michelle Parson\u2019s anthropological work <em>Dying Unneeded<\/em> to discuss the merits and the limitations of it. These are two promising steps in her search for the \u201canswer\u201d to her opening quandary about high Russian mortality rates, since both focus on a kind of thick description, and particularly in the case of Parson\u2019s work, a Geertzian method of deeply embedding oneself in the culture in question.<\/p>\n<p>In my opinion, Gessen starts to stray when she switches to a strong reliance on statistical evidence which she uses to rule out causes like drinking, smoking, environmental issues, and economic upheavals as the cause of death. However, she lacks any empirical data supporting her \u201cbroken heart\u201d theory. She concludes her piece by abandon the cultural and rational methods of study she attempted to employ earlier and delves head first into sensationalist journalism when she presents this unsubstantiated, broad-base claim that the reason that all Russians are dying so young and so frequently is attributable solely to \u201cbroken hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This piece lacks the plethora of evidence needed to convince any reader that the root cause is broken hearts. For a claim such as this, a cultural approach with support from rational-choice methodology, as Gessen started to present, seems best to study the problem at hand. However, unlike Gessen\u2019s, the work should richer, more nuanced, and focus in on the people, similar to how Gressen describes Parson\u2019s work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The claim that a group of people are \u201cdying of broken hearts\u201d is a challenge to fathom, let alone empirically prove. However, Masha Gessen tries to do so for the reader by using the language of scientific and cultural reasoning, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/third-blog-the-science-of-political-science\/journalism-masking-as-science\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-third-blog-the-science-of-political-science"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions\/196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}