Doing Research in and on the Digital: Research Methods Across Fields of Inquiry

227 Pages·2018·2.787 MB·English

by  Cristina Costa, Jenna Condie

Doing Research In and On the Digital
As a social space, the web provides researchers both with a tool and an environ-
ment to explore the intricacies of everyday life. As a site of mediated interactions
and interrelationships, the ‘digital’ has evolved from being a space of informa-
tion to a space of creation, thus providing new opportunities regarding how,
where and, why to conduct social research.
Doing Research In and On the Digital aims to deliver on two fronts: first, by
detailing how researchers are devising and applying innovative research methods
for and within the digital sphere, and, second, by discussing the ethical chal-
lenges and issues implied and encountered in such approaches.
In two core Parts, this collection explores:
• content collection: methods for harvesting digital data
• engaging research informants: digital participatory methods and data stories.
With contributions from a diverse range of fields such as anthropology, soci-
ology, education, healthcare and psychology, this volume will particularly appeal
to post- graduate students and early career researchers who are navigating
through new terrain in their digital-m ediated research endeavours.
Cristina Costa is Associate Professor Digital Education and Society, University
of the West of England, Bristol, UK.
Jenna Condie is a Lecturer in Digital Research and Online Social Analysis at
Western Sydney University, Australia.
Routledge Advances in Research Methods
19 Commons, Sustainability, Democratization
Action Research and the Basic Renewal of Society
Edited by Hans Peter Hansen, Birger Steen Nielsen,
Nadarajah Sriskandarajah and Ewa Gunnarsson
20 Phenomenology as Qualitative Research
A Critical Analysis of Meaning Attribution
John Paley
21 Sharing Qualitative Research
Showing Lived Experience and Community Narratives
Edited by Susan Gair and Ariella Van Luyn
22 Walking Through Social Research
Charlotte Bates and Alex Rhys-T aylor
23 Social Research Methods in Dementia Studies
Inclusion and Innovation
Edited by John Keady, Lars-C hrister Hydén, Ann Johnson, and
Caroline Swarbrick
24 Walking Methodologies in a More-t han-human World
WalkingLab
Stephanie Springgay and Sarah E. Truman
25 Doing Research In and On the Digital
Research Methods across Fields of Enquiry
Edited by Cristina Costa and Jenna Condie
26 Qualitative Research as Stepwise- Deductive Induction
Aksel Tjora
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-A dvances-in- Research-Methods/book-s eries/RARM
Doing Research In and On the
Digital
Research Methods across Fields of Enquiry
Edited by Cristina Costa and
Jenna Condie
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Cristina Costa and Jenna Condie;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Cristina Costa and Jenna Condie to be identified as the
authors of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-i n-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-67391-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-56162-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
List of illustrations vii
Notes on contributors viii
1 Doing research in and on the digital 1
CRISTINA COSTA AND JENNA CONDIE
PART I
Collecting content: methods for harvesting digital data 9
2 ‘Feeling appy?’: using App- based methodology to explore
contextual effects on real-t ime cognitions, affect and
behaviours 11
LINDA K. KAYE, REBECCA L. MONK AND IAIN HAMLIN
3 Adapting a method to use Facebook in education research:
taking phenomenography online 30
NAOMI BARNES
4 An exploration of lived experience in a digital world: how
technology is revolutionising substance misuse recovery 47
STEPHANIE DUgDALE, SARAH ELISON- DAvIES,
gLYN DAvIES, JONATHAN WARD AND MICHAELA JONES
5 Exploring breast cancer bloggers’ lived experiences of
‘survivorship’: the ethics of gaining access, analysing
discourse and fulfilling academic requirements 66
CATHY URE
vi Contents
6 Text research on online platforms: heuristic steps and
pitfalls 83
TOM vAN NUENEN
7 Tinder matters: swiping right to unlock new research fields 102
JENNA CONDIE, gARTH LEAN AND DONNA JAMES
8 Remote ethnography, virtual presence: exploring
digital- visual methods for anthropological research on the
web 116
SHIREEN WALTON
PART II
Engaging research informants: digital participatory
methods and data stories 135
9 The visualisation of data in a digital context 137
DAvID A. ELLIS AND HANNAH L. MERDIAN
10 Designing digital platforms for citizen data and public
discourse on climate change 154
LILY BUI
11 In search of lost purpose: the dream life of digital 170
ERINMA OCHU
12 Using digital stories in healthcare research: ethical and
practical dilemmas 189
CAROL HAIgH AND PIP HARDY
13 Conclusion: (re-)exploring the practical and ethical contexts
of digital research 205
JENNA CONDIE AND CRISTINA COSTA
Index 213
Illustrations
Figures
3.1 The proscenium stage and the phenomenographic map 39
3.2 The control map 40
6.1 Cosine distances between subcorpora using TF-I DF for
Thorn Tree 93
6.2 Cosine distances between subcorpora using TF-I DF for
TripAdvisor 93
6.3 Relative frequencies of ‘refugee’, normalised to total number
of words in the subcorpus 95
6.4 Notable topic model 97
8.1 ‘Life goes on in Tehran’, April 2009 album 121
8.2 ‘Life goes on in Tehran’, home page 122
8.3 Digital Research Exhibition 127
9.1 Typical static data visualisations used in psychology
(a) scatter plot; (b) line graph; (c) bar graph; and (d) the less
common box plot 139
9.2 Anscombe’s Quartet effectively demonstrates how very
different distributions of data can return identical summary
statistics 140
9.3 An interactive dashboard that provides a range of
visualisation and analysis options 141
10.1 Chart outlining categories of information that the new
iSeeChange platform aims to combine 158
10.2 Post- its and whiteboard during the wireframing process 162
10.3 Team sketches during the wireframing process 164
10.4 New interface for the iSeeChange platform 165
Tables
5.1 Consent form questions relating to use of blog texts for
analysis and write-u p 72
6.1 Word count frequencies per subcorpus 91
12.1 The seven steps of digital storytelling 192
Contributors
Naomi Barnes is social media researcher and casual academic in Brisbane, Aus-
tralia. She used Facebook as a data collection tool for her PhD thesis to inves-
tigate the experiences of first year university students. Her research interests
align with digital educational research, specifically how online communica-
tion can inform higher education pedagogy. She has worked as a curriculum
coordinator, writer and educator at primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
[email: [email protected]]
Lily Bui is a PhD student in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning
and has an M.S. from MIT’s Comparative Media Studies. Her work focuses
on disaster and emergency management planning on island cities. In past
lives, she worked on the STEM Story Project at the Public Radio Exchange
(PRX) and was the Executive Editor at SciStarter, PLOS CitizenSci, and Dis-
cover Magazine’s Citizen Science Salon. Previously, she helped produce the
radio show Re:sound for the Third Coast International Audio Festival out of
WBEZ Chicago; worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC; served in Amer-
iCorps in Montgomery County, Maryland, at the Asian Pacific American
Legal Resource Center; worked for a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter;
and performed as a touring musician. At her alma mater, the University of
California Irvine (ZOT!), she double-m ajored in Spanish and International
Studies. [email: [email protected]]
Jenna Condie is a Lecturer in Digital Research and Online Social Analysis in
the School of Social Sciences and Psychology at Western Sydney University.
Her research focuses on identity, place, belonging, and equality in a digitally
mediated world. Jenna champions the use of social media and digital technol-
ogies to encourage participation, dialogue, and action within academic and
community contexts. Her ambition is to be as networked, participatory and
open in her scholarship as possible. She is a Chartered Psychologist with the
British Psychological Society and an Honorary Fellow at the University of
Salford, UK. [email: [email protected]]
Cristina Costa is Associate Professor Digital Education and Society in the
Department of Education and Childhood, University of the West of England,
Contributors ix
Bristol, UK Her research focuses on the intersection of education and the par-
ticipatory web through a sociological lens, especially Pierre Bourdieu’s key
concepts. She is also interested in broader issues regarding the participatory
web in the context of a changing society. She is the co- editor of the Social
Theory Applied blog/website www.socialtheoryapplied.com [email: cristina2.
[email protected]]
Glyn Davies is Service Development Director at Breaking Free group in Man-
chester, UK. He played an instrumental role in the development of the Break-
ing Free Online interventions. He has an academic background in criminology
and criminal justice, and previous experience of the commissioning and
delivery of substance misuse and criminal justice services. [email: gdavies
@breakingfreegroup.com]
Stephanie Dugdale is a Research Associate at Breaking Free group in Man-
chester, UK, and is currently training for a professional doctorate in Health
Psychology at Staffordshire University. Her role focuses on expanding the
evidence base for Breaking Free Online (BFO), a computer- assisted treatment
and recovery programme for substance misuse and comorbid mental health
difficulties. Stephanie’s current projects include designing and delivering
smoking cessation interventions to offenders in prisons in the UK. [email:
[email protected]]
Sarah Elison-D avies is a Chartered Psychologist and Research Director at
Breaking Free group, a digital health company based in Manchester, UK. As
part of her role as Research Director, she leads the ongoing programme of
research into the implementation and efficacy of the Breaking Free Online
computer-a ssisted therapy programme for substance abuse. Dr Elison- Davies
has worked as an academic researcher at a number of UK universities and in
the National Health Service, and has a background in behavioural science
research and an interest in evaluating complex behavioural change interven-
tions. [email: [email protected] ]
David A. Ellis holds a 50th Anniversary Lectureship in Psychology at Lancaster
University and an Honorary Research Fellowship at the University of
Lincoln. He previously obtained an undergraduate degree in psychology from
the University of glasgow followed by an MSc and PhD (2013). Much of his
work considers how recent methodological developments in technology and
data collection (often referred to as digital traces) can reveal information
about individuals and their behaviour. He has published on these topics in
PLoS Medicine, the International Journal of Neural Systems, The Lancet
Public Health, Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and other
journals. In addition to university-l ed research, David continues to work col-
laboratively with industry and government partners. This included an ESRC-
funded placement at the Scottish government in 2011. His research has also
received funding from the Chief Scientist Office, DSTL, Unilever and the
EPSRC. [email: [email protected]]