Researching From Online Communities Social Networks and Websites

8/8/2019 Researching From Online Communities Social Networks and Websites

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Dissertation Support

Dissertation Workshop:Researching from Online Communities, Social Networks and

Websites

Dr David Grundy


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these social groups have a real existence for their participants, and thushave consequential effects on many aspects of behaviour, including

consumer behaviour (Kozinets, 1998)

one of the major purposes of marketing research is to identify and

understand the tastes, desires, relevant symbol systems and decision-making influences of particular consumers and consumer groups. As the

advent of networked computing is opening new opportunities for market-

oriented consumer interaction, it is also opening up opportunities for

marketing researchers to study the tastes, desires and other needs of

consumers interacting in online communities. (Kozinets, 2002)

Research can be both qualitative or quantitative in nature.

Researching Online Communities and SocialResearching Online Communities and Social

NetworksNetworks


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Online research can take place with forum based discussion groups, Yahoo User groups,With Chat-room based communities etc. However, it is important to realise that there could

be differences between what constitutes a web presence and what could constitute an

online community.

For example a Facebook site ran by a company for a certain event or product may not

actually have a community surrounding it. Individuals who are interested in that event or

product have effectively registered an interest, but have little or no interaction, and little

expectation of interaction beyond the occasional news message or status update message

which may cross their personal news reel.

In many ways, a researcher who is investigating that type of web presence is engaging in

would could be considered Database Marketing Research. The members of the site arent

really members of a community, theyre merely a list of people who have a vague interest inthe area (it should be noted, for many research projects this could be enough for your

research purposes!)

Researching Online Communities and SocialResearching Online Communities and Social

NetworksNetworks


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Understanding an Online CommunityUnderstanding an Online Community

People

Purposes

Policies

Sociability Usability


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People

Make

HasCommunity

PoliciesPurposes

Has

Has


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People

Perform

Constitute

Individuals

PoliciesPurposes

Goals and

AspirationsNorms and

Rules

Actions, Interactions &

Communications

Share Adopt

Influence Influence

Constitute Constitute


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Individuals

Goals and


Rules


Communications

Community

Perform FollowFoster

Refer to


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Individuals

Goals and


Rules


Communications

Community

People

Make

HasCommunity

PoliciesPurposes

Has

Has

People

Perform

Constitute

Individuals

PoliciesPurposes

Goals and


Rules


Communications

Share Adopt

Influence Influence

Constitute Constitute

Individuals

Goals and


Rules


Communications

Community

Perform FollowFoster

Refer to


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Online Community Research IssuesOnline Community Research Issues

In the course of your research do you understand the policies,

norms and rules of interactions between individuals?

For some social networks or forums it may be quite normal to beextremely insulting to new discussion participants who display little

or no knowledge of the communities core purpose or a shared

understanding of the core community cultural artefacts, and some,

like Mumsnet are very helpful to newbies.

For example a forum member with a very high post count, (a large

community contributor), in some online forums with have an

increased social standing amongst other community users andextra weight may be lent to these individuals and their options. In

other online forums post count could be meaningless to members.

Some communities also have their own cultural language or culture knowledge. If a researcher displays

a disregard for this cultural knowledge there may have repercussions on how they are viewed and

perceived by the community.

For example, a researcher examining Match Day customer service experiences when researching the

an online football club supporters group may fail to understand what posting their questionnaire of the

Match Day Forum on a website rather than General Forum is unacceptable. These are cultural and

community nuances a researcher must attempt to understand and comprehend.


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Online Community Research IssuesOnline Community Research Issues

There may also be topics or questions that the community you

wish to question has very strong opinions regarding or set policies

in place regarding.

For example, on Facebook fan/group pages and discussion groups

for particular products you may find that any negative or even

potentially negative comments are instantly deleted by

moderators. As such, any questionnaire which encouraged

customers to share the poor customer service experiences could

find itself instantly deleted.

Online Communities will also have their own policies and normsover what they consider a spam message. This may actually be

quite a complex area. For some message boards or forums it

could simply be that they are intolerant of any research, others

might be very open to research but only from established

community members whom they know, others still might be very

open and willing to contribute.

Researchers should remember that, particularly if they are new and unknown members to thecommunity, any hyperlinks that are contained in messages (in particular the link to your online research

survey or similar) could be viewed with suspicion, perhaps even hostility. The community with have

norms and opinions regarding internet security already in place, and, from their perspective, your

hyperlink could potentially lead to all manner of trapped websites.


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Online Community Research IssuesOnline Community Research IssuesHow do community members interact? What is the

mechanism through which communication and interaction

occurs?

In a discussion board or Yahoo group community for

example, are the various contributors anonymous? If so,

they might be very concerned if the research they are

asked to participate in contains questions which in some

way might all them to be identified. In a Facebook group

potentially (but not necessarily) where everyone is

identified though their real name (not always true..) this

may be less of an issue.

Researchers need to be aware of the main communication

methods of the communities they are researching, and this

can mostly only be done by spending the time to examine

and research the community itself.

Some communities may be based around discussion forums, while others may have discussions

forums but they are barely used and most of the discussions are based around Blog/Article posts orarticle posts and the comments and replies to them, still others could have discussion boards but the

real community interactions occur in chat rooms. It is important for a researcher to fully understand

where the action is (or in this case, where the interaction is) so they can understand the best place to

deploy their research instrument or questions to that community.


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Online Community Research IssuesOnline Community Research IssuesThis understanding of the mechanisms of community

interaction can also allow the researcher to identify clear

research issues.

For example, if your community makes extensive use of

chat rooms or instant messaging services as part of their

interactions, the researcher may find a definite research

issue as these types of venues may be unsuitable for

posting links to surveys or similar (particularly in the more

fast moving chat rooms!)

A fast moving vibrant, but also quite aggressive chat roomor message board may be an inappropriate venue for your

research, particularly if conversations or community norms

mean that its quite acceptable to de-rail discussion

threads or to allow conversations to degrade to more base

discussions.

Other research issues can become apparent form examining the mechanism by which community

participants interact. Consider a 10 question survey posted on a discussion board with around twentyor so replies. The potential twenty-first participant of that research survey can read through the

previous 20 replies, and his responses may be influenced by what has already been said. The

participant could actually be quite un-informed on the issue, but, after reading twenty previous

considered comments hes able to express an opinion.


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MethodsMethods

This is not an exhaustive list of methods you can use to study online

communities, merely some of the major ways

Online Surveys

Online Focus Groups

Online Textual Analysis (Online Participant Observation)


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Online Surveys (maybe using something like

SurveyMonkey or similar) are a frequently

used tool to acquire large sample sizes of

data.

You must understand though the flaws in the

tools you are using. Online Surveys have

many types of bias such as coverage bias,

sampling bias, survival bias, as well as a hostofs ecurity and privacy issues which are

unique to this method of data collection

Students who are considering conducting an

online survey may wish to read:

Evans, J. and Mathur, A. (2005) The value of

online surveys, Internet Research, Vol. 15 (2),

pp.195-219

Methodological Issues: Online SurveysMethodological Issues: Online Surveys


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Methodological Issues: Online SurveysMethodological Issues: Online Surveys


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There are two main types of Online Focus Groups: synchronous and asynchronous.

A fast moving chat room where everyone is participating at the same time is an example of

a synchronous Online Focus Group.

Issues here include:

Most free chat room packages or software does not keep a full transcript record of all

interactions which is what a researcher will need for analysis.What about participants in multiple times zones?Typing speed becomes an issue, especially in fast moving conversations.

An asynchronous Online Focus Group could be a discussion using a forum discussion

board or yahoo group mailing list (or similar).

While this does overcome typing speed issues and allows more time for reflection, it maynot be most useful when you are not looking for deep and thought through answers but as

instead looking for instinctive reactions to an issue/problem/product.

Methodological Issues: Online Focus GroupsMethodological Issues: Online Focus Groups


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Limitations and issues in running an Online Focus Group (Oringderff, 2004, p.71):

Lack of nonverbal cues and the absence of vocal cues (e.g., inflection and intonation)

can have a negative effect, as offense may be taken more easily and meanings

misconstrued.This can quickly de-rail the entire chat room conversation if the researcher

isnt very on the ball.

an online environment sometimes affords individuals more freedom of expression (andtherefore less discretion and tact). Conflict may flare up as a result of inflammatory

language (especially with sensitive topics), and this can alter participant interaction. This

can be particularly an issue in situations where the participants have a high degree of

autonomy.

There is also the tendency for participants, particularly in a group that evolves over a

period of time, to develop pair friendships where they engage in their own exclusivedialogue and alienate the rest of the group.This can be particularly an issue if the

participants can have private chats away from the main chat between themselves, you

should consider if the software allows for this.



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Students who are considering conducting an online focus group may wish to read:

Oringderff , J. (2004) My Way: Piloting an Online Focus Group, International Journal of

Qualitative Methods, 3(3), pp. 69-75

Turney, L. and Pocknee, C. (2005) Virtual Focus Groups: New Frontiers in Research,

International Journal of Qualitative Methods, Vol. 4 (2), pp. 2-10

Klein, E., Tellefsen, T. and Herskovitz, P. (2007) The use of group support systems in

focus groups: Information technology meets qualitative research, Computers in Human

Behavior, Vol. 23, pp. 21132132

Kenny A.J. (2005) Interaction In Cyberspace: An Online Focus Group, Journal Of

Advanced Nursing, 49(4), pp. 414422



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Methodological Issues: Textual Discussion AnalysisMethodological Issues: Textual Discussion Analysis

(Online Participant Observation)(Online Participant Observation)

Traditionally, more qualitative field research such as participant observation requiresthe researcher to interact with their informants in a real physical setting.(Xun and

Reynolds, 2010)

In textual analysis based online ethnography (Called netnography by Kozinets, 2002) the

researcher studies the online interactions of an established community.

Effectively this in a real world setting would be considered participant observation, whereyou would sit in perhaps a classroom and just observe how a class of students interacts

and talks and they types of language they use etc.

Some ethical issues here regarding the use in online forums, as well as practical issues

regarding the sheer amount of textual data which might be collected for analysis.

Netnography is based primarily on the observation of textual discourse (Kozinets, 2002)


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Method issues and weaknesses (Xun and Reynolds, 2010)

Respondent authenticity and instability of the user base.

Potentially poor quality of textual discourse.

Ethical sensitivity.

But also large questions over

methods of coding the data

Data quality could potentially be huge and un-manageable

the ability to draw meaningful analysis from the text

The need for researchers to fully understand the cultural artefacts, subculture, language

used to be able to understand and analyse the data. Reflexivity and Data Analysis

replication issues.


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Students interested in Textual Analysis of Usergroup or Discussion Groups should read:

Kozinets, R. (2002) the Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing

Research in Online Communities, Journal of Marketing Research, 39 (1), pp. 61-72

Kozinets, R. (2006) Click to connect: netnography and tribal advertising, Journal of

Advertising Research, 9, pp. 279-288

Xun, J. And Reynolds, J. (2010) Applying netnography to market research: The case of

the online forum, Journal of Targeting, Measurement & Analysis for Marketing, Vol. 18

(1), pp.17-31


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Online Word of Mouth

Example:

Brown, J., Broderick, A. and Lee, N.

(2007) Word Of Mouth Communication

Within Online Communities:

Conceptualizing The Online Social

Network, Journal Of Interactive

Marketing, Vol. 21 (3), pp. 2-20

Examples of Theoretical Frameworks for ResearchingExamples of Theoretical Frameworks for Researching

Online Social Networks or CommunitiesOnline Social Networks or Communities

Word of Mouth Theory is a well established conceptual framework within the marketingliterature, many marketing researchers have come up with adaptations to the classic

1960s and 1970s conceptual frameworks. The above testable framework for example

proposes 6 testable hypothesis regarding how information is perceived as valuable or

not to a person in a social network.


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Online Commitment Trust

Theory and Loyalty

Example:

Li, D., Browne, G. and Wetherbe, J.(2006) Why Do Internet Users Stick

with a Specific Web Site? A

Relationship Perspective, International

Journal of Electronic Commerce, Vol.

10 (4), pp. 105141

Examples of Theoretical Frameworks for ResearchingExamples of Theoretical Frameworks for Researching

Online Social Networks or CommunitiesOnline Social Networks or Communities

Likewise established theories regarding customer loyalty and commitment like

Commitment Trust Theory (but also many others) are now being re-examined by

marketing academics for their application to online environments.

Documents

Researching From Online Communities Social Networks and Websites