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
AspirationsNorms and
Rules
Actions, Interactions &
Communications
Community
Perform FollowFoster
Refer to
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Individuals
Goals and
AspirationsNorms and
Rules
Actions, Interactions &
Communications
Community
People
Make
HasCommunity
PoliciesPurposes
Has
Has
People
Perform
Constitute
Individuals
PoliciesPurposes
Goals and
AspirationsNorms and
Rules
Actions, Interactions &
Communications
Share Adopt
Influence Influence
Constitute Constitute
Individuals
Goals and
AspirationsNorms and
Rules
Actions, Interactions &
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.
Methodological Issues: Online Focus GroupsMethodological Issues: Online Focus Groups
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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
Methodological Issues: Online Focus GroupsMethodological Issues: Online Focus Groups
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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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Methodological Issues: Textual Discussion AnalysisMethodological Issues: Textual Discussion Analysis
(Online Participant Observation)(Online Participant Observation)
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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Methodological Issues: Textual Discussion AnalysisMethodological Issues: Textual Discussion Analysis
(Online Participant Observation)(Online Participant Observation)
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.
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