Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research (before)

Select a media technology research paper that is using qualitative methods. The paper should have been published in a high quality journal, with an “impact factor” of 1.0 or above. The following are examples of questions to discuss in your blog posting:

• Which qualitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?
• What did you learn about qualitative methods from reading the paper?
• Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the qualitative method or methods have been improved?

For the qualitative research part of this week, I chose the paper "The 'credibility paradox' in China's science communication: Views from scientific practitioners", written by Joy Yueyue Zhang and published in Public Understanding of Science, which has an impact factor of 1.766 (cf. SAGE Journals).

In this paper, Zhang presented a small-scale qualitative study about science communication in China. She decided to investigate this subject because there are so far only studies about the results of science communication in China but not about the communicative process. Zhang did not aim at doing a representative study with a definitive result but instead provide a first research on the subject. She conducted in-depth interviews with 21 Chinese scientists who were all from environmental and biomedical sciences, two of the main scientific investment areas in China. The participants were deliberately chosen from these fields because they are more exposed to media and have therefore more relevant experience. The sampling was done with a combination of purposeful and snowballing sampling - universities were asked to appoint professors who were then asked to suggest other colleagues. 

I think that this research technique was very suitable for Zhang's purpose with the study. The qualitative interviews led to detailed insights but also let her discover the credibility paradox experienced by most participants. The credibility paradox describes the Chinese researchers' experience that their credibility in their research communication is higher when they chose informal contexts instead of officially scientific ones. Of course, a limitation of this study is that these findings might only be relevant for the limited group of researchers in the fields of environmental and biomedical sciences. However, since this was supposed to be an initial study, general representativeness was not the study's aim. 

As I had worked with qualitative research before, I did not learn too much about the methods from reading this paper. However, Zhang used the NVivo software to transcribe, code and analyse the interviews. I have never used this software before, so this could be interesting in future projects. 

The only methodological problem I can see with the study is the sampling of participants. Interviewees were recruited based on recommendations and only within a very limited field of study, this might have influenced the outcome of the study. Nonetheless, this study was similar to Ilias' study with the virtual reality drumming, as both of them only wanted to be a starting point for a new research field. 

Select a media technology research paper that is using the case study research method. The paper should have been published in a high quality journal, with an “impact factor” of 1.0 or above. Your tasks are the following:

• Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.

A case study is a research which examines a specific case to draw general conclusions. A particular event, project or company, for example, can be observed and analysed in a natural or artificial situation. Based on this specific situation, the case study report can be written and can function as a reference for future similar cases. Case studies can also be the starting point of new theories developed based on the observations made.

• Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.

I chose "(Re)Tweeting in the service of protest: Digital composition and circulation in the Occupy Wall Street movement" by Joel Penney and Caroline Dadas, published in New Media & Society which has an impact factor of 2.007 (cf. SAGE journals). This case study of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement investigates how protestors can use Twitter to network outside of the mainstream media context. 

In her paper on case study research, Eisenhardt defines an 8-step-process for successful theory building from case studies. In the following, I will analyse my chosen case study based on these steps. 

1. Getting Started
• Penney & Dadas start with an introduction into the OWS movement and the use of digital media in general, as well as how Twitter particularly got associated with the OWS movement.
2. Selecting Cases
• In this step, the OWS case study does not follow Eisenhardt's process of first defining a research question and then selecting a specific case. Penney & Dadas had a given phenomenon, the OWS movement, and decided to use it as a case study for Twitter user typology, so they inverted the initial phase. Yet, the sampling was very purposeful and not random, so it complied with Eisenhardt. 
3. Crafting Instruments and Protocols
• The researchers decided on qualitative in-depth interviews with Twitter users who frequently used the OWS hashtags (#OWS, #Occupy, #occupywallstreet, ...). They conducted 17 in-depth interviews, following Sullivan & Porter's (cf. Spinuzzi) principle of continuous researcher reflexivity and the postmodern methodology of sensitivity towards local conditions, i.e. the environment of Twitter.
4. Entering the Field
• In this step, Eisenhardt suggests an overlap of data collection and analysis, which was the case in Penney & Dadas' research - they started to analyse collected interview data in terms of their context and background. They did, however, not broaden their data collection method after their initial research design and sampling. 
5. Analysing Data
• With the detailed analysis of the interviews, the researchers could develop a typology of Twitter users in a protest situation. There were some individual insights, as well as common ones, such as intended audience of the Twitter users. 
6. Shaping Hypotheses
• The construction of the Twitter typology is the hypotheses phase in Eisenhardt's model. Even though this OWS case study did not aim at creating a theory in the sense of Eisenhardt, this can still be seen as the part where the theoretical framework for this topic was developed.  
7. Enfolding Literature
• Penney & Dadas do not discuss conflicting literature in great detail, but they continuously bring in theoretical work by others. The two authors broaden the context in which their analysis is conducted. Twitter as a platform in general is discussed with its limitations and potential restrictions. 
8. Reaching Closure
• In the final part of their case study, the researchers conclude that Twitter as a platform plays a particularly important role in protests such as OWS and that the users they describe in their typology multiply continuously. Penney & Dadas also discuss the limitations and risks Twitter as a service embodies and how they have to be taken into account in protest communication. 

All in all, Penney & Dadas do not follow Eisenhardt's definition of the case study process too much. This is mainly because of the different intentions of the model and their particular research. Penney & Dadas had a specific case of the Occupy Wall Street movement and wanted to analyse this, which is not the same as for Eisenhardt who developed the model to construct theories from case studies.