I am interested in the subject of where and how people obtain information, how opinions are formed and shaped by who we interact with and what are society’s main influences regarding how we access information and news. I am interested in finding out if any of these factors have an effect on social behaviours or trends.
I carried out research into this subject last semester, starting by using mind maps and brain storming techniques to first outline exactly what I wanted to look at and how I was going to go about doing it. I looked primarily at secondary research however I would now like to propose how I would collect my own primary research data so I would be able to draw my own conclusions and further my understanding of this subject.
I have looked at two texts on a similar subject, the first was ,“Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation” by Ken'ichi Ikeda and Sean E. Richey which focuses on how social capital has a large influence on political behaviour. The second text I read was, “What do Americans Really want to know? Tracking the behaviour of News Readers on the Internet” By David Tewksbury, which looked at how the widespread use of the internet for news reading has changed the way we process information.
Both of these articles deal with different aspects of my question, the Japanese political participation study looks at real life social networks found in local communities, business’s and various volunteer and government lead organisations to see if differences in social structures influence different political beliefs and behaviours. Whereas Tewksbury’s research mainly focuses on news consumption online to discover if the new digital age is changing the way we read the news and if this has any lasting effects on the long-term health of democratic nations.
For my own personal primary research into this topic I firstly need to consider what research methods would be suitable. I want to obtain honest unbiased results into the relationship between news consumption and how or if that effects social behaviours.
I have carried out my own face-to-face interviews into this subject. From my research I was able to conclude that the primary medium used for news consumption and discussion was done on the internet.
My research was insightful but I believe it was not conclusive in proving that people’s views and opinions are influenced by the people they interact with. This could be due to not a large enough section of people being asked, however from my findings I can see the beginnings of trending results and patterns into news consumption. I therefore think further research needs to be carried out in this area.
As I have established that the majority of news and information consumption happens online, I believe it would be beneficial to carry out online observations by looking at the specific online locations where information is most commonly acquired. By using a system such as URL tracking I would be able to determine exactly what websites people are using to read the news and why type of news stories were most popular. I could also begin to gain information and achieve an insight into wither the subjects are sharing or discussing the information with anyone else online.
Using URL tracking is more beneficial and will generate more accurate results compared to asking subjects to keep a diary or to simply asking them in questionnaire format as the automatic recording of URL location illuminates human error such as forgetfulness.
Along with URL tracking it would be beneficial to carry out face-to-face interviews with the subjects as you could begin to gain a further understanding of any offline communications with peers, work colleagues, family etc. they have, and see how this interaction might influence their opinions on the stories read online.
Group interviews made up of people from the same social networks would be beneficial to gain a deeper understanding of influences over opinions and decisions within peer groups. This would show if the people we interact with every day influence or shape our opinions.
Within group interviews individuals can be influenced by others in the group or some might not feel confident enough to share their views, which would lead to everyone not getting a fair chance to speak. However this might work in favour for the type of research I can conducting. The interviewer could begin to see the relationship between the most confident and talkative individuals who may have the strongest opinions and the views of others in the social network. I would begin to see if individuals were being influencing by the more dominant people’s views. However if their views weren’t being influenced, even if they are having others views pressed upon them, this would confirm my results from my interviews that people are not influenced by those they interact with.
I have learnt that some methods of research are not always useful for what you are researching. Many factors need to be taken into consideration such as thinking about how your subjects feel, it is important they are in the right frame of mind and are not put under pressure or feel intimidated. To make sure this doesn’t occur it is beneficial to pre arrange a time and place for the interviews to take place and engaging the subjects in small talk before to help them open up and feel comfortable.
I believe that unstructured interviews are the most beneficial as conversation can flow easier, respondents answers can be fuller and more detailed and as an interviewer you can adapt, change or explain questions further resulting in better responses compared to written questionnaires. It is important for the interviewer to remain unbiased, not to guess or predict answers or to influence the interviewee in any way.
Pilot studies are always necessary so you can gauge the responses of the target age group and or class sector and sort out any problems in your questions before committing a lot of time and effort to the project.
I believe that online URL observations, face-to-face and group interviews are the best research methods to understand where and how people obtain information, how opinions are formed and shaped by who we interact with and what are society’s main influences regarding how we access information and news. By using more than one research method I will gain much fuller and in-depth information than if I were to only to use one data source.
Bibliography:
Ikeda K, Richey S. (2005). Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation. Political Behavior. 27 (3), 239-260.
Tewksbury, D. (2003). What do Americans really want to know? Tracking the behavior of news readers on the Internet. Journal of Communication. 53 (4), 694-710.
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