Reflection of the Module

Reflection

This blog is my final post for my 'Sociology Blog' (very emotional) and is in hindsight a reflection of my experiences on social research module as a whole, from indulging in blogging to creating a research poster with my peers and presenting it to the rest of my class mates on the module.

As I have never studied sociology prior to coming to Uni, at the beginning of semester two i was rather looking forward to the module as i imagined that it would give me more of an insight to what it is like to actively be a social researcher; trying out various methods of research. and then when the assessment criteria mentioned 'blogging' as a form of assessment, as well as a group poster presentation i was even more intrigued as it i thought that it was a nice change from doing essays and reports which seems to be the case for every other module. 

However, when it came to actually writing my first ever blog, i had no idea what to do. it was so out of the ordinary and not at all what i was used to that it took me a while to get into it. setting up the Google+ account was quite mind boggling as I'm not the best with technology, but after a few weeks i seemed to be getting the hang of it - i think!

I now find blogging less of a burden than i used to and exploring more into the uses of blogging both academically and recreational,  has made me appreciate them more and i feel that this knowledge will be beneficial to me in the future when researching as a part of my dissertation and even post graduation as a tool for my own research and further studies.
In particular i enjoy the fact that you can pretty much blog about anything, for example, fashion and social networking, so long as it can be related to academia. This pleased me as in most modules  where essays are involved, you are restricted to what you can write about. Another benefit of blogging that i found for me personally, is that blogs allow for personal opinions which gives opportunities for a little ranting and raving that isn't really possible in essays and reports. It makes it easier to say something without having a scholar to 'back you up'.

The group poster presentation was an interesting experience, that came with positives and negatives. Forming a group wasn't an issue as i already had a few friends in mind that i would work with, however when working in a group it is often difficult for everyone to be available at the same time. This was only a minor problem and could easily be resolved.
As i like to take pride in making presentations look 'pretty', i was delegated the task of designing the poster. This was enjoyable as it beats writing an essay, however as I'm not very technical it was difficult to judge how much content we could fit on the poster without it looking squashed and overfilled with writing. This was the biggest problem that we came across as a group, because we were not used to this type of thing we were unsure of what the end result would look like, and as we were worried about keeping the amount of writing on the poster to a minimal  it ended up looking a bit bare. However, we made sure we delivered all the necessary content in the delivery of out presentation to make up for this minor issue.

As a group we decided to conduct our own primary research (as well as secondary) in the form of a questionnaire. initially we were excited about this as it would enable us to experience active social research, however, due to ethical issues, the fact that we could only use our class mates for the sample made it less exciting in reality. Nevertheless, we all got involved and gained some interesting results regarding our topic of 'the influences of the media; magazines in particular, on body image and appearance' and the overall experience of conducting primary research will once again be beneficial in third year and so on. 

Reflecting on the delivery of the poster presentation it is safe to say that the nerves kicked in. Up until i stood in front of the class ready to begin i was very calm and collected, but then i suddenly became very nervous and felt my lips getting dryer and dryer after doing so much talking. I'm hoping that this wasn't too noticeable to the rest of the class!
However, other than a few stutters on some words, i feel like our presentation went well and the other three members of my group as well as myself should be pleased with themselves. 

Overall, although i was expecting this module to be more hands on in terms of actively trying out the research methods that i was learning about, i understand the underlying ethical issues around this and accept why this wasn't possible. I did gain an insight into blogging and personally experiencing what it is like to be a 'blogger' that i believe was the most beneficial aspect of this module as i will be able to incorporate this new skill in my future studies. 

Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research

So the topic of discussion this week for my ‘Doing Social Research’ module is all about qualitative research and the gathering of qualitative data as a method for sociological research.

You usually hear the term qualitatative research along with quantitative research which can be quite confusing at times because they sound so similar, but really they are quite the opposite. Qualitative research has been defined by Scott and Marshall (2005) in the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology as, “forms of data collection and analysis which rely on understanding, with an emphasis on meaning” where as Quantitative research is referred to as “the collection and analysis of numerical data”.

The use of qualitative research seems to be popular method within sociological study, as it can be considered to be more relatable when collecting data on the behaviour of society, compared to numerical techniques. I’m not ruling out the use of quantitative research as a method of sociological study though as statistics are very important too, however I am just saying qualitative is often used, i.e. the use of surveys, questionnaires, structured and unstructured interviews, blogs, focus groups and so on, that are more appropriate ways of studying social behaviour.
Secondary qualitative research has gained momentum in more recent years with its presence and availability online, as it is increasingly becoming a popular tool for social research (Hessler et al., 2003; Liamputtong and Ezzy, 2005; Selwyn and Robson, 2003 cited in Holloway 2008)

Not only is qualitative research more appealing to sociologists on the basis that quantitative research can be mind boggling with all the number work involved, it is a way of gathering more in-depth, broader, true knowledge (Nicholls 2011). I for one hate statistics and numbers so qualitative research methods are much preferred by me!It is for this reason, in our group research project for this module, that I have been delegated the task of conducting content analysis’ on a selection of magazines, in order to gain a qualitative analysis of the text sieving out the key themes regarding body image and appearance in the magazines. By doing this I hope to try and avoid dealing with analysing our quantitative data from questionnaires.

It can be argued by some, that a combination of qualitative and qualitative research methods are more beneficial to reaching valid, reliable results (Nicholls 2011), therefore in order to attain the most accurate research in our group project we plan on incorporating both qualitative and quantitative analysis of our research.

Privacy in the 'Blogging Sphere'

Privacy in the 'Blogging Sphere'

As all of us college and university students, past and present, know that referencing in essays and assignments can be a real pain sometimes. Especially when using Harvard referencing, making sure that the brackets are in the right place; is the book title in italics; remembering to include the page numbers etc, just when you thought the essay was finished you then have to go through the ordeal of gathering up your references...But I suppose it’s better that paying the price for plagiarism!

When we finally get the hang of Harvard referencing (and you feel like you have conquered the world) we become confident in using endless sources; books, journals, websites, the list is endless. However in more recent times, as online blogging is on the increase, more academics and sociologists are using blogs as a source for their research (Hookway 2008).

As times are moving on and technologies are developing rapidly, the dominance of the internet is recognised by everyone and online blogging can be seen beneficial to sociologists, ‘cyberspace can expand the social researcher’s toolkit’ and open new windows of opportunity for social researchers (Hookway 2008:92).

For researchers, using blogs makes it possible for them to attain the most relevant, up-to-date secondary research, considering that blogs tend to be updated constantly, as well as expanding on the available literature that is in a diary format and/or the literature that holds personal accounts of information. Other advantages include how easily blogs can be accessed online and that they require minimal costs and resources to use blogs in their research.

With this being said, as is the case when using many research methods, there are difficulties around ethical and legal issues when extracting research from online outlets in particular, blogs.

Although bloggers may expect there to be some limits on how widely available their blogs are they tend to underestimate the power of the internet. Once blogs are uploaded online they enter the public domain and automatically become subject to everyone, everywhere, for any type of use.
in regards to using blogs for sociological studies and social research some researchers argue that because blogs are in the public domain then there is no need to ask for content from the blogger (Moreno, Fost, & Christakis 2008 cited in Nagy Hesse-Biber and Leavy 2011). 
According to Waskul and Douglas (1996), “cyberspace is simultaneously ‘publicly-private and privately-public’” (in Hookway 2008: 105) and bloggers can only be warned to a certain extent that the information that they share is limitless once it is shared online, therefore consent is not needed as they have been pre-warned.

In addition to this, some claim that unless blogs that have been published online are limited to who can read them, for example on some sites privacy settings include restrictions to who can access your personal information, i.e 'friends only'/'family only', then the content is public and open to public use, therefore consent and referencing of the information is not necessary (Hookway 2008).
  

On the other hand others believe that there should be some policing over the consent of bloggers when using their work and that they should be entitled to some level of anonymity (Elgesem 2002; King 1996; Scharf 1999 cited in Hookway 2008) as it is an ethical issue that should be considered when conducting social research. For example, the use of direct quotes from blogs that are available online can be easily traceable back to the blogger by simply querying them in a search engine (i.e. Google). This makes it difficult to quote from a blog without referencing the author. Therefore to prevent this from becoming an issue, it is advised that the blogger is asked for consent before using their material for social research un-knowingly. 

This dispute over whether bloggers should give consent for the use of their work and/or the amount of anonimity that they should be entitled to will be of continuous debate as it depends on how the individual views blogs; either as public or private documents (Hookway 2008).