CHAPTER 7- METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND RESEARCH DESIGN
7.5. Methodological Limitations
This section explains the methodological limitations arising from the nature of computer- mediated communications and researcher’s decisions regarding the use of methods.
First and foremost, the researcher’s involvement in the first phase of data collection (i.e. participant-observation) might be considered as an unnatural influence to the online community. However, as Kozinets (2006) suggests, a careful and considerate researcher’s likelihood of changing participants’ behaviour is small compared to the value of losing profound insights. Even though the researcher participated simultaneously with the observations, the possible shortcomings of this participation were recognised, and she acted with caution.
Secondly, the authenticity of participants’ identities in online research might be problematic. Although this is not likely on Facebook due to the use of real names, participants can express themselves in a way that does not match their actual identity, as Internet users often do in virtual communities (Turkle, 1996; Hine, 2000). Although recognising the authenticity problem as a limitation, this research regards participants’ online identities and interactions as their authentic online self (Hine, 2000). Given that the main objective of this study is to understand online behaviours, investigating the authentic online identities of the participants complies with the purpose of the study.
Lastly, due to the impossibility of mapping the Facebook population to conduct probability sampling, purposive and convenience sampling methods were used. Purposive sampling is common in ethnographies; researchers should try to gain access to varied individuals who are relevant to the research question to avoid problems associated with purposive sampling (Bryman, 2008). However, among the three samplings in this study (i.e. sampling for public
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pages, sampling for profile pages and participant selection for interviews), sampling for profile pages, which is convenience sampling, seems to be the most limited. Since Facebook privacy settings do not allow users to browse strangers’ profiles, only existing Facebook friends of the researcher were used as the sample. Although it is a relatively large sample, the researcher recognises that the representativeness of this sample might be limited.
Other limitations occurred due to the selection of methods. Firstly, the researcher left the choice of interview medium to the participants. Sixteen of the research participants preferred video-based interview, but fourteen interviews were conducted through text-based chat, and seven via email. As expected, lack of visual and audio contact during text interviews created some problems. Firstly, due to the difference between the nature of written and spoken communications, these types of interviews have limitations (Bryman, 2008; Kozinets, 2010). Moreover, the researcher cannot fully control the interview process in text interviews. External distractions can interrupt the interview or distract the participant (Gruber et al., 2008b; James and Busher, 2009). Not being able to recognise these problems, the researcher’s apprehension of participants’ input might be inaccurate. Lastly, text-based interviews might give better results with participants who can type fast (Markham, 2004). Similar problems occurred with the participants who could not type fast. Since they needed longer time to answer questions, it was difficult for the researcher to know if they had finished answering the previous question, had left the interview or were still typing.
A final limitation arose from the Facebook messaging facility. Facebook directs messages from strangers (everybody except friends and friends of friends) to a folder called ‘other’ rather than the inbox to prevent spamming. Some Facebook users might not know about this or might not check their ‘other’ folder regularly. Hence it is possible that some interview candidates might not have been able to receive the invitation to interview. This might be one
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of the reasons for the low response rate for the interviews and inability to obtain permission to use some quotations. To solve the problem with low response rates, the researcher published a call for participants in the University of Birmingham’s ‘Research Volunteers Digest’, and asked participants to refer their friends if they knew somebody who used Facebook to complain. However, these two methods were not successful. Later, follow-up messages were sent to interview candidates who responded to the first message but did not reply afterwards, to ask whether they still wanted to participate. In seven cases, these follow-up messages were successful, and interviews were conducted with these participants.
7.6. Conclusion
This chapter has described and reviewed the methodological considerations and research design adopted by this study. The first section described netnography as the research methodology and discussed its main characteristics. A participant-observational netnography was employed that uses the benefits of experiencing the actual participation. Online observations were used to explore how consumers complain on Facebook. The researcher used her Facebook friends’ profiles to investigate profile pages, and sampled 51 Facebook pages/groups to investigate public Facebook sections. These were explored for five months to understand consumers’ online CCB. After the first stage, online in-depth interviews were conducted to explore why consumers complain on Facebook. In total 37 interviews (16 text-, 14 video-, and 7 email-based) were conducted. Next, the methods of data analysis and ethical considerations of this study were described. Finally, methodological limitations arising from the nature of computer-mediated communications and the use of methods were discussed and their implications were recognised. Chapters 8 and 9 present the research findings from the first and second stages of data collection respectively.
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