The previous subsection discussed the philosophical assumption of this study and established it to be of the interpretive paradigm. This subsection will now focus on the selected research method and discuss and identify the main characteristics of the chosen research method and translate these to the given research setting. A research method is a technique for data collection and data gathering. There are many methods and approaches that fall into the category of qualitative research. It has been argued that qualitative researchers employ a method that allows them to capture and discover the meanings that their subjects experience in their lives, hence, the methods offer ways of capturing both verbal and written meanings of the subjects’ lives (Denzin and Lincoln 2000). Similarly, Miles and Huberman (1994) argued that the qualitative data aims to capture individuals’ first-hand experiences and it is valuable when exploring a new phenomenon or concept. According to Oates (2006) there is a variety of options in interpretive information systems research. She has identified these methods as: surveys, case studies and field studies, ethnographies, action research and design and creation.
On the application of the different data gathering methods within qualitative research Denzin and Lincoln (2000) have described that qualitative research recognizes the use of different methods to collect empirical data: “case study, personal experience, introspection, life story, interview, artifacts, and cultural texts and productions, along with observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts—that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals’ lives” (Denzin and Lincoln 2000, p. 4). Similarly, Myers (1999) has argued out that qualitative data sources include observation and participant observation, interviews, questionnaires, documents and texts, and the researcher's impressions and reactions. According to Denzin and Lincoln (2000), in using qualitative methods interpretive researchers often use more than one interpretive data gathering method as each method offers a new way of viewing the phenomenon under study. This study employed both interviews and participant observation as a data gathering strategy.
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3.5.1 Field study method
This study applies an interpretive approach, which believes that knowledge of reality is gathered through social constructions and shared meanings (Klein and Myers, 1999; Walsham, 1999). Interpretive studies in IS research includes a range of case studies (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991; Walsham, 1993) and field studies (Clemons and Row, 1993; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991). For this study, the research design is a field study. The choice of research method is not exclusive; depending on the research questions, researchers could explore and consider different research methods (Probert 1997, Heinze, 2008). Rather than providing an abstract overview of each of these methods, this part of the chapter aims to explore and justify the chosen method for this study. It is also worth noting that the use of a case study as a research method was significant and more frequent in the past in interpretive studies (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991; Walsham, 1993) than field studies (Clemons and Row, 1993; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991). Alternatively, Sayer (2000) argued that in comparison to other paradigms, the interpretive paradigm is more flexible in terms of research method choices that a researcher might adopt “compared to positivist and critical approaches, interpretivism endorses or is compatible with a relatively wide range of research methods, but it implies that the particular choices should depend on the nature of the object of study and what one wants to learn about it” (p. 19).
According to Rom Harré (1979) types of research methods can be divided into two general categories: “extensive approaches and intensive approaches. Extensive methods employ large-scale surveys, questionnaires, and statistical analyses. The researcher looks for regularities, patterns, and similarities with a restricted ability to generalize to other populations and thus has limited explanatory power. Intensive methods focus on individuals in a specific context and employ interviews, ethnography, and qualitative analysis, while asking the question: what produces change?”(pp.132–135) .Scholars suggested that these methods are not exclusive and the combination of different research methods could provide richer and more reliable research findings (Oates, 2006, Miles and Huberman, 1994, Walsham, 1995).
Commenting on the field study approach, Bailey (2007) argues that “the field research is the systematic study of ordinary activities in the settings in which they occur. Its primary goal is to understand these activities and what they mean to those who engage in them.
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To gain this understanding, field researchers collect data by interacting with, listening to, and observing people during the course of their daily lives” (Bailey 2007, p. 1). According to Denzin and Lincoln (1994 in Bailey 2007, p.11) the “field” of field research is undefined and scholars continue to debate “what field research is, how it should be conducted, how it should be evaluated, and how ethical issues should be resolved” (Bailey 2007,P.11). The aim of field studies is to address research questions through different types of data gathering methods from the research subjects. As explained earlier, field research takes place within natural settings and serves different purposes. It is well suited for, but not restricted to, descriptive or exploratory research (Baily, 2007).
Field study as a research strategy is diverse and not restricted to academic research or any specific branch of academia. Bailey (2007) identified its application in nursing, education, anthropology, management, hospitality and tourism, Africana studies, communications, and sociology. Furthermore, Denzin and Lincoln (1994) stated that field study in different disciplines differs from each other and is not consistent within one discipline either. This represents the diversity and flexibility of field study research. “One of the reasons for the diversity within field research lies in its history” Bailey (2007, p. 8). On the history of the field study method, Flick, von Kardorff, and Steinke (2004) identified that the recognition of social science as a part of scientific discipline in the 19th century was a starting point for the field study tradition. This view is supported by Bailey (2007) who writes that one of the first few female researchers who undertook field study research was sociologist Harriet Martineau (1802– 1876), who studied the lives of women and children in the United States. Commenting on guidelines for conducting the field study research process, Bailey (2007) argues that in field study, step-by–step guides are not popular as this research strategy requires flexibility in the data gathering process. In view of all that has been discussed so far, one may suppose that field study research requires flexibility in many aspects of the research process.
It is important to mention here the difference between case studies and field studies as one is confronted with several different strands of case study research. This view is supported by Swanborn (2010) who writes that by studying some of the popular literature such as Glaser and Strauss (1967); Stake (1995); Yin (1994) and Miles and Huberman (1994), it is evident that each one of them has little in common with the other. Platt (1992) argued that the first generation of case studies conducted in the Chicago School of
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Sociology, field study method was practised on urban society (Platt 1992). Similarly, Swanborn (2010) demonstrated that historically the case study is more or less identical with field research in a natural context, by drawing examples from anthropology and cultural study disciplines. A case study, however, need not necessarily include participant observation, and interviews and document analysis of the case under study is favoured (Yin, 2003). Furthermore, Swanborn (2010) stated that “the possibility to observe behaviour renders the case study exclusively apt for studying contemporary phenomena” (Swanborn 2010, p.17).
There are many similarities and differences between interpretive case studies and field studies. Case study research seeks to understand a bounded phenomenon (Yin 2003), while the boundaries to study the phenomenon under research are less strict in field study research. According to Yin (2003) the case study approach is suitable for studying a well defined and/or complex phenomena such as the study of groups, social networks, organizations, and organizational relationships. The boundaries of the phenomena under study must be determined, though it is not uncommon for these boundaries to change during the course of research (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Yin, 2003).
The main distinction between the case study and the field study in this dissertation is the notion of boundaries and the role of the researcher. A case study has clear boundaries (Yin, 2003), whereas a field study does not need to have an identified boundary (Swanborn, 2010) and offers flexibility. A field study can also be conducted by interviewing participants and simultaneously exploring a phenomenon as it is occurring, through participant observation, hence, it allows researchers a degree of flexibility. However, a researcher in both case studies and field studies, can be positioned outside the studied phenomenon or can be in direct contact with the study subjects depending on the data gathering methods of the study (Swanborn, 2010).
3.5.2 Research method strategy justification
A number of considerations were made regarding the decision to apply a field study approach. To answer the first research question through recording and analysing the events that take place as a result of Facebook use from the participants’ self reports, a flexible approach with less strict boundaries was required. From an interpretive standpoint, using an interpretive case study of the given research would make it possible
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to provide a rich description of the use of Facebook among Iranians, as the case study (Yin, 1994) is determined by the ‘how’ and ‘why’ research questions and by events over which the researcher has no control. However, observation as a research technique is excluded (Yin, 1994,2003) and this makes the case study method less than ideal for this study as there is a need to confirm participants’ self-reports in interviews to some degree, specifically on the implementation of technical privacy settings, to avoid a degree of bias from self-reports. Similarly, the ethnographic method is not appropriate for this study as it is not suitable to observe participants, both in real-life setting and through their Facebook profile page, for a defined long period of time. Form the ethical point of view , it is not appropriate for the researcher to have direct access to the site where the phenomenon takes place (Oates, 2006), it is not acceptable to request that participants provide their usernames and passwords (to my knowledge, no participant would willingly provide their username and password to any researcher). The ethnographic study of Facebook requires access for unlimited observation (no intervention) of the participants’ profile page on Facebook. However, some studies claim that they have conducted ethnoghrapical research from the observation of visible to “Public” profile pages of the participants or they have “Friended” the participants in order to observe their activities in real-life settings, but these methods were not fully inline with the ethnographical method. The restrictions identified make the case study and ethnographic methods less than ideal for the present study.
Moreover, in field studies, research is carried out in natural settings and the researcher makes no attempt to control the situation or influence the participants' opinions and acts (Walsham, 1993). The researcher aims to explore the subjective experiences of participants. The phenomenon is reported from the participants' point of view and is observed and reported as it occurs, hence, the researcher in this situation is more involved in the phenomenon being studied (Swanborn, 2010).
The other consideration relates to the collection of data. While field study research is essentially open to the kinds of data that might be collected, it is often equated with qualitative data collected through the use of semi-structured interviews. The strength of this method is that it is highly flexible. In addition to the philosophical assumption of the author in the previous section, the decision to use the field study methods rests upon the aim of this study to obtain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the self-
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presentation process adopted by Facebook users and how privacy concerns shape this process. It was argued earlier this study adopts the interpretive point of view which holds that social reality is connected to the social meaning given to it by those in the setting (Walsham, 1995). Together, these studies outline that from an interpretive standpoint, field study would provide a rich insight into the phenomenon under study. The field study in this research employs semi-structured interviews and participant observation through profile page demonstrations of a group of 30 individuals to focus on the SNS Facebook. The choice of methods in the study was governed by what data could actually be collected in the research context to answer research questions.