The Secret Facebook Focus Group

The SFFG, made up of pre-university students, differed in this sense however as whilst you can see the interaction between participants everything said is considered and constructed. With the focus group taking place online you cannot see the physical reactions to interview questions and the answers of others, as is discussed below. You also do not get that initial blurt of an answer that you can, most often, expect from face-to-face interviews. There was, therefore, no public disagreement. Where one particular participant did not agree with another they used the Facebook messaging tool to talk to me privately:

Susan: Can I add to that reputations one without writing on it and therefore offending? Interviewer: Of course you can, go for it

This would not be possible in face to face interviews, and I believe this has its advantages and disadvantages. The participant can immediately make a side remark to the researcher that they may not have felt comfortable saying aloud in an interview context or may have deemed unimportant, but equally you do not get the interaction between participants if it were to be said to the group. It was also difficult to gauge whether or not rapport was being built on the Facebook platform and I was worried of sounding patronising without tone of voice. It was,

74

therefore, initially difficult to elicit conversation with the group. Following a small number of attempts I decided to compact the questions into eight and list them on the page all at once (see Appendix E). Two participants then began to answer and over the course of the next few days three more participants answered; as stated above two participants declined to participate and did not answer the questions, and so to protect the privacy of the five active members they were removed from the group. I used the same approach with the follow-up questions by compacting questions into six and listing them all at once (see Appendix F).It was, however, also difficult to get the SFFG participants to respond to the follow up questions, and as Kivits says ‘the principal challenge that the online interviewer faces is to preserve the respondent’s interest in the research […] while it is tempting to declare the participant has given up the interview, patience and humour are certainly the key qualities for the email interviewer’ (2005: 44). I therefore bided my time and sent gentle reminders to the participants, though still only 3 of the original 5 responded to the follow up questions.

The SFFG was chosen in order to track the expectations of a post-college/pre-university friendship group, along with how these expectations met with reality as they began their university lives. This method was used to allow me to follow the progress of the individual members of the friendship group as they took up places at university around the United Kingdom. As Lijadi and van Schalkwyk discuss, the popularity of Facebook has ‘opened the opportunity for us as researchers to use this platform for conducting the online focus groups’ (2015: 2). The friendship group were recruited through one contact within the group who then ‘snowballed’ to recruit the others - I created the Secret Facebook Group and added my contact who was then able to ‘invite’ other participants. As stated above, three young women and two young men have been involved; two young women declined participation. The only way to join a secret Facebook group is through invitation. The SFFG was used because it is ‘invisible’ meaning that it cannot be searched for, will not appear on Facebook news feeds, and there is no way for

75

non-members to see the group or access it; this is in contrast to other group functions on the social media site which are ‘public’ where anybody can see the group, its members and its content, and ‘closed’ where anybody can find the group and who is in it but only members can see content. Lijadi and van Schalkwyk discuss the advantages and disadvantages of conducting a Focus Group in this manner including allowing participants time to consider answers when using ‘asynchronous’ focus groups which are ‘text based and [allow] greater time flexibility and typically use online discussion boards or forums allowing participants and researchers to read the prompts and have more time for reflection before responding to the discussion’ (2015: 2). They also suggest that:

the physical absence […] and psychological distance of the Internet could stimulate group participation and boost self-disclosure, especially for individuals who might hesitate to participate in a face-to-face focus group […]. The main limitation, however is that online focus groups are restricted to participants with Internet access. The role of the facilitator of an online focus group could also be more complex as he or she might have to respond to more than one posting at the same time, while also having to pay attention to the interaction between participants, and maintain the flow of the online conversations (Lijadi and van Schawlkwyk, 2015: 2).

I found that it was, at first, difficult to facilitate conversation and had to try a number of routes, although once one participant had begun answering questions others followed. As Kivits found in her research using email-interviews it was best ‘to find ways to escape a too strict interview context and create a comfortable interview situation favouring free speech’ (2005: 38). I tried to achieve this by introducing elements of humour and being as open and friendly as was possible through text-based speech. Though as Kivits also points out, the lack of physical presence between the participants and researcher means that perceptions are negotiated by text and ‘the simple gestures of nodding, agreeing or eye interrogation are, for instance, not possible through email’ (2005: 40). I certainly found this to be an issue within the SFFG as it would have been

76

overwhelming to respond in some way to each answer. I therefore tried to condense responses into one reply which most participants would then respond again to. I also tried to ease the ‘pressure’ on participants by making the focus group asynchronous; there was no time limit for answers which worked well for a group with different work responsibilities and time constraints. It allowed the group to reply when they were ready, and also gave them time to consider the questions and their answers meaning that their answers are clearly very different from those of face-to-face and spoken interviews. The online platform also allowed participant Susan to contact me again when she was appointed the role of Resident’s Assistant at her university and wanted to share information about her role.

Table C: Secret Facebook Focus Group Interviewees

SFFG Participant Gender Year of Study

Susan Female A-level – 1st _year

Undergraduate

Publius Male A-level – 1st year

Undergraduate

Charlotte Female A-level – 1st _year

undergraduate

Rose Female A-level – 1st _year

Undergraduate

Luke Male A-level – 1st _year

Undergraduate