Many of us PhD students are researching and developing methods to suit our thesis projects; for some of us online formats are becoming a bigger part of our work in the pandemic. Some of us from DDH and CMCI at KCL have come together to organise a Methods Series on ‘doing research online’ for PhD students. This series of methods sessions is a way to draw on resources we have amongst ourselves to solve issues we are facing in our ( solitary) research.

We are thrilled to announce the second sessions which will be led by Katrin Schindel.

16th November, 14.30-15.30 UK time

Methods online: Katrin Schindel on Using Facebook as Focus Group Tool

This session will explore the potential benefits as well as problems in using Facebook as a tool for conducting asynchronous focus groups. We will also consider ethical dilemmas that come with using the platform and Katrin will share practical insights gained from her pilot focus group.

Link: This is an online event so please register on Evenbrite and we will share the zoom link for this virtual meeting about 30 minutes before the meeting.

References:

Buelo, A. et. al. (2020) ‘A novel research method for workshops and co-production of knowledge: using a secret Facebook group’. Research Square. Available online: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-14643/v3.

Dinhopl, A. (2007) ‘Hacking Facebook Groups for Research’. Medium, 6 Sept. 2007. Available online: https://medium.com/facebook-research/hacking-facebook-groups-for-research-74ed30b17f2d.

Fuchs, C. (2014) ‘Digital prosumption labour on social media in the context of the capitalist regime of time’, Time & Society, 23(1), pp. 97–123.

Lijadi, A. A. and van Schalkwyk, G. J. (2015) ‘Online Facebook Focus Group Research of Hard-to-Reach Participants’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1-9.

MacLeod, H. (2016) ‘Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) for Researching Distributed Populations’. Pervasive Health '16: Proceedings of the 10th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, May 2016, 1–8.

Underhill, C. and Olmsted, M. G. (2003) ‘An Experimental Comparison of Computer-Mediated and Face-to-Face Focus Groups’, Social Science Computer Review, 21(4), pp. 506–512.