Description of the online culture, group, community and/or users
The topic of the research will be directly related to the field of environmental issues through the prism of the current global conditions. The research questions will be dedicated to activists involved in the sphere of recycling during Covid-19. Hence, it seems reasonable to claim that the most suitable research subjects for my planned virtual ethnography will be environmental activists. The latter ones tend to be very active in various social media, which will alleviate the process of data management to a great degree. It should be noted that the chosen problem involves quite a wide range of stakeholders, so research subjects will include not only accounts of individuals but also the group and organizations’ ones.
Twitter and Reddit are popular online platforms for the mentioned subjects, given the fact that both of them provide the opportunity to make sound announcements and cause important discussions. The environmental dimension has always been considered as an essential topic for conversation that requires the continuous process of drawing attention to the related acute and relevant issues. Overcoming different natural problems – such as global warming or gas emissions – implies that people will work in conjunction on them. Twitter and Reddit are significant options to unite people around the globe through productive public conversations and loud statements. For example, International Recycling Group and Shropshire Recycles are organizational accounts on Twitter that will be explored during qualitative data collection for ethnography.
Description of method of qualitative data collection for ethnography
Choosing the level of participation is an important initial stage of the research process. The environmental field is extremely popular in social media – especially on Twitter and Reddit. It is not surprising that there are many activists that are ready to defend their visions and opinions in a rough manner, leading to heated conversations and discussions (Lingel & Gray, 2018). Subsequently, it seems essential to abstract away from an unnecessary inclusion into such debates and to seize the opportunity to conduct the focused research. On the other hand, in order to explore the topic thoroughly, some degree of the mentioned inclusion is needed. It may be important to begin particular discussions on Twitter and Reddit by making specific posts related to specific hashtags. Such an approach will serve as a foundation for making the necessary observations. At this point, it seems rational to choose the observer-participant level of participation.
The latter will allow the researcher to be the launcher of just the initial stages of discussions. This will give me the possibility to avert a number of ethical considerations in advance, which contributes to the smooth, coherent, and consistent research process. From an observer’s stance, the researcher is part of the group conducting the study (Van den Hoonaard, 2019). They are aware of the research activities and are willing to observe and contribute to the study. It should be noted that the presence of a researcher in the field can influence the participants’ behavior. This is why it is very important that the participants are aware of what the researcher is studying. One common issue with the participant-observer level of participation is that the researcher becomes immersed in the world of the individual, which can lead to him or her losing scholarly objectivity. It should be emphasized here that the observer-participant approach was chosen to avoid such an issue that is likely to occur due to the topic’s peculiarities.
Now, it is crucial to reveal particular steps that will be undertaken to obtain data from the research subjects, as well as to evaluate the latter. There are two primary hashtags that will be used – #Recycle and #Covid-19. They will be inserted into the search line simultaneously so that only posts related to the research questions will be shown. Then, posts will be explored using the relevance filter, which will allow me to identify the most active and actual conversations on the topic to date. In most cases, these will be discussions under the group posts – such as the ones published by the International Recycling Group or Shropshire Recycles.
Then, using the fitters, application of which reveals the most recent posts and conversations, a number of individual accounts of environmental activists will be identified. Taking field notes and making descriptive observations, the obtained qualitative data will be assessed. Finally, a number of posts that will include pieces of news related to the topic will be published (using #Recycle and #Covid-19 hashtags) to cause conversations and discussions, which aligns with the observer-participant level of participation. The focus will be on user interactions, the specific lexicon of “local” terms, and meanings related to the group.
Three Research Questions
- Under the current conditions of the pandemic, do people continue to pay attention to the issue of recycling via social media platforms?
- Do environmental activists conduct online discussions on how the pandemic has impacted recycling activities?
- Are social media users ready to actively participate in discussions on the problem of recycling during Covid-19?
The first and second research questions serve as a basis for conducting the analysis of the activity of the chosen online community within the scope of the theme. In the framework of the first one, the quantity and character of the posts will be assessed. Research related to the second RQ will evaluate the essence of the conversations under the relevant posts of the recognized group accounts. The third RQ confirms the adherence to the observer-participant level of participation – the discussion under the post published by me will be analyzed.
Ethics Decisions and Considerations
During the process of online research, it is important to take into account the privacy considerations of potential participants. In our case, the latter ones will be the users of Twitter and Reddit platforms. Despite the fact that all the posts, discussions, and opinions that will be assessed will be available for public access, this does not mean that using these data sets is ethical a priori (Sugiura et al., 2017). Individuals will be inevitably involved in the study, which means that their cultural and behavioral peculiarities should be considered. This can be achieved by obtaining informed consent from them – it can be a solid foundation for ethical research.
However, it should be noted that while appealing to public conversations and responses under some posts, it will be problematic to get the mentioned informed consent from all people involved in discussions. In such a case, it would be reasonable to rather summarize such discussions without the direct citation of the participants, simply referencing a specific post on Twitter or Reddit. This will contribute to avoiding issues related to the privacy of users. A crucial point here will be to organize the research properly so that appealing to individual opinions in the given context would not be necessary.
At this point, it should be noted that there will be a post that I will publish on my own. It will be related to the issue of recycling during the pandemic, and its primary aim will be to cause debates. Here, direct quoting of the participants will be inevitable, and it seems that informed consent is a necessity within this scope. The responders will be contacted individually and informed about the essence, purposes, and potential impact of the research. I will explain these aspects in detail to them so that there can be no ambiguity. The latter can hinder the potential participant from providing informed consent to the researcher.
In order for participants’ personal information could be secured, a number of actions will be undertaken. No actual names will be given in the research, which will protect them to a significant extent (Sugiura et al., 2017). Second, all personal data sets will not be used in the research without the obtained permission. Nevertheless, it should be admitted that the research potentially can make participants vulnerable. Even after getting informed consent, there is the chance that those who will want to explore the topic in more detail after reading the research would visit the participants’ accounts. This can cause an undesirable degree of attention and communication.
Hence, it is important to take action in order to mitigate such a risk. In particular, there might be a few sentences in the research that will emphasize the importance of the participants’ privacy and respect towards it. It may be asked not to contact them individually for the purpose of expanding knowledge obtained via this study. Such a measure seems to be appropriate as it does not require any additional costs or substantial effort, as well as would not spoil the overall impression of the research. It simply makes the latter more ethical and respectful towards the participants’ needs.
References
Lingel, J., & Gray, M. (2018). Ethnography. In M. Kackman & M. C. Kearney, (Eds.), The craft of criticism: Critical media studies in practice. Routledge.
Sugiura, L., Wiles, R., & Pope, C. (2017). Ethical challenges in online research: Public/private perceptions. Research Ethics 13(3-4), 184–199.
Van den Hoonaard, D. K. (2019). Qualitative research in action: A Canadian primer. Oxford University Press.