Theme 6: Qualitative and Case Study Research

When discussing the quantitative methods I mentioned qualitative ones as well in an attempt to explain both concepts better via comparison.

For this topic the paper I chose to work on is - Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self- expression. Even though it is a fairly old research and the data it bases its results on is collected back in 2006, I think that the main theory around which it is built up is still active and applicable.

The research is based on child-centered qualitative methodology and explores the youngsters' social networking practices. 

It is implying on two main hypothesis - the online opportunities for re-creating one's image by decorating your identity, experienced differently by teenagers from different age groups (the shift from childhood to youth); and the destructive risks those practices can have on one's privacy. 

The qualitative method used are series of open-ended individual interviews with 16 teenagers between the age of 13-16, half of whom are boys and half - girls. The common links between them are their personal online profiles on social platforms as Myspace, Facebook and Bebo. The main focus of the interviews is on the choices and motivations shaping the participants' profiles and their behavior towards their friends online and offline. The researcher uses Nvivo qualitative coding software. 

The collected raw data from the interviewees forms a concept about the transitions in identity development. The teenagers tend to think that they are given a "free choice" when creating their image online. However, their behaviour turns out to be dependent on their online peer group (how to fit and be liked) and the affordances of the chosen social platform. With maturity the teenagers start gaining orientation of tastes and interpretations. 

Younger teenagers make highly stylized statements of identity by showing it on display in attempt to be admired by their peers. With maturity they then go to another phase in which they star to neglect their profile and focus on the social connections instead.

The article also concludes that teenagers are aware of how their practices reveal information that in the past was used to be considered as private such as age, political interests, location etc. but they feel in control of what to share with whom. They like this freedom of expressing themselves while managing this disclosure but there are difficulties they face in managing the private settings of their chosen platform. This reflects on their uncertainty about to what extent their privacy is open to everyone (unawareness of how exactly to adjust and work with privacy setting tools).




The limitations I find with this particular paper is the fairly small sample size because it limits us to reach generalization and actually conclude whether this is a real world situation. 




In terms of benefits, I consider the analysis as an in-depth one which deals with contradictory data and provides insights into participants' perspectives (those would remain invisible in case a quantitative method has been used for example).It is also focuses on the operation of the social process in greater depth and is concerned with meaning of how the teenagers make sense of the world and experience events from their perspective.

As a main methodological problem I would point the subjectivity that can be felt in certain parts of the study. The author is constantly making a comparison between kids nowadays and their parents now and back when they were children themselves. It is obvious that the author is associating himself to the side of the parents and this gives a particular incline of how the research is developed.

Briefly explain to a first year university student what a case study is.

Case study is a strict set of rules for research on a number of variables. It includes in-depth observation of a single or numerous phenomena (case) over a long period of time.

It is a method that offers a systematic approach of observing, collecting empirical data (which can be done so using qualitative and quantitative methods) and analyzing the gathered information and results.  There is always a need of research focus.

Use the "Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research" (Eisenhardt, summarized in Table 1) to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your selected paper.

I chose a recent case study with Facebook as a subject just because I thought that it would be an interesting contrast between what has been 10 years ago to what is Facebook to students nowadays.

General scanning model is used to observe students’ attitudes (362 high school students). The research suggests that Facebook is used mainly for communication entertainment and forming an online identity.

It uses data from a Narcissist Personality Inventory Questionnaire confirming the relation between narcissism and Facebook updates of an individual.

In my opinion the research is covering the steps described in “Process of Building Theory from Case Study Research”. As a main strength I would like to point the secondary data used in the study as a support to its main arguments and help defining the research’s problem and objectives.

In terms of weakness I would say that the questionnaire does not feel sufficient enough to cover such a broad topic. I think if the study could have supported its arguments via other sources of evidence such as interviews for example, the conclusions to which it reaches would gain even bigger value.

Used sources:

1. Livingstone, S. (2008); Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression; Media & Society Vol. 10. Available at: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/10/3/393.full.pdf+html
2. Bicen, H. and Kaya T. (2015); The effect of social media on students’ behaviours; Facebook as a case study; Computers in Human Behaviour Vol. 59. Available at:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563216300887