Classmates' blogs

Given the chance to read some of my classmates blogs again gave me the opportunity to learn more about the research in the communications world in general. As qualitative research was last addressed many classmates shared experiences and examples that connected qualitative research in our every day lives.

            I can relate to Meagan’s blog which discusses her athletic team being surveyed about nutrition. Researchers use surveys to obtain information they would like to use to measure. However as I touched on in my last blog, giving surveys over the internet and online has the risk of bringing in false or flawed results due to the individual not fully paying attention to survey or having the freedom to say things they don’t always do. In person surveys are more reliable, getting the person in their natural habitat. And just observing the soccer players in person to see what they choose to eat at a team tailgate is better for results. And for the coach to relay information back to the players in person about their eating habits makes their future better by keeping them aware. It was good that the coach did not reveal he was observing players at first.

            Not only does qualitative research help through observation but also through focus groups, more importantly getting peoples attitudes and beliefs. Katie's discusses this in her blog about her York Hill focus group asking participants questions and getting first hand feedback. She was able to get the participants attitudes through their answers and hearing their frustrations or concerns. Face to face focus groups can be dangerous if peoples views get swayed by others in the group. However this research is straightforward and reliable to use for hopefully a change in York Hill flaws.

Qualitative Research & The Social Media's Future

   Instead of using numbers and statistics to calculate the popularity of certain websites or television show advertisements research can be conducted by way of responses. Asking the audience more of the why and how. This side of interest in researchers helps conduct information for making the future of social media improved. The decisions that we take part in everyday through what websites we play into the social media’s outcome.

   As the social media continues to evolve in so many ways; at our fingertips and through the click of a button, we are seeing its impact through societies actions. The quick status updates, mobile picture uploads to facebook, “like’s” on Facebook pages display the social media production. As time moves forward so does our social media’s relationship with the publics interests.

  Do researchers actually listen when participants and the audience give feedback and value it? As technologies advance qualitative researchers hope to better this aspect of the research world. 

For example more face-to-face discussions will help researcher’s grasp the feedback better knowing the participant isn’t multi-tasking if the discussions were online. 

Classmates' blogs.

           As my blog focus’ on the social media I find it interesting and fun to look at classmates blogs with similar topics and focus’ to hear different perspectives and thoughts. One main similiarity I found across the blogs of my fellow classmates, was the question of ethics. No matter what their topic or blogs focus almost all questioned the ethics.

           

          I find that the social media side of PR contributes a lot to unobtrusive research, which we focused on last week. Checking out other students blog I found a similarity with Francesca’s blog.  She also focused particularly on the twitter and facebook medium that celebrities so often update and expose. She argued, as I did, that when you do go on these websites and check out what everyone (your fave celebs) are up to, you are conducting unobtrusive research because they do not know. Interesting how we don’t even think twice before ultimately “stalking” people by looking at their webpage without them knowing you know what they are up to. This leads me into thoughts on ethics side.

         I also seem to find in interest in the ethics that accompany most aspects of the PR world, but mainly on our recent topic of unobtrusive research. Kelley's blog actually focus’ directly on the ethics in PR so I was interested in reading her take on unobtrusive research as a whole and apply it to my blog. I agree with Kelley that sometimes studies can go a little to far, crossing the ling of ethics in some studies if the participants do not know. Kelley touched on the violation of ethics in research which I agree with, and this is what the social media often takes part in. With celebraties and wanting to know about what is going on in their lives and going to far extents to get a picture or information is often invading their privacy. In our world today the media world has to be careful with performing studies and keeping an ethical balance so there isn’t an uproar in the media or issues. 

Behind the scenes research

Okay, relating social media and unobtrusive research may just sound like another research method that individuals take on. However unobtrusive research does have an interesting hitch to it. Let me interest you, as I was interested with this topic at first.

The fun of unobtrusive research is the thrill of the people being studied do not know. Okay creepy may be another word to describe this type of research at this day in age. But in order to see people in their natural habitat with their actions, yes we have to be a little creepy. The examples that we went over in class were the museum floor, and finding out which painting is the most popular by the wear of the floor tiles. I found this very interesting and a fun way to conduct research.

Chelsea Handler, a television host and comedian, has a Twitter for example which is always updating what celebrities will appear on her late night show. This allows researchers to see what celebs are aired on Chelsea Lately without the celebs knowing. This type of research may benefit the celebrities so that the research isn’t done in an obnoxious way, presenting the information to the public. Using something as simple as Twitter that is so often being updates helps getting information without contact.

The way celebrities are so often stalked kept tabs on 24/7 it is a little difficult for these paparazzi’s to display unobtrusive research since they do not do a very good job of hiding themselves.

There is the debate whether unobtrusive research is ethical or not. And personally I think that it depends on the situation and what is being researched, mainly for what purpose. If researchers are tallying who is going to be on Chelsea Handler’s late night show I think it is ethical as long as the researchers are not flaunting their results to the public.