Research Design

Research proposal - Example 2 with comments

Version: v1.2, 2020/11/17, 17:00.

Title: Has social media produced a more

‘participatory democracy’? I) The title is very general and could mention that it is an "exploratory qualitative study" and/or "in the UK".

1 Introduction In 2015 almost 80% of UK adults accessed the internet daily and approxi- mately 50% of all UK adults accessed a social networking side daily (Office for National Statistics 2015). II) For a very current and quickly

changing topic like social media usage this is an "old" statistic to use, in 2020 65%/71% of UK men/women access social media daily.

Similarly, in November 2020, there were nearly 2414 online petitions open at the UK parliament, the most popular of which had gained as much as 1.09 million signatures in six months (UK Government and Parliament 2020).

The introduction makes clear that the research is relevant.

This shows the role of the internet and social media for a ‘participatory democracy’ (Mayne 2016).

III) The amount of literature reviewed is rather limited

Despite social media, such as Facebook, having been around for almost two decades and in case of discussion boards and special interest forums even longer, use of these tools is still constantly changing. - An example, is the prominence of new platforms or changes to functions e.g. TikTok and the increase in character limits on Twitter. Similarly the role and meaning in individuals’ lives is constantly changing, with social media being increasingly part of the everyday communication of large parts of the population. This raises the question which role social media is playing in political participation. IV) There is no theoretical framework

indicated here as well as no litera- ture supporting the claims regarding the changing nature of social media platforms. - As such the amount of literature reported it insufficient.

In the study proposed here we will take a symbolic interactionist- perspective (Blumer 1969) that will uncover individuals’ interaction with social media and the role they give it in their political participation. Through this stance we will further account for the changing nature of social media.

V) The description of the methodological stance with respect to the re- search could be described in considerable more detail. But also, consider that whether you might want to look at an explicit Ground Theory(GT) approach. Symbolic interactionism is sometimes seen as having “informed [its] development”| (Ritche 2014: 14). You might find the methodological literature on GT also more application oriented.

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2 Research question/Aims/Hypothesis With the research we propose here we aim to explore how social media use shapes individuals’ ability to participate in politics in western democracies?

VI) The questions is explicitly open, which is consistent with its ex- ploratory focus. But its geographical focus is very broad and it does not in- dicate who specifically you might be interested. - Looking at the theoret- ical stance taken below this is prob- lematic as the research will require the collection of in-depth data.

3 Data & Methods 3.1 Research design In line with its theoretical starting point we will focus on a) descriptions for social media use for political participation, and b) individuals’ own interpretation of this usage.

VII) You might want to elaborate more on the idea of descriptions and in- terpretations, but more importantly the design should already give some context: will you ask once-off (cross-sectional) or longitudinal, will you fo- cus on a specific group of participants - if so what is the rationale for doing so? - This should be linked to a theoretical framework - e.g. social media has often been seen as empowering those with no access to traditional plat- forms.

3.2 Measures We take as a starting point for thinking about participation the political science distinction between participatory and representative democracy:

“According to the theory of direct democracy, all concerned citizens must directly participate in the making of decisions and the passing of laws, and this function can neither be delegated to others, nor can it be carried out by others chosen to represent the interests of the many.” (Robertson 2002: 148) VIII) The quotation speaks about "di-

rect democracy", which is a synonym of participatory democracy, but the proposal does not say so. As a result there is a lack of connection between the first paragraph and this descrip- tion.

Political participation in its direct form entails involvement in political decision making and specifically law-making. We will take as prompts for semi-structured interviews this ultimate position of participation, namely how participants in this research see the role that social media plays in their ability to be involved in decision- and law-making.

IX) Here “attributes” of political par- ticipation are defined, you might have wanted to consider alternative defi- nitions of political participation and why you did not chose any of those.

We leave the concept of “social media usage” deliberately open so as to allow for the full variety of social media platforms and ways of communi- cation to be included. We will prompt participants to describe in detail what “social media” means to them and specifically what they use it for.

X) The proposal could have consid- ered alternative definitions here to demonstrate why this "broad ap- proach" will indeed provide the richest data possible.

3.3 Participants We propose to interview party members of the Conservatives, Labour and the SNP.

XI) These are very specific research participants in contrast to a much broader research question. The justification for this particular focus should have been part of the Introduction/Research Question.

Individuals who are party members are likely to be politically interested and politically engage and thus are likely to have a richer experience of political participation than non-party-affiliates. XII) Contrary to the stated goal of

investigating "empowerment" party members are likely to be least in need of political empowerment.

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Important: XIII) What data do you propose to collect through the inter- views? Please describe the interview in more detail (e.g. semi-structured, face-to-face, online, recorded, with note-taking...)? Finally, have you considered any criteria for how many participants to inter- view or when to stop recruiting new participants (e.g. "saturation"), if not why not?

Important: XIV) There is not description of the analyses envisioned for the data, e.g. a "thematic-analysis" or "coding of common themes"

3.4 Ethics We perceive two ethical challenges: harm to the participants - any in- depth interview will have the potential to lead participants to reveal more information than they are usually willing to provide. We will use back-reporting to check that participants are happy to have the specific information be used in the research project. Similarly, it is conceivable, in rare cases, that participants may reveal trauma from online bullying or other harmful online encounters. The researchers have identified a psychological helpline that participants will be referred in this case. Finally, we are mindful of the time commitment of the participants, to this extend where consent is provided for this we will deposit the resultant interview data for secondary-data usage in the UKData Archive to ensure that the participants efforts result is a maximal research output. XV) The ethics section does not pro-

vide information about "participant informed consent" or any institutional ethics review, nor how consent will be sought for the potential future sec- ondary data usage.

Harm to the researcher - we consider the risk for us as interviewers limited, however to counter potentially harmful situations a safety-protocol will be enacted where we will have an outside contact informed of the interview time with the need to check-in once the stated interview time is over.

XVI) The ethics section does not pro- vide information about any institu- tional ethics review, nor about data- protection/annoymization of the data and results.

4 Limitations Through this research we hope to provide insights into relationships between social media usage and participatory democracy. However, there are several limitations. The proposed research only looks at participants in the UK who are political party members, and is thus no representative participation more general. XVII) Consider how important exter-

nal validity is for this research ques- tion.

A key challenge to the research is whether participants do use social media in any way for “political participation”. At the same time we consider it a

XVIII) You could have re-iterated the "mitigation" you suggested above, namely that party members are more likely to participate politically. In addition, even if participants do not use social media they may have views on it which might provide relevant perspectives on the research question.

strength of this research not define specifically what social media use is meant to entail. Thus allowing for a potentially broad set of themes to emerge.

XIX) The proposal could have con- sidered alternative definitions here to demonstrate why this "broad ap- proach" will indeed provide the richest data possible.

Finally, given resource limitations a triangulation of the data and analyses through different data-collection efforts will not be possible. However, trustworthiness and truthfulness will be established through a) back- checking of the overall results with the participants, and b) an external audit of the data and results.

4.1 Reflexivity The proposing researchers use social media however almost exclusively to obtain news and information, rather than actively contributing content or following political campaigns. Writing in 2020 the researchers are also aware of the increasingly politicized role that all forms of social media play and how this is increasingly discussed. With a strong notion that “truth” and “facts” should be verified, acknowledged, and that the potential

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damage of “alternate truths” for political processes and even the overall development of humanity, the researchers brings a clear normative position towards the role of social media in political participation to the proposed project. Throughout the project we will journal our own positions towards the focus of the research to make explicit how these shape our own understandings of participants’ positions.

Important: XX) There is no concluding paragraph, summarizing the re- search proposal and its potential.

Wordcount (incl. Bibliography): 1058

5 Bibliography Mayne, Q., & Geissel, B. (2016). Putting the demos back into the concept of democratic quality. International Political Science Review, 37(5), 634– 644.

Office for National Statistics (2015). Internet Access – Households and Individuals 2015, London. Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/ dcp171778_412758.pdf [Accessed 2 November, 2020].

Robertson, D. (2002) A Dictionary of Modern Politics, Taylor & Francis Group, ProQuest Ebook Central: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ gla/detail.action?docID=2030918, [Accessed 16 November, 2020].

UK Government and Parliament (2020) Petitions - UK Government and Parliament. Available at: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions?state= open [Accessed 2 November, 2020].

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The “comments” as examples of the marking criteria

Criteria Examples Introduction

The introduction provides: 1) a good justification of the research question’s relevance. 2) a concise review of relevant and current, empirical and/or theory-focused academic literature.

II)

3) a clear identification of a gap in the literature.

III)

4) a clear overview of theoretical arguments underpinning the research question.

IV) & V)

Research ques- tion/ aim

The proposal provides a clear research question/aim, with sufficient details (either as part of the question or an explanation of it) so that it is clear what type research to expect (e.g. descriptive, causal, comparative, theory-generating)

VI)

Data & Methods

The proposal demonstrates good understanding of research designs/operationalization/data-collection & -analysis techniques by: 1) describing appropriate research design, data-collection, and analysis elements needed to answer the research question/aim.

VII) & XI), XIII), XIV)

2) operationalising all concepts of the research question.

IX) & X)

3) The proposal must include an “Ethics” section, detailing the potential research ethical implications of the proposed question, data collection, analysis and results.

XV) & XVI)

Limitations The proposal shows evidence of critical, analytical thought, by: 1) reflecting the strengths/weakness of the methodological choices

XVII)

2) listing ways to minimize the negative aspects of a method

X)

3) contrasting the chosen design/data/sampling- and analysis method/theoretical or epistemological position, with potential alternatives.

XIX)

4) making suggestions for future/alternative research beyond the one proposed. 5) for qualitative-oriented proposal: providing a reflexivity paragraph.

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Overall proposal ||| | The proposal demonstrate a good overall sense of research design and methodology through providing: || | 1) an appropriate plan to address the research aim and to answer the research question. || | 2) linking the parts of the proposal together logically. | XVIII) | Presentation || | The proposal is well presented: ||| | e.g. there is appropriate referencing, a clear structure, and arguments are supported by references/examples/data, with appropriate paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph. | I) & XX) |

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