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’?

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).

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

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. 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.

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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?

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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. Harm to the researcher - we consider the risk for us as interviewers limited,

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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.

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. 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 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. 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 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.

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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