Research Method Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Research Method - Dissertation Example How strong can this sense of community be? 4. What kinds of cultural identity have been formed in this virtual community? Research Method Ethnographic interview.Analysis of the interviews occurred in four stages. In the first stage, the transcripts are analyzed for concepts and themes. The comments and themes are in the transcript margins. This is the first stage. In the second stage, there was an analysis of expert files, which refers to pertinent experts which are from each interview related to each theme, and this refined the themes. These expert files, which are thematically related, were refined further. The theoretical framework of the study is linked to the thee in the fourth stage In the interviews, the interviewee explains his or her version of reality, while constructing this reality. In this way, the interviews are a kind of â€Å"interpersonal drama.† The researcher must stand back, and not direct the interview, because to insert oneself into the interview would in sert the researcher’s agenda into the issue, and the researcher might interpret the themes accordingly. There are alternate interpretations of the interview responses, and the interview should proceed in a manner which encourages this. Because respondents should answer in a way that develops his or her own perspective, the interviews should be unstructured. Nonetheless, the interviews are semi-structured, because this study has an exploratory nature. To develop the research interests of the study, open-ended questions were asked. These open-ended questions were not a strict questionnaire, however. Rather, they were simply used to tease out the key topics, and served as a reminder not to miss these topics. In the beginning of the interviews, the interviewees were given a general idea of what the focus would be. That said, the interviewees were encouraged to direct the conversation’s flow, and I would intervene only when I wanted to more about the issue. The only other t ime that I intervened was when the topic of conversation had gotten too far off of the focus of the interview. The questions were open-ended as much as possible. As the interview reached its’ close, I double-checked the question list to make sure that there was nothing important missing from the interview, and, if this was the case, I probed the interviewee further. Throughout my data collection period, I constantly added new questions to incorporate issues brought up in previous interviews. Recruitment of respondents.Ten people were recruited from the users of internet. I did not attempt to cover all ethnic groups, whichis beyond the scope of the project. Instead, I chose a particular group of people as the target of my study. To achieve the best results, they met the following two requirements: 1. They still maintain their distinctive cultural identities as ethnic people, surrounded in the sea of host countries’ mainstream culture. 2. They are not much affected by th e traditional community ethnic media, yet they are actively using the new media. That way, the influence of the computer media can be best measured. Specifically, Each participant recruited were an expert practitioner of his/her mass mediated world, knowledgeable in the most detailed and intimate ways of how it shapes their identities, which provides entry points to their complex culture condition of living on ‘borderlands’ and to their ongoing process of identity negotiation.