Off the record #1: holiday trepidation

So, in my first off-the-record blog post (post-coursework, if you will), I thought I'd blog about where I'm up to, what my thoughts are, that sort of thing.

I've just sent off two chapter drafts for the supes (supervisors) to read - a condensed methodology chapter (a bare bones spattering of 2000 words); and the first draft of my data chapter (which will no doubt get torn apart, but I've never written one before, so I took a stab at how I thought it should look). 

They were due on Wednesday, but as usual I finished earlier than planned, and got tired of looking at them. My line of thinking is that like art, if you spend too much time going over the same thing, you are liable to overdoing it. So, with them sent off (perhaps prematurely), I earned myself a two week respite.

It's left me with a sense of trepidation, for a number of reasons! I haven't really had a holiday in several years. For instance, during my undergraduate degree, I took classes over Summer so I could get that sucker completed and get into postgrad quicker. So I haven't really been on a holiday since 2010. I don't feel comfortable not exercising my brain, keeping it occupied, thinking. I don't even know what to do with myself. I'm moving in with my girlfriend, so I guess I'll use the break to move my stuff from A to B. Except where I have been living is much more convenient (for my studies) than where I'm headed. Oh well...

What else is on my mind? There's a conference scheduled for first quarter of 2013 in the UK, called Twitter and Microblogging: Political, professional and Personal Practices, at Lancaster University. I'm going to talk to the supes when I see them after my holiday in mid-November, so I'll talk to them about it then. I doubt I could swing funding from my Faculty, but if the supes give it two sets of thumbs-up, I'll likely self-fund. I think it could be good experience/exposure for me to get out there in some capacity - it couldn't hurt I figure, except to make me look like a total wanker if I cock it up - which, if I'm honest, isn't entirely impossible to conceive.

Not much else is going on at the moment, so check back in here mid-November for an update. Fair warning, there'll be a high likelihood of rage, as I figure I'll have a lot of work cut out for me with my data analysis chapter. So long as I can start my discussion chapter by December, all is acceptable, and things will be coming up matt-house.

Time to take a leap of faith!

References

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/twitter_and_microblogging/

Participant Recruitment...Doing it right

What's the news in the last week? Well, I was given ethics clearance. That was really painless, actually. I'd like to give a shout out to one of my supervisors who helped flesh out my application back at the start of the year. Holla!

What else? I'm still writing my methodology chapter, though I'll have my second draft ready by Monday. I think it's starting to resemble what my other supervisor was hoping for, but as we all know there will be room for improvement.

Possibly the most exciting news is that my recruitment has kicked up a notch. GWLG agreed to post my recruitment flyer and within a few hours I've already been approached by 5 individuals. I only needed 5, and I had a few already that I anticipated could snowball into a few others, so that's been really good. For a straight guy to successfully approach and insert himself into a lesbian community is no small task. It was probably my biggest fear, leading up to actually doing my research - what would happen if I failed miserably in recruiting? The good news is, I won't have to worry.

I feel like maybe it's a good idea to share a part of my methodology, in regards to approaching a community that the researcher exists out of. I was reading some stuff on internet research ethics recently, namely Christine Hine's Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet (2005), Virtual Ethnography (2000); The Ethics of Internet Research: A Rhetorical, Case-Based Process by Heidi McKee and James Porter (2009); and Boellstorff's Coming of Age In Second Life (2008). One salient thing that I learned from these texts is the need for 'authenticity'.

There was something by Janne Bromseth which I took from one of those texts. Bromseth did some research on gay and bisexual women's interaction on a Scandinavian litserv. She noted that when conducted ethnography online, it is important that the researcher sustains a 'cultrally appropriate image'. Such an image is necessary so as to appear legitimate and culturally sensitive toward the population that the researcher is studying, and, perhaps more importantly, reduces that the researcher can be seen as an 'other' (outsider).

Taking from this, I thought that it wasn't enough for my methodology that I simply have a tumblr blog for my research (though it would be where my potential participants could acquire the participant information and consent sheets). I would have to establish my own tumblr blog. Now, tumblr users can be assured that I am not just an amused researcher, looking down from high above in my ivory tower. This is also that is something which resonates with the standpoint epistemology that I've used, which calls for reflexivity and that the research operates as a participant, rather than an expert.

Anyway, as is customary when concluding posts on this blog, it's gif-time - for "teh kidz". Here is an apt representation of me presently, replying to all my participation requests:

References

Boellstorff T 2008, Coming Of Age In Second Life, Princeton University Press, USA.

Bromseth JCH 2006, 'Genre trouble and the body that mattered: Negotiations of gender, sexuality and identity in a Scandinavian mailing list community for lesbian and bisexual women', PhD thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, accessed 28/09/20012, DiVa database, http://ntnu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=1&pid=diva2:122317

Hine C 2000, Virtual Ethnography, SAGE, UK.

Hine C 2005, Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet, Berg, UK.

McKee H A & Porter J E 2009, The Ethics Of Internet Research: A Rhetorical, Case-Based Process, Peter Lang, USA.

"Imposter Syndrome"; Recruiting Research Participants

So this week's post will be split in two, as there's a lot on my mind at present. As you can see in the above image, one of this week's themes is "imposter syndrome". You wouldn't believe how many blogs there are out there mentioning this (and hey-presto, I've added to that mess). It might interest you to know that imposter-syndrome is quite common in areas where one's work is routinely critiqued by peers. Sound familiar? It should - that's academia and postgraduate study, baby!

This methodology chapter has been doing my head in. I think I severely underestimated how much knowledge I would have to acquire. I barely understand standpoint epistemology (I mean, I get the basic gist, but c'mon), and yet I'm writing about it like I know it well. I think that's where the imposter part comes in.

I'm at times plagued by this overwhelming anxiety that I don't belong here, I don't have the intelligence or capacity to be an honours student, let alone be one of the dreaded PhD students. I feel like fortune and luck has got me this far, and at some point someone will notice that I know nothing. I know that's stupid to say, of course I have the ability, why would people agree to supervise me if they didn't think I was capable, etc.

It doesn't change the fact that I feel like I barely even understand my project at times. On several occasions, I have left my supervisor meetings convinced that my research question or aim has changed somewhat. Add to that, that I'm writing about a methodology that only vaguely seems to make sense to me (the theoretical framework of my methodology has nothing to do with the major theory which comprised my literature review), and yeah - bummer town, dude.

I'm sure I'll get over it. This all sounds vaguely like my week 2 posting, where I emo'd up a storm there, too. I know it's hard for most of the peers in my group to relate entirely as they're at the culmination of their projects now. For them, they mostly know what it is they've synthesised. At this stage, I'm struggling to recruit people for my research - tumblr is strange in the way it operates. Unlike Facebook, direct contact is not so easy. I'm also faced with the challenge that these are communities that quite possibly do not take kindly to outsiders. Now there's some stress - what if I can't find enough recruits? How long will it delay my overall timeline? Ugh...

This gif pretty much sums up my recruitment process so far:

Standpoints are Important

My first methodology chapter draft was received with mostly positive comments from my supervisors, which was good for the confidence and ego. However (and it was something I admitted to, before going into the meeting), my 'standpoint' in the research was lacking, and is where I am at presently, while I edit my chapter.

The whole 'methodology' thing seems to be a bit of a grey area to many students. For instance, it became apparent to me at least that many people get methodology and method confused, insofar as to say that they think that the method is the methodology. Methodology is in fact the theoretical lens or framework through which the research is designed and conducted, while the method is the technique used to gather and analyse data. Bit of a difference there!

But wait, there's more! The methodology is in fact comprised of the standpoint, theoretical framework and the method. The latter two are easily sorted, and I needn't worry about them here. The standpoint however, is problematic - at least for someone like me, who is for the first time, expressing it.

I have a research methods textbook written by Walter (2011), and in it she writes:

"Our standpoint is the most important aspect in defining our methodology, because it influences all other components. But it is also an aspect that in most social research is poorly addressed. Our standpoint is basically our own position, who we are and how we see ourselves in relation to others and in relation to society...How we see the world is not a neutral, objective understanding, but is inevitably influenced by the filters and frames of our life experiences and circumstances and our social, cultural economic and personal identity location." (Walter 2011: 13).

But wait, it gets more involved - Walter argues that the standpoint is broken down into three parts, epistemology; axiology and ontology. These are the theory of knowledge, ways of knowing; the theory of values; and and the theories of the nature of being - what constitutes reality.

What does this mean? It's pretty heavy stuff is what it means. I have about 2-3 weeks to come to grips with it. It seems like it can't be as easy as saying "this is me, this is what shapes my worldview, this is how those factors will influence the way I view the research". I'd be interested in getting some feedback from people that have (hypothetically) covered this stuff.

Til next week...

References

Walter M 2011, 'The Nature of Social Science Research' in M Walter (ed.), Social Research Methods, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, pp. 13-30.

Another Month, Another Chapter

So the last time I wrote here, I expressed my frustration and lack of self-confidence in writing postgraduate research.

Sufficed to say, my work so far is apparently okay, but I really need a thorough deconstruction of what intimacy is, so that when I go through the literature, I can clearly show why I have a case for claiming to have potentially uncovered a new form of intimacy.

Other than that, not much has changed, though the majority of my literature review is completed to a degree that I can now focus on the methodology of my thesis. I've been given a figurative mountain of literature by one of my supervisors (thank you, you know who you are) on qualitative methods and Goffman / Presentation of Self. I don't know anything about Goffman to any great extent, having somehow avoided him in my undergraduate years.

That aside, I'm hoping it will allow me to explain why I need to talk to the people I want to talk to in the way I want to. As the space in which my research precludes an open, visible analysis (ie the way intimacy is carried out is privately, behind the screen if you will), Goffman and Symbolic Interactionalism will hopefully give me a framework for interpreting and understanding how all of this online intimacy stuff goes down.

I can't really say too much else at this stage, as I haven't even begun. But I was obligated to post something this week, and I suppose this will have to do.

Here's an amusing picture of a cat that was recently posted on imgur to distract you from the brevity of this posting.