Evolving Mobile Media: Uses and Conceptualizations of the Mobile
Internet
I have read
a paper called Evolving Mobile Media: Uses and Conceptualizations of the Mobile
Internet by Humphrey et al (2013) which can be found in the Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication with an impact factor of 1.778. The paper
investigates how people conceptualize and use the mobile internet. The findings
of the paper was that users do not perceive the act of “going online” as a
significant step, even if it is on a mobile device. They do however distinguish
between different ways of consuming information online, relating them to
different situations and devices.
The qualitative method that is being used in the paper is semi-structured
one-on-one interviews with 21 college students. The spread for men and women
was almost 50-50. 11 of the students were from America and 10 were from
Germany. This was because the authors aim to draw upon cross-cultural
differences. The students were recruited through e-mailings to undergraduate
students in social and natural sciences. Incentives such as money (German
students) and extra course credits (American students) were given to the
participants. A prerequisite for the chosen students was that they had
experience in using a web-enabled mobile device. The interviews went on for
about 30 minutes each and were conducted by a student research assistant.
As the authors explained in the paper, qualitative methods allow for
appropriate understanding of meanings. This method was thus beneficial because
of the aim of the paper which was to understand people’s meanings of the mobile
internet and how those meanings influence their usage and appropriation of this
technology.
The limitation of this method is that you get a rather narrow view because
of the qualitative method not being supported by a quantitative one. Also all
the participants are students which means that they only get a limited view of
people in the same age. The authors argue though that college students lead the
adoption of internet technologies and therefore are an important population to
study in order to identify future trends and behaviors associated with new
media.
As the authors address in the paper, the qualitative method revealed
in-depth understandings and meanings around mobile internet uses but it didn’t
reveal details such as length of time or frequency of use. Also consumers of
media are not always good at estimating certain details of their media use.
Therefore it could have been good if the study was complemented with other
research methods like diary or observation studies.
Case study
A case
study is a study which focuses on understanding the dynamics present within
single settings. The settings can be a person, group, event or community and
the cases present realistic, complex and contextually rich situations. They
also often involve a dilemma, conflict, or problem that one or more of the
characters in the case must negotiate. Case studies often combine data
collection methods and the evidence can be both qualitative and quantitative. Caste
studies can be used to provide descriptions, test theory or generate theory.
Overcoming the “Ideology of Openness”: Probing the Affordances of Social
Media for Organizational Knowledge Sharing
The paper by
Eisenberg et al (2013) investigates the ways in which the affordances of social
media not only increase open communication and sharing of knowledge, but also
promote secret behavior, creating dialectical tensions
for distributed workers. The findings of the paper show that social media is
used strategically to limit a well as share information, and that participants
negotiate tensions between openness and closedness in their work.
The paper
has conducted a case study of a high-technology start-up organization with
offices on the American East and West coast.
Initial site visits and informal interviews with key personnel were
conducted to gather data on the company and the context in which social media
was used. The insights gained here were used to formulate interview questions
for in-depth interviews with 12 engineers in the company. Here the goal was to
get diverse perspectives on social media use and knowledge sharing from
organizational members.
A strength
with this paper, which is common for case studies, is that they are working
well with iterations. They use incoming data from site visits to iterate and
make interview questions to collect more necessary data. The paper also makes
comparisons with conflicting literature, which is important according to
Eisenhardt because it builds internal validity. The case have been selected by
characteristics such as the company’s distributed nature and thus increases the
chances for good research samples to be drawn in relation to the subject. A
weakness with the paper is a lack of definition of the research question which
is important to have in building theory from case studies.
References
Eisenberg, J., Rozaidi, A.N., Gibbs, L.J.
(2013) Overcoming
the “Ideology of Openness”: Probing the Affordances of Social Media for
Organizational Knowledge Sharing. Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication 19 (2013) 102–120.
Humphreys,
L., Von Pape, T. & Karnowski, V. (2013). Evolving Mobile Media: Uses and
Conceptualizations of the Mobile Internet. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18 (2013) 491–507.
Hey Filip!
SvaraRaderaInteresting articles! My thoughts here goes to the first you presented. What do you think about the usage of external incentives in a case like this? Do you think the usage of per example cash or course credits can harm the research in any way? My thought is that such an approach might attract a specific kind of participant, that does not care much about the research. But I don't know if that is a bad thing though... Perhaps they will answer quick and truthfully, but perhaps they just "throw in" some answers as they do not care about the outcome. What do you think?