Theme 6: Qualitative and case study research

Qualitative methodology
For this week's subject I chose the article The Internet for the Blind and Visually Impaired by Bow, Schauder, Williamson and Wright. The article was published in volume 7 of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, issue 1, 2001. I realize that 2001 in this case might be a bit old, but I believe that the date should not impact the opportunity of conducting a good methodology analysis. I therefore thought that I could choose the article without regrets, as I was quite intrigued by its title.

The purpose of the article is to explore the potential role of the Internet in information provision for the community of blind and visually impaired. The methodology is formulated through a qualitative study of fifteen blind or visually impaired persons, and sixteen professionals who work with such persons. The study was based on two focus group sessions with the professionals, each followed up by individual interviews with the blind or visually impaired persons. These two different sets of focus groups and interviews were made on two different locations in Australia - in the state of Victoria and New South Wales, in order to determine if there is any difference in results between urban and rural areas. 

It is not really stated how they conducted their focus groups or interviews in detal. It is however stated that the focus groups were more explorative and the data they extracted from these worked as a foundation for the individual interviews. One could therefore assume that they conducted somewhat of an open, or unstructured, form of focus groups, whilst the indivudual interviews were more structured or perhaps semi-structured. I assume this because these types of interview-models varies in fit for different purposes. An unstructured model is per example useful when you want to explore an area openly and let the interviewee speak freely and elaborate extensively. Such a structure could therefore have been useful for the focus groups when the authors explored the unique insights of the professionals. When they later possessed these insights themselves, they could more easily target questions to the interviewees depending on what they wanted to get out of the interviews, and what the professionals could pinpoint before. I would say that the most common interview-model in those cases is the semi-structured interview, which still allows the interviewee to elaborate to a certain extent - but with the interviewer still keeping track of the pre-made set of quesitons. 

A problem with the method is this particular uncertainty - that they did not state in more detail how they formatted and conducted their focus groups and interviews. The results they extract therefore receives an image of quite arbitrary data, which is unfortunate. Furthermore, they state themselves that they searched for interviewees in different situations and positions in life (parameters such as age, partner, economy etc.), which they succeeded to attract. However, even if this is a qualitative study, perhaps the result would have been more credible and reliable if they would have examined and chosen a set of blind and visually impaired persons with equal parameters. It is hard to generalize a qualitative study as it is.

Case studies
As Eisenhardt (1989) puts it, the case study is a research strategy which focuses on understanding the dynamics present within single settings. It is mostly that you look into and investigate a (or multiple) specific case and extract data from it that you might find useful in similar settings. It can be through both interviews, questionnaires, observations etc. so both qualitative or quantitative data can be extracted through the case study strategy.

The article which I chose that conducts a case study method is called Public Service Broadcasting's Participation in the Reconfiguration of Online News Content. This particular paper I found in 18th volume of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, issue 3 (2013). 

The article analyzed generically through parts of Eisenhardt's model:

Getting Started: The purpose of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of online participation in public television channels and to compare the different strategies used to encourage participation. 

Selecting Cases: The case analysis is focused on five news websites of public radio and television corporations in Italy, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Spain. To me the selected countries should provide a good mix of cultural insights, but still within a similar cultural sphere.

Crafting Instruments and Protocols: The analysis is based on two seperate observations of the websites where they look at, and compare data in a qualitative fashion. They observe the content and look further into how it is being implemented. To me it would have been interesting to conduct interviews with the ones responsible for the strategy and/or content instead or as a complement. However, by using this method you should also be able to gain insights, of course.

Enfolding Literature: The literature seems well organized and credible.

Reaching Closure: Conclusions are drawn from each specific case rather than putting them all into a big picture, presenting a general conclusion. Maybe that was hard to achieve in this case, but it would have been interesting to see more comparative conclusions.