The Impact of Social Media

1. Updated: July 2018 The Impact of Social Media Part B (3 lesson-version) Conducting Independent Enquiry About Social Media sociology.hku.hk/impact-social-media

2. Sharing about… What issue am I going to study? Why is my issue significant? What are my enquiry question and focus questions?

3. Part B: Relevant Concepts and Knowledge Facts / Data What concepts and methods are relevant to your IES?

4. 1. What is a Concept? Gender is biological. Men and women have different bodies from birth. Example: What is gender? I disagree, gender is social. We learn how to act like a man or a woman as we grow up. A “key concept” speaks about an important idea that a number of different people, normally experts, might agree on. Not everyone will agree on a particular concept, though, and different people may suggest different understandings of a key concept.

5. 2. How Do You Operationalise a Concept? • Make abstract concepts measurable so they are concrete enough to observe.

6. Define the Key Terms of Your Enquiry Question and Focus Questions!

7. Operationalization: How Do You Make these Abstract Concepts Measurable? Socio-economic classes Social media positivist Education Formal education consent hawthorn effect Informal education School policy

8. Example: Let’s Define and Operationalize Social Media (p.12-14) What do you think social media is? Do you find it difficult to define social media? Why?

9. Example: Let’s Define and Operationalize Social Media (p.12-14)

10. Example: Let’s Define and Operationalize Social Media (p.12-14) • How do the researchers of the Why We Post Project define social media? • How is their definition different from the definition of previous studies? • Why do they define social media in ways different from other researchers? They define social media as a place within which people socialize and as the contents people posted on social media platforms. The researchers do not define social media as platforms for people to communicate with each other. If social media is defined as platforms, then a comparative study of social media is not possible. There are no regional variations in how social media platforms work. However, what people post on social media does have regional variations. They define social media in different ways to suit the needs of their research.

11. 3. Choosing Your Research Method • Choose and justify the method you use to collect data

12. Secondary Data • Search through academic journals, government reports, and research papers etc.

13. Video Watching: Questionnaire VS Interviews (P.19) Watch this video at: https://youtu.be/1_Q9EkKYUk0

14. Video Watching: Questionnaire VS Interviews (P.19)

15. Kahoot: Which methods are suitable?

16. Your Turn…… P.15 of Student Pack • What do you think is the best way to define social media in your IES? • How is your definition of social media useful to your analysis? • How would you operationalise (to make measurable) the concept social media? • What are the other key concepts in your enquiry question and focus questions? How would you define, operationalise and explain them? Start with searching for literature! For those who are interested in social media studies: sociology.hku.hk/social-media-concepts

17. Your Turn…… P.21 of Student Pack • Which methods would be most suitable for and why? • Who would you wish to research as your questionnaires respondents or interviewees? Why? • What sorts of skills might you need? • How would you record and analyse your results? • What have you learnt from this activity about the challenges of researching the impact of social media? How can you overcome those challenges?

18. Upcoming… What to do after collecting data?