Abstract
Research Exposed is the latest edited collection of methodological storytelling from Eszter Hargittai, following Research Confidential (2009) and Digital Research Confidential (2015 – with Christian Sandvig). Following in the tradition of its precursors, Research Exposed, as the name suggests, is a backstage look at research. It provides the audience with a closer look at the oft-unseen elements of the research performance; the rehearsals, the scenes cut, and the various paraphernalia kept in the wings that would otherwise crowd the theoretical and empirical narrative. The focus of Research Exposed is on the practicalities, problems, and solutions of doing research in the digital age. Don’t let that put you off if you’re not into computational methods though; the stories told here are varied and comprise both online and offline methods and research subjects. There are new research problems in here that are approached with reference to traditional solutions and debates, just as there are old problems that require creative solutions.
A central aim of the collection is to foster greater appreciation and understanding between disciplines – or more specifically, between colleagues who may typically approach research problems with different methodological toolkits. So, while readers of Qualitative Research may not at first glance identify with some of the methods deployed and recounted in this book, that is kind of the point. A little unfamiliarity, being outside of one’s comfort zone, is generally good medicine. In my own reading of this collection, I pleasantly found that to be the case. On top of that, as a researcher who has spent significant time trawling through Twitter datasets, it was refreshing to be reminded that this isn’t the only way to do social science in the digital age.
There is not the space here to do justice to every contribution to the book, but there are valuable insights to be found throughout. The opening chapters by Freelon, Keller, and Klinger, deal with research on Twitter, including strategies for locating missing data (in the context of a dataset of tweets related to Russian disinformation) and identifying bots, both highly topical issues. In Chapter Four, Humphrey’s examination of mobile phone use in public spaces provides a relatable context for an engaging discussion of theoretical and purposive sampling in qualitative digital research (no easy task). He also offers up advice on the use mobile phones as prompts in interviews, which is one of many strategies and tips for getting research done that can be found throughout the book. Other suggestions include generating throwaway email addresses for maximising participants’ privacy, using Google Sheets for batch emailing, creating social media recruitment adverts, and writing custom scripts for automatic collection and parsing of Twitter data. Many of these I had never considered, but their value and the significant work required to implement them are clear to see. It is also comforting that the phrase ‘Institutional Review Board’ features with regularity, indicating the ever-present and vital discussion of research ethics in the context of digital social science.
In Chapter Five, Elissa Redmiles picks up a key theme of the collection. She argues that ‘offline networks and places matter, even for digital research.’ The subject of her study, the online and offline safety experiences of sex workers in Switzerland, is fascinating and contains several important lessons about building trust and reassuring participants about privacy while working in this field. These lessons continue in the following few chapters. Readers of Qualitative Research will enjoy, as I did, these ethnographic studies from Nikki Usher, Jeffrey Lane, and Will Marler. They contain another repeated lesson that anyone will find useful: more data is not always better. The question of when to stop collecting data is one that we have all pondered at one stage or another. When faced with online settings, the sheer volume of digital data available may lead many of us to assume we need to capture it all.
That is not necessarily the case. In Chapter Six for instance, Usher advocates for ‘rapid’ or ‘focused’ ethnographies. Year-or-more long ethnographies are not always practical, particularly, as Usher suggests, for research students or when studying elites where access is difficult to negotiate for even short periods. Her study of elite political journalism in Washington (anyone who has watched West Wing will be able to picture the scene) and the benefits of ‘unexpected data’ such as a Senate Press Pass is an enjoyable justification for this argument. In Chapter Seven, Lane takes the example of a single Facebook status and describes how he explores the meanings attached to this for his participant, a young Jamaican man attending high school in Harlem. In the final ethnographic contribution, a study of urban homelessness in the United States, Marler echoes Redmiles’ earlier point; that the offline and online complement one another and can be used productively in tandem. I identified with the argument that digital communication technologies can be helpful in locating and maintaining contact with a mobile and hard-to-reach group of participants.
Lastly, chapters Three, Nine, Ten, and Eleven all report on the use of survey instruments to investigate the diverse issues of youth sexuality (Fordyce et al.), internet penetration in rural Chile (Correa and Pavez), artists’ use of social media (Klawitter) and wellbeing among older adults (Hofer). The final chapter by Hyunjin Seo stood out for me as an exemplar of how to research (at the same time as running) a community intervention designed to address digital inequalities.
Overall, readers will find something of use in every chapter. If you have an interest in digital issues of any shape and size and want to know how any research here gets done you will not go far wrong with this collection. Furthermore, these are just good stories. Hargittai talks about the ‘brutal and often undisclosed realities of collecting and analysing empirical evidence’. This is an aspect of research I think researchers of any tradition, and any career stage, will be able to identify with. Research can be tiring, frustrating, and painstaking, but ultimately the better for it.
