7 reasons you should read Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo

Kath McNiff is a Technical Communicator at QSR. You can contact Kath on @KMcNiff. This post was originally published on the NVivo blog. You can read more by Kath and other NVivo bloggers by visiting http://blog.qsrinternational.com/

Somewhere on your computer there are articles to review and interviews to analyze. You also have survey results, a few videos and some social media conversations to contend with.

Where to begin?

Well, here’s one approach: Push a few buttons and bring everything into NVivo. Then dive head-first into your material and code the emerging themes. Become strangely addicted to coding and get caught up in a drag and drop frenzy. Then come up for air – only to be faced with 2000 random nodes and a supervisor/client demanding to know what it all means.

Or, you could do what successful NVivo users have been doing for the past six years – take a sip of your coffee and open Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo.

This well-thumbed classic (published by SAGE) has been revised and updated by Pat Bazeley and co-author Kristi Jackson.

Here are 7 reasons why you should read it:

1. Pat and Kristi guide you through the research process and show you how NVivo can help at each stage. This means you learn to use NVivo and, at the same time, get an expert perspective on ‘doing qual’.
2. No matter what kind of source material you’re working with (text, audio, video, survey datasets or web pages)—this updated edition gives you sensible, actionable techniques for managing and analyzing the data.
3. The authors share practical coding strategies (gleaned from years of experience) and encourage you to develop good habits—keep a research journal, make models, track concepts with memos, don’t let your nodes go viral. Enjoy the ride.
4. The book is especially strong at helping you to think about (and setup) the ‘cases’ in your project—this might be the people you interviewed or the organizations you’re evaluating. Setting-up these cases and their attributes helps you to unleash the power of NVivo’s queries. How are different sorts of cases expressing an idea? Why does this group say one thing and this group another? What are the factors influencing these contrasts? Hey wait a minute, I just evolved my theme into a theory. Memo that.
5. If you’re doing a literature review in NVivo – chapter 8 is a gold mine (especially if you use NCapture to gather material from the web or if you use bibliographic software like EndNote.)
6. Each chapter outlines possible approaches, gives concrete examples and then provides step-by-step instructions (including screenshots) for getting things done. All in a friendly and approachable style.
7. This book makes a great companion piece to Pat’s other new text – Qualitative Data Analysis Practical Strategies. Read the ‘strategies’ book for a comprehensive look at the research process (in all its non-linear, challenging and exhilarating glory) and read this latest book to bring your project to life in NVivo. - See more at: http://blog.qsrinternational.com/qualitative-data-analysis-with-nvivo/#sthash.8odh8Olf.dpuf

A student perspective on 'Qualitative Online Interviews' by Dr Janet Salmons

Ivett Ayodele is an undergraduate student at the University of Salford studying BSc (Hons) Psychology and Counselling. She tweets as @ivettayo and @salfordpcy1 and blogs here.  

I have accepted the challenge to review Qualitative Online Interviews by Dr Janet Salmons (2015) because I believe that as part of the next generation of psychologists, it is a great opportunity to familiarise myself  with the emerging methods of online interviews, which will surely become popular in the future. It is also a great chance to extend my knowledge of qualitative methods generally, while writing this post helps to develop my academic writing skills. My task is to give a student perspective on the book since a lecturer’s perspective has already been explored (see here).

Qualitative Online Interviews by Dr Janet Salmons (2015) guides researchers and students through the process of extending their research into various online settings and it gives guidance on ethical issues that can arise during online interviews. As the author puts it, “the purpose of Qualitative Online Interviews is to encourage researchers to extend the reach of their studies by using methods that defy geographic boundaries” (Salmons, 2015, p. xviii). The book is structured around the E-Interview Framework, a conceptual system which helps to understand interrelationships between the key elements of Online Interviews and aids the process of decision making throughout the research design.

As a first year undergraduate student, I have had the opportunity to learn extensively about quantitative research methods; however Qualitative Online Interviews by Dr Janet Salmons (2015) gave me the opportunity to extend my growing knowledge of qualitative methods. This learning journey ‘forced’ me to develop a complex picture of research methods and now I have a better understanding of both quantitative and qualitative methods; while  the benefits of mixed methods became crystal clear to me.

Qualitative Online Interviews (Salmons, 2015) gives a deep insight into specific ethical issues surrounding online interviews. The author took the typical ethical issues of research, such as informed consent or confidentiality, and placed them at the heart of online interviews. For example Dr Janet Salmons draws attention to the possible flaws in data protection in an online setting by pointing out that some companies who own the platform, where the data is stored, might not have adequate protection against unauthorized access.

The cover and the design of the book reminded me of my old school books; however I found that the simple design helped me to focus more on the text, rather than on the pictures and tables. I found this useful, especially as I was learning new concepts. For example, taking a position as an insider (EMIC) or outsider (ETIC) researcher was a new concept which helped me to appreciate the possible design flaws of a qualitative study, as well as the richness of it, compared to a quantitative study.

The detailed content page and the organization of the book helps the reader to find exactly what they are looking for; yet I found that this book works for me best if I read it first from cover to cover.

 I found the Researcher’s Notebook section and Discussions and Assignments at end of each chapter very helpful. The Researcher’s Notebook section encouraged me to think about each concept as a practical issue and therefore made it easier to understand and relate concepts to research methods. For example in Chapter 3 -Choosing Online Data Collection Method and Taking a Position as a Researcher- Salmons (2015) explains the main ideas of the chapter through her previous studies, which made these concepts to come “alive”.

The Discussion and Assignment section facilitate further learning by raising some questions in regards to each concept. For example in Chapter 9 (Preparing for an Online Interview), Salmons (2015) talks about the importance of Epoche –“ to approach each interview with clear and fresh perspective”- subsequently the Discussion and Assignments part encourages students/researchers to talk/think through the Epoche concept and raises the question, what could be done to clear our mind before an online interview?

The accompanying website is not as user friendly as I would like, however once I found my way around it, I felt that it is a great way to extend the learning experience for students. The website contains of a general resources and a student resources part.

The general resources section offers materials such as course outline with suggested assignments, learning activities, worksheets and media pieces. They are great for academics for planning a course or seminar on qualitative online interviews and they are also useful for students who want to build on their knowledge outside the classroom. The student resource part is broken down into the chapters of the book. In each chapter students can find the definitions of new terms on e-Flashcards, which is a great learning tool. Students can choose whether they would like to see the term or the definition of the term and learn new terminology while they are having fun!

Qualitative Online Interviews by Dr Janet Salmons has not only extended my knowledge about qualitative methods and online interviews but it also deepened my knowledge about ethical issues during online and off-line research. I would recommend this book to any undergraduate student and if someone chooses to conduct online research for their dissertation, I believe that this book is a must have!

 

Book Review: 'Qualitative Online Interviews' by Dr Janet Salmons

Jenna Condie is a Lecturer in Psychology in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Salford. She is also the network's avid Twitter Manager. Contact her on @jennacondie.

Although an advocate of both digital communication and qualitative methods, I am yet to combine these two interests to carry out qualitative interviews online. The timing therefore seemed right for me to review ‘Qualitative Online Interviews’ by Dr Janet Salmons, as I do want (or need!) to learn more about this growing approach within social science research.

‘Qualitative Online Interviews’ guides the novice researcher through the entire research process from start to finish. Not to be “shelved after a single reading” (Salmons, 2015, p. xviii), this book is designed as a ‘go to’ resource to consult as and when a particular research issue arises. The updates in the second edition reflect the increasingly mediated nature of our social lives since the first edition was published in 2010. An e-interview research framework (see figure below) has been introduced to structure the book and to link the various issues involved in using an online interview research design (e.g. ethics, sampling). A second update broadens out what constitutes an online interview as the previous edition focused on synchronous interviews alone. This edition incorporates the use of near-synchronous and asynchronous interviews. A third change is that the book addresses additional online data that may be available to a qualitative researcher such as user-generated content including written posts, images, and other shared texts.



e-interview research framework

With those changes in mind, perhaps a more appropriate title could be ‘Online Qualitative Research’ as Salmons (2015) points out, the boundaries between what is an interview and what is not are seemingly less clear in an online context. I felt that the concept of ‘interview’ was perhaps restrictive due to its dominant meaning as observations, notes, and user-generated content are included. That this book goes beyond interviews could also go some way to broadening its appeal to those embarking upon online qualitative research in general. Granted, the book’s focus may then be diluted given the vastness and creativity that digital communication tools and user-generated content present to the contemporary researcher. However, the underlying principles of qualitative research – whether online or offline, whether interview or another type of online data – are also covered in this book. To give an example, a segment of the above e-interview research framework focuses on how the researcher must take a position in their research. Such principles apply to most qualitative approaches.

As a lecturer, I could use ‘Qualitative Online Interviews’ as an introductory resource for my undergraduate psychology students, particularly those about to start their dissertation research. I do feel that this book is perhaps ahead of us in terms of teaching undergraduate psychology. I can only speak from my own experiences of undergraduate supervision where the ethics process is challenging enough without throwing issues of researcher-participant online interaction into the mix. In terms of masters dissertations and PhD theses, this book could be a great companion to a researcher navigating the ‘swamp’ (Finlay, 2002) of online qualitative research. Salmons (2015) also points to further reading that the researcher may need for deeper discussions around epistemology, ontology, and theory.

What this book did for me as an early career researcher was open up the option of carrying out qualitative interviews online through practical examples and solutions for taking the next step. The default does not need to be face-to-face these days. I haven’t carried out interviews online before as the people I need to speak to are often close by, or in many cases, do not have access to ICT resources. Salmons (2015) recognises that online is not always the most appropriate option but also highlights the greater reach and potential of going digital to learn more about human experiences and to engage a wider audience in research.

It would be great if the book cover and the presentation/layout inside (e.g. diagrams, font, etc.) were more modern in design to reflect the potential contained in this edition. Because this book is one for the future, my future work, and the future work of social science students who are likely to engage in online research more and more.

Video interview about the book “Social Media and Democracy” (edited by Brian Loader and Dan Mercea)

By Cheryl Jadav, student in the MA in Social Media at the University of Westminster
Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxn4HjbTfYU

If you’re reading this, obviously, you follow social media!

Has politics and political democracy fascinated you? Do you wonder what impacts and what role does social media play, not only in our routinely life but in something as important and broad as politics and democracy?

The interview with Dr. Dan Mercea of City University London highlights the importance of social media in participatory politics. As he suggests, ‘Social Media is an instrument’ that supports democracy.

As Dan Mercea puts in, the book is a ‘fairly dated collection in internet time’. A collection based on a conference held in 2011, this book is for those who are interested in studying the internet and social media, politics and democracy.

Over the last couple of years, we have seen our social networks being flooded by the updates on the political occurrences throughout the globe, be it London or the Occupy Wall Street Moment or the protests on Tahrir Square or in the Ukraine. However, this book on participatory politics will help you understand the non-utopian role of social media in these political situations. One might often believe that social media is the reason behind all the political upheavals seen in recent times.

Democracy is a wide concept and a different perspective can be applied to the various occurrences. For some, casting a vote is democracy. For others, a wider participation of the masses is democracy. Social media aids the wider participation and looks beyond the act of merely casting a vote. As Dan Mercea suggests, social media has enabled more participation from the younger generation. Thus, it could be taken as a game changing act! An act that enables more participation, probably from the masses that might have been possibly left out.

The interview also discusses government surveillance and the power structures that exist and frame social media. A wave of public upheaval has been witnessed by us in places such as Egypt, India, Ukraine and so on. However, what has been the ultimate result? Has the government won or has the mass won?

If your interest lies in understanding social media, be it political or non-political, watch this video for more!

Alone Together: A Documentary about a book by Sherry Turkle

By Keurkoon Phoomwittaya, student in the MA in Social Media at the University of Westminster

Watch the video here: https://vimeo.com/90989359

In the early days of social interaction on the Internet I tried out different identities with avatars and used pseudonyms in virtual worlds. I learned and shared ideas in online forums that I was interested in such as Hamster Lovers society or the Thai fiction writers community. Nowadays, social media enterprises such as Facebook attract more people to spend their time on the platforms. At any time and on the move we can simulate ourselves to feel as if we were connected together and close with each other. The little mobile devices in our pockets shape and affect how we think about ourselves and relationships with others.

Because of my interest in such topics I became curious to read the book “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other” by Sherry Turkle. I made a documentary based on the issues that her book discuses. I am still optimistic about the abilities that technology poses for us in order to explore new ideas and innovations. But also, we need to know what cause constraints on human relationships.

Researchers have been looking at the potentials as well as problems of technology. In this documentary Sisse Siggaard Jensen, professor of Digital Communication at Roskilde University in Denmark, mentioned that when the computer was first invented people were amazed by its potential as a medium for communication. Later, the World Wide Web helped the world to be open for new ideas. Then, scholars came to study massive multiplayer online role-playing games and social media. Many see positive impacts when something is new. But, as time goes by they also observe problems that affect us. 

In the past, Turkle was optimistic about the potential of the Internet for trying out various identities. But now, with the popular use of social networking sites such as Facebook, she is concerned that the always-on status of our lives has resulted in isolation and individualisation. She says: “These days, insecure in our relationships and anxious about intimacy, we look to technology for ways to be in relationships and protect ourselves from them at the same time” (Turkle 2011: xii). Her point convinced me that we need to know how the designs of different platforms affect our ability to reflect on ourselves and human relationships.

Jensen points out in the documentary that there are new opportunities for people to find possibilities for enjoyment and happiness in virtual worlds such as Second Life, World of Warcraft or EverQuest.  She sees them as spaces for developing resources and understandings with the help of social roles that are different from people’s ordinary lives. In virtual worlds like Second life people are not limited by their skin colour, gender or physical ability. Jensen et al. (2012) suggest that the ways people build virtual communities or experience extraordinary events through thought-provoking art installations hold the potential for creativity and inspirations (Jensen et al.,2012:3). Likewise, Howard Rheingold mentions in his book “Virtual Reality” that symbolic play is a positive act that draws cognition and culture together. “It’s a mental can-opener for liberating new ideas” (Rheingold 1992: 373). He suggests that imitating social roles through symbolic playing is important for everyone Rheingold 1992: 374). The Internet came with the promise that we could find opportunities to try out as well as enjoy making and exploring different virtual social spaces.

In the documentary, Jensen pinpoints that Facebook is a very limited world. The economy of "liking" posed by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is a constraint for creativity. While some spaces on the Internet give us resources to play and learn about ourselves in relation to others, our personal information on Facebook became a raw material for private corporations making profits.

If you are wondering why it is important to know more about the ways in which technology affects our lives and how the designs of the online platforms matter, this documentary is for you. The ‘Alone Together’ Documentary (https://vimeo.com/90989359) will take you on a journey, on which you can learn more about the development of empathic skills holding together relationships through play and creativity, the relationship of computers and humans, and how we use technology throughout our lifetime.

References

Jensen,S.S., Philips, L., & Strand D.L. 2012. Virtual worlds as sites for social and cultural innovation. Convergence. 18 (3), 3-10

Rheingold, H. 1992. Virtual Reality. Great Britain: Mandarin Paperbacks.

Turkle, S. 2011. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each other. United States: Basic Books.

Understanding Geert Lovink’s book “Networks without a cause: A critique of social media”: A video by Akin Olaniyan

Akin Olaniyan is a student in the MA in Social Media at the University of Westminster

Watch the video interview here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV-PBy3iaDk

He sounds very much like a techno-pessimist. When I first read Professor Geert Lovink’s book, ‘Networks without a cause: A critique of social media,’ the first thing that struck me was the sense of despair that runs through all the chapters. With chapters devoted to Facebook and the crisis of identity, big data and the ‘Googlisation of our lives,’ and a proposition to divorce the study of social media from media studies, there appeared to be no other way to understand Geert Lovink. And that was the starting point of my interview with him conducted via Skype. As you can see in the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV-PBy3iaDk), when I asked him what was the source of the despair I felt running through his book, Geert describes his frustration that the Internet has become too centralized and cites cloud computing as evidence. He feels it was time the Internet went back to the original format of small networks.

One of the comments on the blurb of his book, by McKenzie Wark (author of Gamer Theory and Professor of Culture and Media at The New School), describes Geert as our Tin Tin. ‘Like canny adventurer, he travels the world discovering new frontiers of both folly and invention,’ McKenzie writes and that was instantly confirmed when Geert – after he found where I was from – expressed an interest in working in Nigeria if there was a good chance to teach critical Internet Cultures.

I find that this interview is a rare insight into the minds and works of a scholar who sounds techno-pessimistic but whose research and works focus on making the Internet more workable.

On big data and social media alternatives for instance, Geert, whose works have focused on developing alternative social media, is critical of big data and the concentration of power in the hands of few corporations like Google.  “When we talk of alternatives to social media we refer to alternative variations of the known platforms. So, an alternative to Google would be a search engine without all this commercial bias, a search engine that will be based on other algorithmic principles,” he says. And on Facebook, Geert says: “When we talk of alternatives to Facebook, we mean a social network that is truly local and doesn’t work with this ridiculous notion of friends as a general principle of connecting people.” He sounded to me more like an activist than a university teacher.

When asked how to best arrange funding for such alternative social media platforms, Geert admits there may be no global solution owing to differences from country to country but mentioned subscription and the public library model as possible options for consideration.

I finally asked him whether he considers himself as belonging to the same school of thought as Evgeny Morozov and Neil Postman since I found as I felt his arguments sound techno-pessimistic. He appeared to smile at the question but looked serious as he answered: “I strongly believe that we have to team up with start-ups, programmers and insert a political and cultural agenda there. I come from a background where we see ourselves as developers of the network and that is different from traditional techno pessimist point of view. I have absolute joy in the constructive value of ruthless radical critique.” Overall, I find Geert an interesting scholar, especially after I received copies of other books he co-authored, which he freely offered. A quick look at two of those books, ‘Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and their Alternatives,’ and ‘Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube,’ confirm my feeling that this is no ordinary scholar but one who is at the same time an activist.

Living in the Information Age: A video about Christian Fuchs’ book “Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age

By Jinshuang Zhao, student in the MA in Social Media at the University of Westminster

Could you image your life without the Internet in contemporary society? What difficulties can you overcome with the help of Internet? How do information and communication technology influence society? If you are interested to learn more about these issues, please watch my video that presents interviews with Christian Fuchs and Eran Fisher. Watch the video of the interview here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Gt_8SQiSc

Christian Fuchs is professor of social media at the University of Westminster and is conducting research about the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) and society. He is a neo-Marxist and utilises Marxist theory for theorizing the connections between ICT and society. Eran Fisher is an assistant professor at the Open University of Israel, He is the author of “Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age”. His research fields are media and communication, information science and sociology. I invited Christian Fuchs and Eran Fisher to discuss some issues related to Christian’s book Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age.

In the interview, Chrsitian Fuchs reflects back on when he was a student of informatics. He discusses how he became interested in ICT and society research and why he wrote this book.

It is well-known that information and communication technology plays an important role in changing society and the world. Christian Fuchs’ book Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age describes mutual relationships between Internet and society by using philosophy and social theory. He uses the theory of complex, dynamic self-organizing systems, which is a core concept of the book that he applies to various dimensions of society and it subsystems, including cultural, ecological, economic and political systems. He also uses Marxist theory and Hegel’s dialectical philosophy for analysing dynamics and power structures of self-organising systems. Eran Fisher argues that the book combines Marxist theory and the theory of self-organising systems.

Both interviewees argue that this approach can explain how ICTs are embedded economic, political, cultural and ecological structures that are shaped by an antagonism between competition and cooperation. This book takes social media platforms as examples to show how the Internet interacts with society. It also engages with issues of electronic participation, online politics and how grassroots movements voice their critical opinions via online forums and social-networking sites. In terms of the economy, Christian Fuchs and Eran Fisher argue that the economy in the information age is facing a contradiction between the gift and the commodity logic and that there is a dominant class that aims to gain more and more financial profits with the help of the Internet.

If you are interested in how to make a difference to our lives in the information age, then I invite you to watch my video and to read Christian Fuchs’ book Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age.

Going Viral: An Interview with the Authors

Janet Salmons is a network member and a contributing expert to the online team. 

The cover of the Going Viral book attracted my attention at the Association of Internet Researchers’ conference—and stimulated my curiosity. “Going viral” is another of those terms we commonly use, but what does it really mean? By understanding the term, can we become better observers of viral events? I asked the authors, Karine Nahon @karineb and Jeff Hemsley @JeffHemsley if they would share some insights with the NSMNSS community. Our discussion went like this:

JS: Can you discuss the research or thought process that went into your definition for “virality” as described on page 16?

Virality is a social information flow process where many people simultaneously forward a specific information item, over a short period of time, within their social networks, and where the message spreads beyond their own social network to different, often distant networks, resulting in a sharp acceleration in the number of people who are exposed to the message.

JH: In previous research projects looking at blogs and videos, we looked for a definition and couldn’t find one. We had a lot of discussion to come up with a definition that was rigorous, that researchers could use.

KN: We started in 2008, and at the beginning, the definition was similar to those used in marketing and communications literature. It talked about speed of virality and distribution of information inside and in between networks. But it wasn’t refined enough, or crystalized enough, it was missing something. The definition has to have these components. It’s a social process-- a social information flow, not just an information flow, and it has to be social, moving from one person to another. It is not just broadcasting. The speed is important and also the reach and spread, not only the number of people it reaches but also the networks it hops through.

JS: Can you explain the “viral information event” (p. 17)?

KN: We distinguished between a viral “event” and a viral “topic.” An event is an information item, a video, a text, any information item that spreads through network. An information topic is a combination of many different viral and non-viral events around a particular topic. For example, think of Snowden as a topic, it was a combination of  information events that were non-viral and some went viral. So while not all events went viral around the Snowden leaks, the whole topic is defined as a viral topic.

JH: To say something is a viral event is to narrow it down to something specific, one event.

JS: Can you discuss your thinking about many-to-many? In the book you talked about how the “many” have a role beyond just forwarding a message.

KN: There is a misconception that when we discuss virality, we refer to the same information item being spread. But in many cases what happens is that when I post something on Facebook, and add to it some text, I have reframed the item. In creating a social information flow, people shape it according to their own values and norms.

JH: When I share a video into my network, I usually add a comment and when I do that I am essentially framing the message and re-contextualizing it for my audience. That’s an important aspect of why these events are social. The many-to-many part of it means that it subtly or not so subtly changes the meaning of the message or augments the meaning embedded in the content.

JS: I was intrigued by the point that sometimes reframing actually negated the message from the original content. Other thoughts to add about re-framing?

JH: In our first viral study of blogs and videos, we started to realize there is this idea in networks that people create links because they are similar in some way, this is called “homophily.” We looked at blogs linking to viral videos, and we saw that liberal blogs linked to the same videos that other liberal blogs do. And conservative blogs link to the same videos.  When they cross-link, when the conservative blog links to a liberal video, it is because the conservative can re-frame or re-cast the video in a way that supports their own ideas. When a liberal blogs linked to a conservative video and says, those dirty conservatives are sending out attack ads again, they are changing the way their audience is perceiving the video. When they click it, the viewers see it as an attack ad, without even listening to the conservative message. Instead we are pre-conditioned to see the video as an attack ad because of the re-framing of the message.

JS: At NSMNSS we’ve discussed ways that social media is not neutral. There are real control factors. Your book shows that virality is not just an organic phenomenon, there are some real control factors.  You said: “the power of network gatekeepers is hidden…this is key to social transformation in networked societies” (p. 48) and “…every tool we use on the Internet is a type of gatekeeper” (p. 57). Talk about implications of Network Gatekeepers and the power of network gatekeepers to influence politics and society…

KN: When I developed network gatekeeper theory in my dissertation I didn’t realize it would be popular 14 years later! There is a lot of information control and power dynamics in social networks. Information technology design is not neutral, it is very political, not political in the sense of partisan. When we design social networking sites we promote certain values, interests and political interests. Once we agree that technology is not neutral, we can also discuss how information control (gatekeeping) is political as well.

We see different types of network gatekeepers. Each one of us can be potentially a network gatekeeper, if we exercise any type of information control. If I ask my children not to enter to certain sites, I am creating a gatekeeping process. Network Gatekeeping Theory enlarged the traditional gatekeeping concept from selection of information, as editors did, to encompass something larger, to encompass information control.

What is the connection between network gatekeeping and virality? There is a strong connection. For something to become viral it needs to be driven by two kinds of forces. One, which is top-down, through the network gatekeepers, where certain actors exercise power and information control and help to spread the information. The other is a bottom up force, about information influence, that is organic, sharing data and interests between people and networks. When these two forces come together, that is when virality happens.

Almost every viral event goes through network gatekeepers. Facebook is a gatekeeper, Twitter is a gatekeeper, the government is a gatekeeper. Each one of them exercises a different level of gatekeeping, but viral events must go through gatekeepers.

JH: We are all gatekeepers in social media. Each one of chooses to share, or not share, the content we come across. When we choose share it, we broadcast it out to our network. As a gatekeeper in my network, I don’t have the same kind of diffusion power that Huffington Post has. But, the 150 or so followers I have, may not be exposed to that message unless they hear it from me. So gatekeeping is a process that has to do with the choices we make.

JS: Gatekeeping seems to relate to a lot of wider issues of identity and the choices we make to create networks that promote our identity.

KN: Network gatekeeping is not only about filtering information. The main role of the new gatekeeper is to connect one network to another, like boundary spanners that are described in management literature - they can link one network to another, allowing the virality engine to spark.

Virality has the power to  challenge social structures, the institutional structures, the main basis and rules and practices that regulate behavior of people in society.  Transparency is one of the mechanism that together with virality challenges social structures - Virality has the force because with many people are exposed to the message very fast. As a result, the mass demands answers, greater accountability. It forces governments and nations, public and private institutions and people to act and respond. This power of people to share information can circumvent traditional gatekeepers and elites to demand accountability and that changes the structure of society.

JH: A lot of times we think of network gatekeepers as bad because we are afraid that they are controlling info in ways that aren’t good, but these gatekeepers also tie us together. When gatekeepers share and promote information, they give us a common experience that keeps our society linked together. So on one hand, gatekeepers can hinder important information or on the other hand they also tie us together.

JS: Can you talk about the methods used in study of blogs.

JH: We collected and analyzed large heterogenous data sets. One person who was key is Sean Walker. We collected a large amount of videos from the 2008 [US] election and blogs, stored in Sql data bases. We used social network and econometrics regression to look at life-cycles of virality. When we categorized videos, we used content analysis. Both statistical techniques and content analysis methods were used. For the book, we found new cases, involving additional data and analysis. We used a lot of existing research- with interdisciplinary synthesis of marketing, communication, computational social science, political communication, sociology, and network theory. We structured book and chapters in logical groupings that could be used to teach a course.

JS: What advice can you share with researchers who are interested in virality?

KN: Next steps involve incorporating different disciplines and not looking from just one. Compare virality today and before we had social networks, what has changed? Another thing that is important to continue and study is the impact on societal structure. We are only at the tip of the iceberg to understand the impacts.

JH: This is a new area that has really not been touched. The people who went into this first were in marketing and there is research in that area that is in depth. Then the computational social scientists have started looking at very big events with millions or billions of views or shares. But what is really missing is the qualitative social look at virality. How is this tied to identity? When people share things, why this and not that? Those are some really important questions we would like to understand. There is also this question of scale. 

Computational social scientists are interested in looking at these big events, there is almost a data fetish about looking at really big things. But a viral video that’s shared an indigenous communities in the Northwest [of the US] that just gets 5,000 views may be more impactful on that community than Gangnam Style that got a billion views and was seen all over the world. We need to think about virality as scalable. What are the boundaries? When it stops, why? What about context? Something that goes viral in the US may not go viral in Canada. We’d like to understand why. We look at tweets and videos and talk about research in other areas, but how is it that viral games that spread differently than videos? What about viral tweets versus viral news stories? There are a huge number of questions.

The methods that people need to use are every method that every researcher uses. There is a really strong case for doing qualitative work, we need to interview people to ask them why they are spreading or not spreading content. We need to do grounded theory to understand these questions from the ground up. We need to keep doing the big data quantitative analysis, because that does give us a perspective. But I think this is a topic that can be studied many different ways, in different fields. I hope our book is a starting point.

KN: Virality is a complex phenomenon with impacts on the individual level, communal and societal level. It is important to raise the ethical issues around virality, because when something goes viral the spread of information is out of control. Once something becomes viral, it is hard, almost impossible to control. The non-controllable nature of virality raises hard questions about privacy or breach of privacy of individuals. What are the limits, what are the red lines of society? What are the ethical rules that we employ in terms of the data we analyze? Can we use the data? The easy way is to think it is OK if we anonymize the data. But if someone is harmed there is no way back, the life of the person, the course of history will change because of that virality.

The 7^th chapter attempts to think forward about the concept of virality. The question we need to ask ourselves is: what will we be left with? What will history look like 200 years from now because of viral events, sharing and many-to-many interactions? It is not like the traditional gatekeepers can only give us certain pieces of information, like they used to 200 years ago. Now that we have viral events being curated, what will that mean for history, for the many narratives that constitute history? Are we going to get a more equitable and just society because we hear more narratives? Or maybe the opposite, because of the power interactions behind the scenes? What will be the prevailing narratives when people look back at our time? What are we leaving to the next generation in how we archive these viral events?

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I hope NSMNSS readers can grasp the discussion—and research— potential for the topics covered in the book, Going Viral. For this reason I think it would be a terrific text in a course where generative conversations could be had with future researchers of digital culture and communications. If you are doing research in a related area, I hope you will use the comment area to share ideas and links to your work.

PS. I did not pay Jeff to make that comment about the need to do interviews about the motivations for online sharing, but I hope it goes viral!