Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Andy Coverdale
A former interdisciplinary postgraduate student, Emily is in her 2nd year at a doctoral training
centre exploring spiritual technology. A self-confessed social media sceptic, she has cautiously
engaged in blogging and using Twitter.
James is a part-time student studying for a Humanities PhD. He set up several blogs and Twitter
to initially connect with specialist online communities for his research into collecting cultures, but
has since used these to establish connections with other researchers in his field.
Hannah is a 3rd year PhD English student and an early adopter of social networking sites. More
recently, she has become a prolific user of Twitter and she set up a PhD blog to develop a
professional online profile. Hannah is also engaged in social media activities with a number of
activist and special interest student groups.
Chris is a 2nd year PhD at an interdisciplinary doctoral training centre examining approaches to
using technology as advocacy for people with learning disabilities. With an arts and teaching
background, he has retained a web-based network of previous work contexts.
Rebecca is a 2nd year doctoral training centre student with a design and entrepreneurial
background. She has used a range of social media for first time to establish connections between
academic and professional networks. She was also instrumental in establishing the Google group
and external facing group blog for the doctoral training centre.
Paula, a 4th year humanities student at a Russell Group university, set up a Facebook group that
was to become instrumental in creating an international network of doctoral students in her field.
She has also used social media to engage key communities as part of her fieldwork, and to
support a number of interdisciplinary student initiatives and an external internship project.
Data Collection and Analysis
The study adopted a holistic perspective of social media activity based on a number of key
assumptions:
Academics who engage in using social media often use multiple tools and platforms
Underlying technologies (for example, hypertext and RSS) and related processes (such as
aggregation, subscription and tagging) provide persistent forms of interconnectivity between
different social media
The adoption and use of social media is transient in nature, subject to changes in technological,
social and cultural trends
Membership of academic communities and networks formed through, or supported by, social
media tend to be interrelated and overlapping in nature
Participants’ social media activities consisted primarily of using personal and group blogs, social
networking sites, microblogging and content sharing sites. Specific social media were selected as
sites for observation in agreement with each participant in accordance with ethical procedures.
Observable data were defined as that resulting in new or modified digital artefacts, such as a blog
post or a tweet, and semi-permanent features such as profiles. Participants also submitted links to
any additional activities on sites not observed by the researcher (e.g. commenting on other blogs).
Field notes were taken to examine contextual information regarding individual, community, and
institutional factors, and participants’ relational values within their various online communities and
networks (such as those identifying location, academic disciplines and hierarchies). Three individual
90-minute interviews were conducted with each participant at roughly four-month intervals, using a
semi-structured format of open-ended questions. All interviews were recorded and fully transcribed.
Multiple object-oriented activity systems were drafted and refined throughout the study in an iterative
process between key stages of observation and participant interviews. All digital artefacts were
logged and codified, and key exemplars were selected as sources of reference and prompts during
interviews. Rather than using activity systems to pre-define the coding process, a constant
comparative method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) of open coding was adopted to provide an inductive
and systematic process of examining the data. At each key stage, initial codes were formed, refined
and merged until a point of saturation was reached, after which a process of axial coding was used to
develop the larger categories or themes on which the activity systems were based. Thick description
from field notes and interview data helped develop participant narratives from which patterns of social
media adoption and use could be determined.
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