Volume Two - Academic Conferences

3. Findings
Andy Coverdale
With the final set of participant interviews forthcoming, data analysis is ongoing at the time of writing.
The following findings are therefore to be considered as emergent and not fully formed. Key
discussions around emerging themes and implications for the remainder of the study and are
presented in the next section.
Localised and Distributed Research Cultures
Academic cultures, evident in participants’ pre-doctoral and current institutional environments, have
shown to have significant influence on the role of social media in facilitating established and emergent
peer networks. Either through choice or through programme requirements, participants have also
engaged in additional and varying practice contexts external to thesis-specific commitments, including
internships and work placements, and participation in student initiatives and special-interest groups.
This has required them to negotiate a wide range of practice contexts that have included
ethnographic, entrepreneurial and activist agendas.
Paula’s direct transition from Masters to PhD within the same university department ensured
continuity with an established peer group, replicated in her Facebook group, which channelled the
occasional, inconsistent and fragmented academic-related discussion within the mainstream chat into
a bounded, recognisable and purposeful community. For Paula, subsequent network development
through this and other social media (especially Twitter) corresponded with her increasing participation
in the conferencing circuit, as the group quickly extended beyond the geographical limits of the
university campus to attract considerable numbers of postgraduate students worldwide.
In comparison, Hannah’s doctoral experience was far less smooth. Obliged to follow her supervisor to
a different university, to be then transferred across several departments, she was denied the
opportunity to develop a sustainable relationship with a supportive research community. Crucially, this
reinforced her reliance on previous peer groups from her former university, particularly strengthening
ties through her established blogging community. Similarly Chris, with strong reservations about the
‘business-orientated’ focus of his doctoral training centre, actively sought to participate in alternative
teaching and learning spaces aligned with fees and cuts protests, establishing links through with an
emerging and interdisciplinary network of radical academics. He saw the explicit connections revealed
through his blogging and social networking activities as instrumental in establishing a left-field profile
and dissenting voice.
This contrasts with Rebecca’s close affinity with the research culture and agenda of her doctoral
training centre, embracing its entrepreneurial spirit and the opportunities for establishing key
connections with external design-based companies early in her PhD. She was active in promoting
social media initiatives within the centre, participating regularly in the student Google group and
helping establish an externally facing group blog. James’s attempts at establishing a sustainable
online platform with his departmental colleagues proved less fruitful. Returning to academia after a
long break, his part-time mode and requirement to travel long-distance to his university left him
isolated from his departmental research community. Increasingly drawn to seeking other doctoral
students online, James found emergent academic communities oriented around Twitter hashtags and
the Tumblr blogging network.
Research Scope, Foci and Peripherality
Participants have used various indicators with which to understand the scope and nature of their
doctoral enquiry. Literature reviews and the conference circuit have constituted primary contexts for
participants to map their research field and initiate a process of locating themselves and their
research. Understanding how the scope of doctoral enquiry may be represented and conceptualised
through social media practice requires an approach which recognises it is implicit not only in the
content of participants’ digital artefacts, but also in the content they curate and share (links, retweets
etc.), and in the identifiable communities and networks they participate.
Delimitations regarding scope and peripherality are traditionally defined by disciplinary boundaries,
and to an extent all participants described themselves as interdisciplinary. In her initial experiences of
conference networking, Emily found it difficult locating people with similar interdisciplinary ‘footprints.’
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