Online Research : The Microblogging And Public Sphere

The Internet has been changing the world since it is created. As a part of new media, social media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. It has been helped to create a digital global village that 26% of the world’s population is using social media and the number is keep increasing. (Qualman, 2013) This essay will attempt to discuss how has the social media changed the public sphere, mainly focus on the improvement of public participation, social relations and information dissemination. Also Mainland China is taken as an example to show that social media enabling democracy in a developing country. Social media is also being used in good ways to spread information. There are some disadvantages to be analyzed, too. The issues like lack of privacy, social media violence and social media out of control will be discussed in this essay.

Face-to-face interviews will be interview guide approach where there will be an outline of topics and issues that the interviewer will cover with the participant (Babbie &Rubin, 1993). Having an outline it allows the researcher to compare responses between participants and it reduces the interviewer biases (Babbie & Rubin, 1993). An outline is constructed where it will guide the researcher with the participant from one concern to another but in a conversational approach (Babbie & Rubin, 1993). Moreover, a study without any set structure the researcher and participant can get side tracked and not answer the questions needed for the study research. The length of the interview will be approximately thirty minutes, but there will be no time restriction. The information will be recorded similar to a focus group, with a recording device and notes occasionally. Before analyzing the data, the researcher will examine his or her “own thoughts and feelings” because it’s a crucial process in understanding the participants (Babbie & Rubin, 1993, p.

The pilot study conducted in this research shows that there were a few problems within the overall design of the interview and therefore the researchers decided to make some minor changes to their design, these changes included altering the questions so they were open ended, they also made the interview less structured in able to gain more focused answers in which they could analyse.

The interviews were recorded on tape this was good method of recording because sometimes when the information is written it can be translated different by the person who is recording the answers as they may interpret it differently. The other drawback that occurred in this study is that the exact design of the questions been asked to the respondents varied, this can affect the results as one person may elaborate more than someone else and therefore has the opportunity to be asked further questions. “The exact format of each individual was determined by the participant, as the individual questions presented to each person varied according to earlier individual responses.” (Appendix 1)

How are Twitter, blogs, and social media networks taking over our culture? In Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter are Transforming Popular Culture, Marry Cross attempts to figure out how cyberspace is changing our behavior along with our culture. She uses a multitude of different sources to back up her claims, which makes the book highly interesting and makes the reader desire to learn to a greater extent about what she's trying to figure out. Her fascination with this subject leads on to explore all of the possible reasons why people are extremely fascinated with the internet, mainly Twitter and blogging, and how much it has affected our daily lives. Additionally, she also discusses how traditional printed material like newspapers, books, and magazines are at risk thanks to the internet along with music CDs and DVDs due to people downloading movies and music off of websites.

The results were broken down among the four themes and six subthemes. Within each theme and subtheme the authors adequately and effectively summarized the results. They provided sufficient evidence and examples of what participates said within the interview process. Each section was broken down and explained in detail what each section was, which made it easy to follow the results. The results do follow the descriptive theory by using human experiences to produce insightful descriptions

As of the end of December 2013, the users in China had risen to 618 million with the social network usage rate, which includes blogs and personal spaces, standing at 70.7%. The duo also show that these sites had become the main channel through which people gleaned information; in addition, they suggest that Chinese social network sites differed from similar sites in other countries where Facebook held the lion’s share of the market; by contrast, the ranking in China is Qzone (50%), Renren (37%), Sina (36.6%), 51com (27.1%) and Kaixin

The interviews were performed and recorded in a cell phone, by at least two members of the group per interview, and occurred between the 17th of November of 2015 and the 5th of December of 2015. They consisted in the questions showed in the table asked after some introductory questions created to know the interviewee. The introductory questions were:

The literature addressing the connection between political engagement and social media has offered diverse findings. Some scholars, such as Venezuela, Bode, Park and Kee, and Zhang, Seltzer, and Bichard discovered positive relationships between social media and political engagement. Following this, scholars Valenzuela and Vitak et al, Zuniga and Jung comprehended affirmative relationships as well, but with some limitations to specific kinds of social media. These studies confirmed a constructive relationship between social media and political engagement, but with restraints and limitations regarding citizens who would probably be engaged even without employing new media. For instance, Zuniga et al pointed out that social media may contribute to the production of networked society, but the study also has shown that the effect of social networking sites for political efficacy did not have a meaningful relationship. Vitak et al stressed that social media, Facebook in particular, may encourage a rise of political participation, for instance, through online petition, but this type of participation has little to no real world impact. However, some studies have not found a strong correlation between social media and political participation. Baumgartner and Morris, for example found low effects of social media on political engagement and political outcomes. The study has shown that “in spite of the promise social networking sites hold for increasing political interest and

As an increasing amount of people have gained access to the internet, with incrementally faster-paced networks, it has found itself an exceedingly popular platform in which users have the freedom to discuss topics of choice to an extensive and unlimited viewership. Consumers of the news have adapted to forms of new media, such as online news, blogs, social media sites, and microblogging sites such as Twitter, which not only has the potential to give users content and information at unimaginably high speed, but also the opportunity to share their own personal material. This allows for everyone to become a 'journalist ' at a low (or free of) charge at an even faster speed than traditional media organizations, therefore incorporating a grassroots dimension to the media.

Methodology: a qualitative methodological approach is proposed, the techniques that will be used are in-depth semi-structured interviews and discussion groups. Interviews and discussion groups will be recorded and subsequently transcribed, then the information will be encrypted and will be

Data to be analyzed includes interview transcriptions as well as general observations, and reflections of each interview. Interviews will be recorded via audiotape and later transcribed for analysis. Initial data analysis will occur after each interview, and the researcher will write a brief reflection of the interview focusing on common themes, categories, patterns, and relationships. Preliminary reviews may reveal areas that the researcher overlooked in the interviews and allow time to address these topics in future interviews. Initial themes and categories identified in the data will help the researcher develop codes to be used later for a systematic analysis of the data.

Weibo is seems like the real-time monitoring system for China to supervise what has already happen in China. New York Times discussed the increasing popularity of Weibo has already built the debate and critical kingdom in the inner social of China in order to profoundly alter the theory formation and social feature of China. For its benefits, it could improve the supervision by the public and push forward the civil society. While in China, as civil enjoy the freedom and space in Internet, the Internet is full of a great numbers of unidentified rumors. The net citizens could not distinguish the true or false of rumors. The judgment of information posted in Internet is rumor or truth is extremely important for citizens, as net citizens need face with

Social media has grown at phenomenal rates over the past decade, with its rise being easily visible in several fields such as publishing, business, and activism, among others. The rise of its use in the field of politics is well known by those who are on and off social media, as a result of increasing number of politicians using this global platform to their maximum advantage.

The method of data collection I’ve chosen to proceed in this investigation is interview. The reason for choosing this method is because of the features of a semi-structured interview, it includes a list of predetermined questions that will be use to refine the topic of the interview for which it will also helps to provide the interviewee with some guidance of what to talk about, enabling the interviewers and the respondent to diverge and elaborate in order to pursue an idea or response in greater depth and details beside of answering directly to what they are required to answer by the predetermined questions.(Britten N, 1999)