In a very timely seminar, Dr Rebecca Whiting (Birkbeck University of London) and Prof Katrina Pritchard (Swansea University) will be discussing their approach to qualitative online data collection and analysis. This will be both practical and reflective in orientation.

To register for the zoom link and to save the event to your calendar, please go to:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/collecting-qualitative-online-data-registration-129772295429

In this session, we consider our methodological journey in using qualitative online data in a project that set out to map the language of age at work using Web 2.0 data. We explain how and why we developed a methodology to enable our empirical examination (e.g. of how age, age identities and related concepts such as generations are socially constructed in relation to issues of work). We introduce and explain two related and flexible approaches that we term ‘tracking’ and ‘trawling’. These approaches, at either end of a methodological spectrum, use a variety of digital (often proprietary) means to collect selected material from the Internet.

Like interviews, these digital methods are flexible and can be used to investigate a wide range of topics, within different research paradigms, and produce data that can be analysed using various methods. However, whereas interviews are well-established methods of data collection, these technology-enabled approaches are much less developed in terms of what they are, when and where they can be used and how to carry them out. We outline the generic steps in collecting online qualitative data, illustrated with examples from our own and others work.

At the heart of this journey has been a reflexive approach to examining the fundamental assumptions we have as researchers, such as what constitutes data and participants and how to apply ethical frameworks to the Internet context. We unpack these and how we addressed challenges encountered along the way, for example, through piloting. We conclude by looking to future developments in the use of qualitative online data in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic and given the evolving and ephemeral nature of multi-modal digital material.