2010 - Public Relations Society of America
2010 - Public Relations Society of America
2010 - Public Relations Society of America
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Method<br />
This study included screening questionnaires with 37 college students and interviews<br />
with 22 college students as the first empirical evaluation <strong>of</strong> propositions 2.1, 3.1, and 3.2.<br />
Because college students are typically savvier with social media and new technology and their<br />
use <strong>of</strong>ten sets trends for how the broader culture views technology, studying this population<br />
lends insight to future studies in this area (ECAR, 2008; Lenhart, et al., <strong>2010</strong>). Additionally,<br />
because research questions address how publics use social media in times <strong>of</strong> organizational<br />
crises, participants were asked about issues they self-identified as involving.<br />
Process. Participants were recruited through convenient and purposive means. Before<br />
conducting the interviews, the researchers launched an online questionnaire via a participant pool<br />
system at a large East Coast university. Thirty-nine students answered a brief questionnaire about<br />
daily media habits to prescreen participants, which yielded 37 valid responses—from this prescreen,<br />
22 individuals were invited to participate in in-depth, in-person interviews, which were<br />
audio-taped and fully transcribed. The researchers stopped conducting interviews once the major<br />
categories identified in the propositions displayed depth and variations (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).<br />
The interviews lasted on average 26 minutes with a range <strong>of</strong> 15 to 45 minutes. Participants<br />
received extra credit for their participation in the study.<br />
Online questionnaire and interview guide. The online questionnaire asked 19 openended<br />
questions related to older and new media consumption on a minutes-per-day and hoursper-week<br />
basis (e.g., “How much time on average do you spend reading blogs per day and per<br />
week?”) and two demographic questions (“What is your age?” and “What is your gender?”). The<br />
interview guide asked eight open-ended questions with additional probes related to the BMCC’s<br />
propositions. For example, for proposition 2.1 on participants’ motivation, the guide asked, “For<br />
what reasons do you use social media in a crisis?” For propositions 3.1 and 3.2 on the indirect<br />
influence <strong>of</strong> social media, the guide asked, for example, “How did you first learn about the<br />
crisis?” and “Did you talk about this crisis with friends, family, and/or coworkers?”<br />
Analysis. Analysis occurred during and after data collection. During data collection, the<br />
researchers immediately transcribed interviews, sharing transcripts, observer comments, and<br />
memos. This co-current data collection and analysis process allowed the researchers to capture<br />
early themes and identify needs for shifting questions or approach. Once the interviews were<br />
completed, the researchers systematically analyzed the transcripts through Miles and<br />
Huberman’s (1994) data analysis procedures: data reduction, data display, and conclusion<br />
drawing/verification. During data reduction, interview transcripts were coded using Atlas.ti and<br />
Excel. First, using Atlas.ti, researchers coded comments relevant to the theoretical propositions.<br />
During this stage, the researchers also coded for data that did not fit into the propositions (i.e.,<br />
outliers) and developed new codes for this data. During data display, the researchers merged any<br />
related codes into common themes using Atlas.ti and then exported the data into an Excel<br />
spreadsheet for each theme, called checklist matrices. Lastly, during conclusion drawing/<br />
verification, researchers reviewed the matrices to identify the multiple meanings that emerged<br />
from the data, noting commonalities as well as discrepancies in interpretation.<br />
Findings<br />
On average, the 37 questionnaire respondents most frequently spent time using social<br />
networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace (M = 27.40 hours/week, SD = 77.55), reading<br />
newspapers (M = 7.28 hours/week, SD = 25.15), and reading blogs (M = 7.15 hours/week, SD =<br />
27.12) (see Table 2). As expected, there was a wide variety in the respondents’ media<br />
consumption as evidenced by large standard deviations.<br />
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