Eliciting data on social relationships: The use of hand-drawn network maps in tracing the perception of digitally mediated social ties

• Authors: Cornelia Reyes
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The emergence of online social networking platforms established a new way of identifying ourselves as being related to other individuals. Previous research has looked at the impact these ‘networking’ applications have on individuals’ everyday lives. Nonetheless, obtaining convincing data on how individuals assess the quality of digitally mediated social relationships has often been perceived challenging. Drawing on a methodological framework rooted in a social network analysis approach, this paper traces the suitability of hand-drawn network maps for eliciting data on how individuals give meaning to digitally mediated social relationships by comparing it to traditional tools used in social network analysis. The results show that using hand-drawn network maps in this particular context provides respondents with a more tangible resource to recall data on digitally mediated social relationships. In particular, this methodological approach elicits substantial data on abstract thematic areas that are typically difficult to recall using standardised techniques.

Keywords

EN

graphic elicitation; social network research; online social networking platforms; arts-based research; mixed-methods social networks research

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: International Review of Social Research
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 256-268

Dates

published

2016-10-01

received

2016-04-01

accepted

2016-06-20

online

2016-11-17

Contributors

author

Cornelia Reyes

• London School of Economics and Political Science

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/irsr-2016-0027