[Air-L] Sampling facebook pages

Sun Sep 14 04:41:54 PDT 2014

Hmm…I’m not sure yet, so let’s get more information about what you’re doing.  If you've already developed specific codes or themes you’re looking for in the discussions, you don’t necessarily need to sample, since you could search and find within the entire population of content.  In this case, you are presumably looking for instances of ‘tolerance,’ at different levels, I suppose, which you would have pre-operationalized. This all depends on how specifically “political tolerance” can be articulated and thus identified by computer-aided coding, of course. 

But you mention qualitative analysis, which leads me to suspect that you are at an earlier stage of exploration. Would I be on the right track to assume you plan to do something like a more qualitative exploration of posts/comments, where you conduct open coding, and through this coding process, develop a list of relevant / salient categories of “tolerance”?  If this is the case, I would recommend a two step sampling approach that involves more stages of analysis.  If you need to generate relevant categories that indicate different levels or qualities of ’political tolerance,’ you might first use a sampling approach inspired by grounded theory, where you do open coding until you reach saturation. You might have a list of themes or codes that could be then transformed to categories that you’ll look for more deliberately in your second sampling/analysis.  At that point, you could return to the original sample and do another round of coding where you’re  more deliberately seeking certain instances.   If this second scenario sounds more like what you’re doing, there are many ways to sample, but I would start with this sort of sampling scheme:

sample 1: a systematic sample within the four pages that seeks to cover as many different types, instances, and levels of political tolerance as possible. To cover the entire population in a systematic but thorough way without losing your mind, you could code every x number of post/comments, gradually getting more and more covered.  
e.g., for 1000 total posts in one FB page:		
1st pass: code every 100th post (10 total)
2nd pass: code every 50th post (10 more)
3rd pass: code every 25th post (20 more) 
may need more or less, depending on point of saturation or emergence of themes. This is an exploratory, inductive process.

(this is systematic, non random, seeking variation)

Then if you are really determined to do a quantitative approach, you could develop a coding scheme that could be applied/sought in a more number-generating way by different analysts, who have been trained to find intercoder reliability, if that’s what you’re seeking.  

sample 2 would enact a more deductive approach, designed for a less open-ended analysis. This sample could be taken in a number of different ways... but I’m not the one to provide a very sophisticated set of techniques, since my strength is in the inductive/qualitative arena.

does that help?

On 14 Sep 2014, at 12:17, Noha Nagi <noha.a.nagi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello Annette,
> 
> Thanks for your recommendations.
> 
> To make it more clear.... I selected purposefully four facebook pages, but I don't want to analyze all their content (posts and comments). I am using a quantitative method mainly. 
> I will analyze content qualitatively & quantitatively and then measure the level of political toleration in discussions within the pages as an estimate for the political toleration within a society.
> 
> Will this change your reply?
> 
> On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 12:55 PM, Annette Markham <amarkham at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Noha,
> 
> Not sure what you’ve already done to establish the most appropriate sampling plan, but off the top of my head systematic is not part of random sampling.  You’re probably doing a purposeful sampling. Are you taking a qualitative or quantitative orientation to the analysis? That makes a difference in how you’ll describe (and conduct) the sample.
> 
> As for further reading:  Because these two books are sitting open on my desk, I can recommend these basic introductions to sampling concepts and terms:
> 
> Sarah Tracy’s textbook on qualitative research methods:  covers different qualitative sampling strategies (in the chapter on interviewing). http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-EHEP002631.html 
> I’ve shared a screenshot of her summary of types of sampling here, but the larger section is much more detailed: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6jmm7th5mbl0jfz/tracysamplingchart.png?dl=0
>  
> Donald Treadwell’s textbook on introducing Communication Research: presents positivist and interpretivist notions of sampling.  http://www.sagepub.com/textbooks/Book237564
> You can see a copy of Treadwell's chapter on sampling here:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/0320vm66m0gec2w/Treadwellch8Sampling.pdf?dl=0
> 
> and here’s a nice piece that cuts deeper into the ideas and complexity of qualitative sampling:
> http://corcom300-s12-lay.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/ARTICLE_Sampling_Qualitative.pdf
> 
>  Best,
> 
> annette
> 
> On 14 Sep 2014, at 11:22, Noha Nagi <noha.a.nagi at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Professors and colleagues,
>> 
>> I was wondering if there are different sampling methods for internet data
>> than the already known sampling methods.
>> 
>> For my research, I was thinking of taking a *systematic random sample* from
>> facebook posts on a each of four facebook pages. I have no information
>> about the heterogeneity between the different pages according to any
>> variable (gender, political affiliation...) so I thought it is not
>> stratified nor cluster, and it will be more likely a systematic sample.
>> 
>> 
>>    Is systematic sampling* logically right*?
>> 
>>    Did any one come across *other sampling techniques for facebook pages*?
>> or internet data in general?
>> 
>>    Can anyone suggest *a book to read about this*?
>> 
>> 
>> I would love to hear any advice from you.
>> 
>> 
>> Yours,
>> *Noha A.Nagi*
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Noha A.Nagi