[Air-L] Sampling facebook pages

Sun Sep 14 05:03:37 PDT 2014

You are really helping me to define my case more.
Lets say we are now talking about your fourth paragraph. I am already
following a set of categories of tolerance used in literature.
However when I am coding I find some text that should be put in an
additional category, so some little categories (one or two) come by.

What do you suggest?

On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 2:41 PM, Annette Markham <amarkham at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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*
>
>
>

-- 
*Noha A.Nagi*