To outline the current trajectories in digital social research and to highlight the roles of qualitative research in those trajectories.
Abstract
Purpose
To outline the current trajectories in digital social research and to highlight the roles of qualitative research in those trajectories.
Design/methodology/approach
A secondary analysis of the primary literature.
Findings
Qualitative research has shifted over time in relation to rapidly changing digital phenomena, but arguably finds itself in ‘crisis’ when faced with algorithms and ubiquitous digital data. However, there are many highly significant qualitative approaches that are being pursued and have the potential to contextualize, situate and critique narratives and practices of data.
Originality/value
To situate current debates around methods within longer trajectories of digital social research, recognizing their conceptual, disciplinary and empirical commitments.
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Danielle D. King, Richard P. DeShon, Cassandra N. Phetmisy and Dominique Burrows
In this chapter, the authors present a conceptual perspective on resilience that is grounded in self-regulation theory, to help address theoretical, empirical, and practical…
Abstract
In this chapter, the authors present a conceptual perspective on resilience that is grounded in self-regulation theory, to help address theoretical, empirical, and practical concerns in this domain. Despite the growing popularity of resilience research (see Linnenluecke, 2017), scholars have noted ongoing concerns about conceptual confusion and resulting, paradoxical, stigmatization associated with the label “resilience” (e.g., Adler, 2013; Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, & Klieger, 2016; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000). The authors seek to advance this domain via presenting a clarified, theoretically grounded conceptualization that can facilitate unified theoretical advancements, aligned operationalization, research model development, and intervention improvements. Resilience is defined here as continued, self-regulated goal striving (e.g., behavioral and/or psychological) despite adversity (i.e., after goal frustration). This self-regulatory conceptualization of resilience offers theoretically based definitions for the necessary conditions (i.e., adversity and overcoming) and outlines specific characteristics (i.e., unit-centered and dynamic) of resilience, distinguishes resilience from other persistence-related concepts (e.g., grit and hardiness), and provides a framework for understanding the connections (and distinctions) between resilience, performance, and well-being. After presenting this self-regulatory resilience perspective, the authors outline additional paths forward for the domain.
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This chapter critically evaluates the literature on digital consumer data and the ways in which it can be used in digital social research. The chapter illuminates how researchers…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter critically evaluates the literature on digital consumer data and the ways in which it can be used in digital social research. The chapter illuminates how researchers have to conceptualise and negotiate digital data, focusing upon ethical and procedural challenges of employing digital methods.
Approach
The chapter draws upon and integrates a broad research literature from sociology, digital media studies, business and marketing, as these have opened up new directions for research design and method. It advocates interdisciplinary approaches to conceptualising what digital data is employing the concept of ‘marketing narratives’ to understand how the new visibilities of consumer data are shaped by related processes of branding and the interactivity of content.
Findings
The chapter shows how the capacities of digital technologies present significant challenges for researchers and organisations that have to be carefully negotiated if the potentials of digital consumer data are to be harnessed. In addition, researchers should pay attention to novel issues of ethical responsibility in the context of the longer-term presence of data records.
Value
The chapter offers a set of guidelines for digital social researchers in negotiating the meanings of visible digital consumer data, the ethical and proprietary issues involved in utilising digital methods.
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Angus Bancroft, Martina Karels, Órla Meadhbh Murray and Jade Zimpfer
This chapter examines the history and process of research participants producing and working with data. The experience of working with researcher-produced and/or analysed data…
Abstract
This chapter examines the history and process of research participants producing and working with data. The experience of working with researcher-produced and/or analysed data shows how social research is a set of practices which can be shared with research participants, and which in key ways draw on everyday habits and performances. Participant-produced data has come to the fore with the popularity of crowdsourced, citizen science research and Games with a Purpose. These address practical problems and potentially open up the research process to large scale democratic involvement. However at the same time the process can become fragmented and proletarianised. Mass research has a long history, an exemplar of which is the Mass Observation studies. Our research involved participants collecting video data on their intoxication practices. We discuss how their experience altered their own subject position in relation to these regular social activities, and explore how our understanding of their data collection converged and differed from theirs. Crowdsourced research raises a challenge to the research binary as the work is done by participants rather than the research team; however it also reaffirms it, unless further work is done to involve participants in commenting and reflecting on the research process itself.
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Diet therapy or nutritional therapy has become a real challenge in the fight against the increasing number of modern illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases…
Abstract
Diet therapy or nutritional therapy has become a real challenge in the fight against the increasing number of modern illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancers. The scientific community has recognized the importance of studies that will support or rebut the association of certain nutrition/energy inputs with the prevention and/or improvement of certain diseases. Patient counseling is offered by medical doctors, nutritionists and dieticians, but patients often seek additional sources of information from popular media that may not be adequately scientifically supported. Whose responsibility is it when the Diet Therapy is not an effective treatment and where does the consequent ethical and moral responsibility lie?
This chapter argues for the importance of a nutritionally educated scientist evaluating the diets that are seen to be related with the health improvement also excluding diets that are mostly related to the patients’ well-being as the Mediterranean, DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), Ketogenic and Vegetarian diet. Diet guidelines are often explained with linguistic variables (as “reduce the input of” etc.) which can be differently perceived by the end user. The interpretation if a linguistic variable is presented using the body mass index categories using a bell-shaped curve. The preferable area fits to the linguistic variable “acceptable BMI.” But also are indicated those areas which are less preferable. Those examples of information interpretations show the necessity of knowledge transfer. The quantity of information presented in diet guidelines can be experienced as a great muddle for patients; leaving them not knowing where and how to start. So, remains the ethical and moral responsibility of all links in the chain of nutritional and diet research and recommendations. Only objective and open-minded recommendations based on the latest scientific facts can gain confidence of the social, economical, and political subjects which must put the well-being of the population uppermost in their mind.
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Rita Bissola and Barbara Imperatori
The aim of this chapter is to explore employee behaviors and expectations of the role of social media when searching for jobs, to offer recruiters and companies valuable insights…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this chapter is to explore employee behaviors and expectations of the role of social media when searching for jobs, to offer recruiters and companies valuable insights to design and manage appropriate web-based employer branding and recruitment strategies.
Methodology
The research strategy is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews involving 34 central informants: talented Gen Yers and social media recruitment experts and mangers. The project focuses on the Italian context, an exemplary country with the highest social media penetration rate.
Findings
The results demonstrate the “bounded” popularity of social media as a recruitment tool among Gen Yers who implement up to five active and passive behaviors, albeit not all widespread, according to varying patterns and using different social media for different purposes: receiving, seeking, sharing, leading, and experiencing. Gen Yers, with aims that vary in line with various staffing phases, collect and share rumors and voices from both internal and controlled organizational sources but also, and above all, from external and organizational sources that companies do not control directly.
Practical implications
Social media seem to offer appealing and valuable opportunities to attract and engage talented young individuals, sustaining the quality, quantity, and fairness of employment relationships. Conversely, they also involve some organizational risks and costs. The chapter offers some managerial cautions and advocates a radical change in the prevalent HRM mindset for the improved management of transparency that social media solutions entail.
Originality/value
Results contribute in understanding how social media can better sustain employer branding and recruitment activities, especially considering the needs and expectations of talented young employees and professionals in the Italian context. Italy is an emblematic context, where the social media potential appears to be extremely interesting, considering its high rate of social media penetration.
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This chapter provides a comprehensive review of research and developments relating to the use of Web 2.0 technologies in education. As opposed to early educational uses of the…
Abstract
This chapter provides a comprehensive review of research and developments relating to the use of Web 2.0 technologies in education. As opposed to early educational uses of the Internet involving publication of static information on web pages, Web 2.0 tools offer a host of opportunities for educators to provide more interactive, collaborative, and creative online learning experiences for students. The chapter starts by defining Web 2.0 tools in terms of their ability to facilitate online creation, editing, and sharing of web content. A typology of Web 2.0 technologies is presented to illustrate the wide variety of tools at teachers’ disposal. Educational uses of Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, blogs, and microblogging are explored, in order to showcase the variety of designs that can be utilized. Based on a review of the research literature the educational benefits of using Web 2.0 technologies are outlined, including their ability to facilitate communication, collaborative knowledge building, student-centered activity, and vicarious learning. Similarly, issues surrounding the use of Web 2.0 tools are distilled from the literature and discussed, such as the possibility of technical problems, collaboration difficulties, and plagiarism. Two case studies involving the use Web 2.0 tools to support personalized learning and small group collaboration are detailed to exemplify design possibilities in greater detail. Finally, design recommendations for learning and teaching using Web 2.0 are presented, again based on findings from the research literature.
Marius Gabriel Petrescu, Maria Tănase and Teodor Dumitru
Human society is going through an interesting period in terms of the challenges it faces. The most interesting problems are environmental problems. In support of protection of the…
Abstract
Human society is going through an interesting period in terms of the challenges it faces. The most interesting problems are environmental problems. In support of protection of the environment in which we live, we must find efficient and clean (ecological) solutions, at the same time, for the materials and technologies that are the basis of the goods production. In this context, the problem of means of transport, in general, and land road transport, in particular, will remain one whose solution will probably mark multiple stages in the attempt to abandon fossil fuels. Even if this problem will be solved, the travel routes – roadways – represent an additional challenge in terms of construction materials and technologies but also in terms of maintenance and rehabilitation technologies. In the context of Industry 4.0, the concerns in the field of road execution and repair are more and more obviously aimed at elements of the circular economy. Solutions are sought and experimented for: reuse of degraded asphalt material, incorporating reused/reusable materials into the asphalt mixtures and the implementation of ecological execution technologies. In this work, it is intended to carry out an analysis regarding the technical and technological solutions implemented or in the proposal/experiment stage that respond to the desired "Sustainable technologies for road maintenance and rehabilitation".