Title & Author of Article:
“News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience” by Lee, Chei Sian & Ma, Long
Research Question(s):
“How do gratification and experiential factors influence users’ intention to share news in social media?” (Lee & Ma, 2012)
What type of research question is it?
Qualitative
Use the criteria from Developing Strong Research Questions and determine whether it is a strong research question.
This research question is a relatively strong one because it meets much of the criteria listed in “Developing Strong Research Questions” (McCombes, 2019). While it does focus on more than one type of factor (“gratification” and “experiential”), it is still focused and narrow in the question itself. It is not a closed-ended question, as closed-ended questions “don’t provide enough scope for investigation and discussion” (McCombes, 2019). It asks “how” rather than “why,” as “why” questions are often regarded as “too open to serve as good research questions” (McCombes, 2019). Overall, the question is easily-understood and can be feasibly answered, making it a strong question.
Title & Author of Article:
“Understanding News Sharing across Social Media - Detailing distribution on Facebook and Twitter” by Kalsnes, Bent & Larsson, Anders Olaf
Research Question(s):
• What are the characteristics of the news stories that are frequently redistributed in
these ways?
• Which news organizations are most successful in ‘going viral’ implying the spread
of a thing on social networks (Mills, 2012)
• Which, if any, differences can be discerned between the news shared on the two
social media platforms under scrutiny?” (Kalsnes & Larsson, 2017, p. 2)
What type of research question is it?
Qualitative & Quantitative
Use the criteria from Developing Strong Research Questions and determine whether it is a strong research question.
Unlike Lee & Ma’s (2012) study, Kalsnes and Larrson’s (2017) study has multiple research questions-- three, to be exact. I They “all clearly relate to [the] central aim” of the study (McCombes, 2019). The second question defines the term “going viral,” as it is important that terms in a research question “have clear meanings” to avoid confusion (McCombes, 2019). The first question, however, seems to be a bit vague-- what exactly are “these ways” (Kalsnes & Larsson, 2017)? Additionally, I find the last question to be a bit wordy and potentially confusing. Overall, I don’t find these research questions to be very strong-- at least not as strong as Lee & Ma’s (2012).
Research Questions:
•What role does social media play in relation to the spread of COVID 19 information?
•What impact does social media have on perceptions of COVD-19?
What type of research questions are they?
Qualitative
Use the criteria from Developing Strong Research Questions and determine whether it is a strong research question.
These questions are relevant because they are asking things that “have not already been answered” (McCombes, 2019), as COVID-19 is relatively new and there are currently not many studies in existence pertaining to it. They aren’t closed-ended (cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no” response) and are “complex enough to develop the answer over the space of a paper or thesis” (McCombes, 2019). I am unsure if they can be answered within a “feasible timeline,” however (McCombes, 2019). A survey will yield results but, since the COVID-19 pandemic is relatively new and ongoing, can these questions even be answered honestly? I believe these questions are strong, but they may need to be altered before I conduct my study.
Title & Author of Article:
“News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience” by Lee, Chei Sian & Ma, Long
Participants/Setting:
203 undergraduate and graduate students at the same local university with prior social media experience
What type of data was collected?
Quantitative & Qualitative
How did they collect the data?
They sent out a questionnaire with five Likert-type-scale responses to all participants
How did they analyze the data?
•Confirmatory factor analysis
•Structural equation model
•Chi-square
•Goodness-of-fit index (GFI)
•Adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI)
•Comparative fit index (CFI)
•Root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA)
In your opinion, which had the clearer research design?
I feel that this study had much clearer research design. It was very clear about its participants and setting and it used a basic but thorough research tool “Likert-style” survey. The data was primary-- it was “collected through a survey and then analyzed” (McCombes, 2019). The study is also very clear in how researchers analyzed the collected data. It was very clear in its methodology, and the description of the research design itself was very comprehensive.
Title & Author of Article:
“Understanding News Sharing across Social Media - Detailing distribution on Facebook and Twitter” by Kalsnes, Bent & Larsson, Anders Olaf
Participants/Setting:
Data was collected from Facebook sharing and Twitter retweets from a selection of Norwegian news organizations
over the span of one year regarding multiple Norwegian news outlets
What type of data was collected?
Quantitative
How did they collect the data?
Norwegian analytic company Storyboard provided numerical data over the course of one year for the researchers to analyze
How did they analyze the data?
Data analysis was purely qualitative-- they compared the statistics from different social media platforms and types of news stories to draw their conclusions
In your opinion, which had the clearer research design?
I feel that this study had the weaker design. For starters, the researchers didn’t seem to actually “conduct” any research-- they just got their statistics from a secondary source (Storyboard). Additionally, they were not very specific in their participants. Yes, the study got its data from Norway, but what other demographics were involved? The data analysis was also a bit difficult to comprehend. Unlike Lee & Ma (2012), Kalsnes & Larsson (2017) do not explicitly devote a section of their article to data analysis. Their analysis was qualitative, which has its benefits. “Analyzing words or images is often a more flexible process that involves the researcher’s subjective judgements,” according to McCombes (2019,) but it still doesn’t appear nearly as thorough as the former’s.
Sources
Kalsnes, B & Larsson, A. O. (2017). Understanding News Sharing Across Social Media. Journalism Studies, 19(11), 1669-1688. doi:10.1080/1461670x.2017.1297686
Lee, C. S., & Ma, L. (2012). News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 331-339. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.002
McCombes, S. (2019). Developing Strong Research Questions: Criteria and Examples. Retrieved from https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/research-questions/
McCombes, S. (2019). Research Design: Types, Methods, and Examples. Retrieved from https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/research-design/
Admittedly, the literature review is not the most fun-filled portion of the paper to write; however, this activity helped me to better analyze articles and hence better incorporate them into my review. While my research questions were already completed by the time I started this activity, I think analyzing my own research questions was something I really had to do. While this activity did not inspire me to alter them, it did raise some important questions regarding them.