Research Design

I figured that it was quite possible that if you're interested in my research then you're probably interested in how exactly I'm going to go about gaining a insight into readers perceptions of corporate blogs. So I decided to dedicate a post to describing my research design.

I realize that most of you don't want too much info about my methodology because lets face it it's not the sexiest of topics, to keep things simple I've posted basic links about each technique.

Anyway the research design is as follows:

• Snowball Sampling will be used to find participants.
• Semi-Structured Interviews will be used to gather data.
• The audio and visual data of these interviews will be recorded and Jing will be used to record any websites that participants decide to show me.
• I will then personally transcribe all the data...fun times!
• Two methods of Content Analysis will be used to analyze the data.
• Thematic Analysis will be used to pick up any themes of interest.
• Word frequency Analysis which is simply counting the number of times a word appears in a body of text - will also be used to triangulate the resulting themes from the Thematic Analysis and pick up any themes that may have been missed.

From all of the steps listed above I hope to be able to gain greater perspective on what it is that blog readers value and how corporate blogs can be brought in line with these values.

Please be aware that the embedded links in the above text are very simple explanations of each step in my methodology, if you have any question or would like a more in depth explanation of each technique please just ask.

Sam