Data
In our Sociology 49 class, we built/create/wrote a common
questionnaire. This questionnaire withheld many questions that related to media
in our world today and people’s views on what is too much media, etc. Our class
was interested in the relationships people had with their use of social media
and their thoughts on such relationships. We wanted to find out more
information about our respondent’s opinions about how people decided what is
too much media and what isn’t enough. We wanted to find out what people thought
was important and unimportant for our society when it comes to media. And we
wanted to see the benefits and the disadvantages that were created by the use
of social medias by our interviewees. We gathered information on gender, age,
whether the person considered themselves as an introvert or extrovert,
race/ethnicity, marital status, education, work status and where people live
and have lived. We also included questions regarding ownership of digital
devices, frequency of use, thoughts on enhancement or distractions of the
digital device in relationships, trustworthiness, security, and reasons for
posting. We also created questions that were fill in answers were
required. This allowed our respondents to give their personal opinion and it
also gave them the option to explain in a lot of detail depending on if they
thought it was an important question to answer or if they had a lot to respond.
By building the common questionnaire, I learned that every
answer had to contain the complete list of all possible answers. In addition these answers also had to be
worded in a way that respected all people’s beliefs and feelings. As a class we
had to work to keep the questionnaire intriguing and interesting, because if we
didn’t, then the respondents would get bored by the questionnaire and
eventually lose interest in wanting to answer the questions accurately and
beneficially. Even though as a class we didn’t keep the questionnaire as short
as we should have, we attempted to make the questions clear and collective in
order for no confusion when filling out the survey. We had to think and
consider many ways to word the questions.
We were required to survey 2 people that were 18-29, 2
people 30+, and 1 of any age group for a total of 5 participants. Personally,
I ended up interviewing 11 people because I wanted the most information that I
could get. I interviewed 5 females ages 18-29, 2 males ages 18-29, 1 female 30+
and 3 males 30+. After asking each respondent and after consent, I read the
ethics section to them and then proceeded to walk them through the online
questionnaire that we created on Surverymonkey.
Living on campus, it was hard to reach out to the older age
group because mostly my own age group surrounds me. This forced me to make time
for a phone interviews in order to reach out to the older age group.
Fortunately, I was able to ask friends and teammates for their time to survey.
Methods
Because I am interested in the relationship between social
networking sites and the difference in gender reaction in terms of body image,
I chose to analyze four questions. One of my questions is quantitative and the
other three are qualitative.
Question 1: How do you identify yourself in terms of
gender?
Male/female
Question 2: What is important to you when you put a
photo of yourself online? Do you edit them? Why or why not?
Open ended
Question 3: How do images and pictures (on Facebook,
Pinterest) make people feel about their bodies and/or self-images?
Open ended
Question 4: How do you think the information you put
online affects people's perception of you?
Open ended
I chose these questions because previous studies have shown
that there is a relationship between social networking sites and the difference
in gender reaction in terms of body image. I am interested in what else is said
about this relationship from other females, as well as males. Therefore, asking
these three questions for me was important because I wanted to see how
differently females and males let media affect their perception of their body
image.
Since the data that I decided to look at are answers to
qualitative questions and free response answers only, I had to organize the
qualitative data by recoding the different themes. I identified the three most
common themes from the responses and compared the answers between the two
genders.
I preformed the following steps in order to code my date.
First, I removed any respondent that did not answer one or more of my
questions. Then, I coded my data into the following categories:
For my first question regarding gender, there were only two
categories that were selected; Male or Female. I had 81 males and exactly 81
females as well.
For my second question, ‘What is important to you
when you put a photo of yourself online? Do you edit them? Why or why not?’ After reading through the data, I noticed
three reoccurring and common themes. First, I noticed that many of the
respondents stated that it was okay to post a picture as long as it was
appropriate for other people to see, like their family, friends or co-workers.
For my respondents inappropriate pictures included having alcohol in the
picture, being noticeably drunk or looking unprofessional. I coded this theme
as “Appropriate.” My second theme
that I noticed was how they looked in the picture. People had different
reasoning’s to what picture was appealing to them or not but I decided to code
this one as “Beauty”. My third coded
theme was simply, “Don’t”.
Surprisingly enough, there were quite a few males that said they don’t post pictures
of themselves online.
For my female
respondents, I found similar themes to the males. The biggest difference was
that there weren’t as many females that didn’t put pictures online because most
of them did. They stated that what was important to them though was appearance.
A lot of females stated that all that mattered was that they looked good. This
theme was coded as “Beauty” as well.
The second theme that I noticed, women cared about what other perceived of
them. Not only did it matter if they looked good in the picture, but that they
looked happy and that they were having fun. I decided to code this as “Appearance.” Even though there weren’t
as many females as males, I still found a theme that they don’t post pictures
online. I coded this theme as “Don’t.”
For my third question, ‘How do images and pictures (on
Facebook, Pinterest) make people feel about their bodies and/or self-images?’ I
realized that there were only two main themes from the male respondents. One
theme that I recognized was that images and pictures online make people feel
more confident and therefore, they develop a higher self-esteem. I recoded this
one as “Positive,” because it states
that images increase a positive effect on people’s perception of themselves.
The second theme that I noticed was that images and pictures lower a person’s
self-esteem and makes them more insecure. I recoded this on as “Negative,” because it represents the
negative effect that people think images and pictures on social medias have on
people’s perceptions of their body. Although these were the two main themes,
respondents also had answers that included both positive and negative effects.
I recoded this as “Neutral,” because
they stated that social medias could have a positive and negative effecting
depending on the person.
There wasn’t much of a difference with gender when it came to
the respondent’s answers. The only big difference that I noticed was the detail
the females went into regarding body image and how it could affect other people;
some even stated their own experiences. I decided to recode the females, the
exact same way that I recoded the males with “Positive,” “Negative,”
and “Neutral.”
For my forth question, ‘How do you think the information you
put online affects people's perception of you?’ After reading the respondents
answers, I noticed that this question had a variety of different replies. One
reoccurring reply that I saw was that the information that an individual puts
online, influences what others think of them. I have decided to recode this as
“Judged.” Regardless of it was a
positive or negative assumption of who you really are, the person who is
viewing you is going to have their opinion and make assumptions. Regardless
what the poster wants to convey to their audience, the audience is going to have
either their own perception. Another common theme that I saw with the male
respondents was, that it depended on if it was a stranger or someone that knew
them well. I am going to recode this as “Depends.”
A majority of the males respondents stated that everyone judges, but there were
a few that said that people don’t judge off of social medias, or that they
don’t put enough up on social media for someone to judge them. I am going to
recode this as “Don’t,” because
these respondents belief that it doesn’t effect people’s perception of them.
For the female’s respondents, the themes seemed to be
similar in the sense that the opinions of others can either be positive or
negative, depending on how they view it as an individual. I have decided to
recode this as “Judged.” Also, the
female’s stated that what you put on social media is information that can
easily be judged by the audience, and depending on the person, it can either be
positive or negative opinion. If they know you, it doesn’t necessarily change
their opinions because they already have a relationship of you. But if the
person is unfamiliar with who you are, then all they have to judge you off of
what you put online. I will recode this as “Depends,” because some of the female’s stated that it depends on
the relationship between the poster and the audience. Similar to the males, the
females also stated that people don’t judge off of social medias, or that they
don’t put enough up on social media for someone to judge them. I am going to
recode this as “Don’t,” because
these respondents belief that it doesn’t effect people’s perception of them.
Ethics
In order to be sensitive we carefully considered how the
questions would make people feel. Every respondent was read the following text:
“I am requesting your participation in an interview of
approximately thirty minutes for a class project. The questions will include
background information such as age and gender as well as questions about
political beliefs, news and media consumption, and values. The results of the
research study will be part of my final research project for a class I am
taking this term. The information will only be used in this class by other
students and will be published on a website for my final project. At the end of
the study, the data will be erased and the website will be removed. Your participation
in this study is voluntary. All information is anonymous. No names or
identifying information is being collected or will be used.
Pseudonyms will be
used for all data collected. If you do not wish to answer some or all of the
questions you are free to say "pass" or "next question" or
"decline to state" at any time. At any time you may stop participating,
change your mind about answering any questions, and/or withdraw from the study
altogether. You may stop the interview at any time, for any reason.
Do you consent to participate? (YES answer necessary to
proceed).
Thank you!”
We considered the following ethical concerns: making sure
that respondents knew they did not have to answer every question, obtaining
informed consent, and removing all identifying information. We respected
anonymity.
