How is campus climate reflected and/or perpetuated on Facebook / social student use of the internet?
Who are the key groups and individuals here? How do they relate to those in the face to face world?
How do we connect our research methods to our research questions?
Facebook groups and user patterns (content analysis/ethnography) can reflect student use of the internet and demonstrate potential values and interests in regards to campus and race.
Content Analysis and Ethnography
- We should look at a variety of groups – what’s the most common, what’s most cherished? What is the membership composition of each group? Who is using each group, how active are they? Are these groups reflective of RSO’s or other face to face organizations? Racial Stereotype related groups?
- Personal actions – how many people signed petitions in regards to the Chief? How many people changed their picture to that of the Chief to protest the removal?
- Other more free-lance Chief-related internet usage. CU-community forums? DI stories and responses. NWC response. Tacos and Tequila response.
- Events on Facebook – who was invited?
- Collaborative observation – I’ll get this going on the blog – so we can make links to the various pages, groups, events, people, pictures, and more that we’re observing!
While I’m expecting a fair amount of segregation and colorblind behavior I also think there’s going to be a separationist trend from the cultural subset groups.
Interviews with Prominent Players
Probably should have a different interview set for each one. Our highest priority questions ought to involve those related to campus climate.
Initial Interview Question Ideas
- How safe do you feel on campus? How much of that do you feel is related to your race? How about on Facebook? Do your feelings on safety, privacy, and expression differ here?
If there’s some way we can tease gender out of campus safety this would be good. I’d worry we’d get a lot of women frightened by campus and that this would alter
- Does everyone have an equal voice on campus? Are minorities represented as they should be? Same questions, but for Facebook – does everyone on it have an equal voice? Who are the ‘majorities’? Are minorities represented as they ought to be on Facebook?
We get to see if they take this to a quantitative measure or qualitative one.
- What sorts of programs help encourage cultural and racial diversity on campus? Do you participate in any of these programs? Are these programs extended or enhanced by Facebook, ICT’s or virtual communities?
I suspect most white people will say there are good cultural programs in an unspecific manner and then not participate in any of them. Most minorities will probably be in ones directly related to their background.
- Do you feel there is a lot of racial integration outside of classes at UIUC? In living arrangements? RSO’s and clubs? Sports and sporting events? Idea exchange and communication on the internet? News and Media publication?
Going more in depth, but I think we’ll see some interesting responses.
Survey Questions
Difficult to do because we need to make this as short and non-bias as we possibly can. First, assess what we want to know and then develop questions thereof. Each section would be premised with a short introduction as to what it’s about.
How much do they use Facebook (frequency and intensity). (page 1)
- How often do you log on to Facebook?
- How much time do you spend on it daily?
- What do you usually do on Facebook? (short check box list)
How connected and assertive are they? Leadership aspects. (page 1)
- Do you administrate or help to administrate any groups?
- How often do you send events or messages related to events to friends? To groups?
- How many Facebook friends (contacts) do you have?
- How many Facebook groups that are connected to face to face organizations do you belong to?
What are their views on the Chief? (page 2)
- Would you identify yourself as Pro or Anti Chief?
- Do you agree or disagree with the decision to retire/remove the Chief?
- Did you change your Facebook profile picture to the Chief symbol to protest the decision?
- Do you feel the Chief represents…? (based on typology being developed by another group in the class – ideally check boxes dealing with different categories of view – so racism, school pride, honor, bravery, etc…)
What are their views on Race and Racism? (page 3)
- Pull a few from Jioni’s set, not sure what these will be yet.
- There should be something in here about their thoughts on campus climate and race
What are the demographics of our survey takers? (page 4)
- Year in school
- Academic area
- Greek membership
- Gender
- Race/ethnicity (for simplicity use census set with the ability to mark multiple boxes)
- Do we want to do sexuality?
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