Keywords
Citation
(2014), "2013 Awards for Excellence", Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Vol. 12 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-03-2014-001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2013 Awards for Excellence
Article Type: 2013 Awards for Excellence From: Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, Volume 12, Issue 1
The following article was selected for this year’s Outstanding Paper Award for Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society
"Contesting methodologies: evaluating focus group and privacy diary methods in a study of on-line privacy"
Danijela Bogdanovic, Michael Dowd, Eileen Wattam and Alison Adam
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on and evaluate focus groups and privacy diary/interview methods used in a qualitative study of online privacy.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a discursive evaluation of two methods employed to study online privacy, informed by and situated in interpretive and constructivist approaches to knowledge.
Findings – The paper argues for the value of qualitative research methods in study of online privacy. It confronts the positivist paradigm that informs much of the work in the field by foregrounding the need for methodological plurality in the study of privacy as relational, situated, dynamic and contextual. It deals with the notion of “sensitivity as well as introducing often neglected issue of logistical challenges in qualitative research.
Originality/value – The paper contributes to the existing debates about the value of employment of qualitative research methods broadly, as well as in the study of online privacy more specifically. It demonstrates a range of advantages and challenges in use of the two methods, providing recommendations of how to supplement them. It opens up the discussion of process of sensitizing of the participants and thus the “co-construction of knowledge.
Keywords: Diary, Diary interview, Evaluation, Focus groups, Online privacy, Research methods
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/JICES-03-2014-001
This article originally appeared in Volume 10 Number 4, 2012. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society