Citizen journalism and video diaries on Facebook

Facebook wanted to build a better understanding of what was important to teens and young adults in the 13-to-24-year-old age group This group is often seen as homogenous, and Facebook needed to build a more detailed and granular understanding of the individuals who would represent the next generation of consumers.
Working with research agency Crowd DNA, an expert in cultural research, a range of research approaches were applied including a large-scale online survey and interviews of consumers across 13 key markets (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Norway, Sweden, UK and the USA). A subset of this group was selected to take part in a form of citizen journalism to use their mobile devices to record short mobile video accounts of various aspects of their everyday lives, such as friends, family and their social and educational lives.
This technique, and the ability for it to enable participants to collect research data without being accompanied by a researcher, created a degree of candidness and depth that would not have been available from traditional techniques. Additionally, the importance of using visual rather than text-based methods to reach these demographics was highlighted by the researchers:²⁵

people growing up today express themselves via a new visual vocabulary, often replacing the need for text. It’s important that brand content be in a language that young people speak and that language is increasingly visual. Our work highlighted the need for brands and marketers to think about assets that will resonate for an image-oriented generation.

Data integrity

In a Formula One Racetrack Project, carried out by IFM Sports Marketing Surveys, the data were obtained by face-to-face and telephone interviews. As the questionnaire was developed and finalised, a preliminary plan was drawn up of how the findings could be analysed. The questionnaires were edited by a supervisor as they were being returned from Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the UK. The questionnaires were checked for incomplete, inconsistent and ambiguous responses. Questionnaires with problematic responses were queried with supervisors in each of the eight countries. In some circumstances, the supervisors were asked to re-contact the participants to clarify certain issues. Thirty-five questionnaires were discarded because the proportion of incomplete or unsatisfactory responses rendered them too poor to use. This resulted in a final sample size of 2,050.
A codebook was developed for coding the questionnaires; this was done automatically as the questionnaire was designed using the SNAP software (www.snapsurveys. com). Data were transcribed by being directly keyed in as the telephone interview mode was conducted. In the face-to-face mode, data were transcribed using personal digital assistants (PDAs) as the interviews were conducted. The software has a built-in error check that identified out-of-range responses; 10% of the data were verified for other data entry errors. The data were cleaned by identifying logically inconsistent responses. Most of the rating information was obtained using five-point scales, so responses of 0, 6 and 7 were considered out of range and a code of 9 was assigned to missing responses. If an out-of-range response was keyed in, the SNAP software issued an audible warning and prohibited any continuation of data entry. New variables were created that were composites of original variables. Finally, a data analysis strategy was developed.