Can Digital Research Be An Alternative Method During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Indonesia?
Keywords:
COVID-19, Digital research method (DRM), Indonesia, social and humanities researchAbstract
Unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic entails uncertain conditions, which lead people to seek alternative solutions to make activities running accordingly. Limited movements due to travel restriction and health protection confine people’s activities, including the research process. Postponing research activities is arguably not the best solution for scholars, mainly while conducting data collection. In social and humanities research, researchers mostly undertake data collection through field studies and face-to-face communications prior to the pandemic. Social distancing procedures, however, encourage people to avoid close contacts and cancel visit plans. Thus, researchers are necessary to find an alternative method during uncertainty situation. Digital research method (DRM) seems to be a plausible way to keep research ongoing, although the implementation of that method in the developing countries’ research activities, compared to the developed countries, remains lagging behind. This research aims to position DRM amidst the pandemic situation and show possibilities in using this method as an alternative in the developing countries by taking Indonesia as a case study. Results show that to make DRM works in Indonesia, some requirements need to be fulfilled to meet academic standards, and whether relevant or not the research topic applies to be processed utilizing digital method are also essential to be considered.
References
Bailey, J., Mann, S., Wayal, S., Hunter, R., Free, C., Abraham, C., & Murray, E. (2015). Digital Research Methods and Optimum Research Methodology to Evaluate Digital Interventions. In Sexual Health Promotion for Young People Delivered via Digital Media: A Scoping Review (pp. 73–83). National Institute for Health Research. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK326976/
Beer, D. (2013). Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Blanke, T., & Prescott, A. (2016). Dealing with Big Data. In G. Griffin & M. Hayler (Eds.), Research Methods for Reading Digital Data in the Digital Humanities (pp. 184–205). Edinburgh University Press.
Boellstorff, T. (2012). Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. Princeton University Press.
Brooker, P., Barnett, J., Cribbin, T., & Sharma, S. (2016). Have We Even Solved the First ‘Big Data Challenge?’ Practical Issues Concerning Data Collection and Visual Representation for Social Media Analytics. In H. Snee, C. Hine, Y. Morey, S. Roberts, & H. Watson (Eds.), Digital Methods for Social Science (pp. 34–50). Palgrave Macmillan.
Bruns, A & Burgess, J. (2016). Methodological Innovation in Precarious Space: The Case of Twitter. In H. Snee, C. Hine, Y. Morey, S. Roberts, & H. Watson (Eds.), Digital Methods For Social Science (pp. 17–33). Palgrave Macmillan.
Burgess, J. (2014) From “broadcast yourself” to “follow your interests”: Making over social media. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 18 (3), 281-285.
Burke, M., Marlow, C., Lento, T. (2010). Social network activity and social well-being. Proc. ACM CHI 2010 Conference Human Factors Computer. System, Atlanta, Georgia, pp. 1909–1912. New York: ACM.
Camaroff, J., & Camaroff, J. (2012). Theory from the South: A rejoinder. The Johannesburg Salon, 30, 1–11.
Duca, D., & Metzler, K. (2019). The Ecosystem of Technologies for Social Science Research. In Sage Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4135/wp191101
Dutton, W. H. (2013). The social shaping of digital research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 16(3), 177-195.
Ellison, N. B., Gray, R., Lampe, C., Fiore, A. T. (2014). Social capital and resource requests on Facebook. New Media Social, 16, 1104–1121.
Ellingwood, J. (2016). An Introduction to Big Data Concepts and Terminology. Tutorial. https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/an-introduction-to-big-data-concepts-and-terminology
Evans, J. A., Aceves, P. (2016). Machine translation: mining text for social theory. Annual Review Sociology, 42, 21–50.
Ezzy, D. (2013). Qualitative analysis. Routledge.
Fiore, A. T., Tiernan, S.L., Smith, M.A. (2002). Observed behavior and perceived value of authors in Usenet news groups: Bridging the gap. Proc. SIGCHI Conference Human Factors Computer System, Minneapolis, pp. 323–30. New York: ACM.
Freeman, L. C. (2004). The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study in The Sociology of Science. Empirical Press Vancouver.
Gad, S., et al. (2015). ThemeDelta: dynamic segmentations over temporal topic models. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph, 21, 672–85. https://doi.org/ 10.1109/TVCG.2014.2388208
Haije, E. G. (2021). Top 21 Best Online Survey Software and Questionnaire Tools in 2021. https://mopinion.com/top-21-best-online-survey-software-and-questionnaire-tools-an-overview
Hampton, K. N. (2017). Studying the Digital: Directions and Challenges for Digital Methods. Annual Review of Sociology, 43, 167-188.
Hampton, K.N. (2007). Neighborhoods in the network society: the e-Neighbors study. Information, Communication, Society, 10, 714–748. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691180701658061
Hansen, D.L., Schneiderman, B., Smith, M.A. (2011). Analysing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a Connected World. Morgan Kaufmann.
Hewson, C. (2016). Ethics Issues in Digital Methods Research. In H. Snee, C. Hine, Y. Morey, S. Roberts, & H. Watson (Eds.), Digital Methods for Social Science (pp. 206–221). Palgrave Macmillan.
Hine, C. (2008). Internet Research as Emergent Practice. In Hesse-Biber & Leavy (Eds.), Handbook of Emergent Methods (pp. 525-541). The Guildford Press.
Horton, R. (2000). North and South: bridging the information gap. The Lancet, 355(9222), 2231–2236. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(00)02414-4
Howard, R. G. (2016). Digital Network Analysis: Understanding Everyday Online Discourse Micro- and Macrosopically. In G. Griffin & M. Hayler (Eds.), Research Methods for Reading Digital Data in the Digital Humanities (pp. 165–183). Edinburgh University Press.
Hutchinson, J. (2016). An introduction to digital media research methods: how to research and the implications of new media data. Communication Research and Practice, 2(1), 1–6.
Illingworth, N. (2001). The Internet matters: Exploring the use of the Internet as a research tool. Sociological Research Online 6(2), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.600
James, N. and Busher, H. (2009) Online Interviewing. Sage Publications.
Jones, S. (1999). Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net(S. Jones (ed.)). Sage Publications.
Kazmer, M.M. & Xie. B. (2008). Qualitative interviewing in Internet studies: Playing with the media, playing with the method. Information, Communication & Society 11(2), 257-278. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691180801946333
Kendall, L. (2018). The conduct of qualitative interviews. In Handbook of research on new literacies (pp. 133–149).
Knoblauch, H. & Schnettler, B. (2012) Videography: Analysing video data as a “focused” ethnographic and hermeneutical exercise. Qualitative Research, 12(3), 334–56.
Koehn, P. H. (2014). Developments in Transnational Research Collaborations: Evidence from U.S. Higher-education Activity. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 3(2), 52–58. https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.3.2.52-58
Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content Analysis, an Introduction to Its Methodology. Sage.
Lazer, D., Pentland, P., Adamic, L., Aral, S., Barabasi, A., Brewer, D., & Chistakis, N. (2009). Computational Social Science. Science 323, 721-723. https://doi.org/ 10.1126/science.1167742
Levenberg, L., Neilson, T., & Rheams, D. (2018). Research Methods in the Digital Humanities. In Routledge International Handbook of Research Methods in Digital Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429777028-1
Madge, C. and O’Connor, H. (2002) Online with the e-mums: Exploring the Internet as a medium for research. Area, 34, 92–102.
McCoyd, J.L.M. & Kerson, T.S. (2006) Conducting intensive interviews using email. Qualitative Social Work, 5(3), 389–406.
Ming-Te. (2001). Digital Divide in Developing Countries. Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 4(3), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1080/1097198X.2001.10856304.
Morstatter, F., Pfeffer, J., Liu, H., & Carley, K. M. (2013). Is the sample good enough? Comparing data from Twitter’s streaming API with Twitter’s Firehose. Proc. 7th Int. AAAI Conf. Weblogs Soc. Media, Cambridge, July 8–11, pp. 400–4088. AAAI Press.
Myers, K., Tham, W. Y., Yin, Y., Cohodes, N., Thursby, J. G., Thursby, M., & Wang, D. (2020). Quantifying the immediate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists. SSRN, 3608302, 1–39.
Nicholas, D.B., Lach, L., King, G., Scott, M., Boydell, K., Sawatzky, B.J., Resiman, J., Schippel, E. & Young, N.L. (2010) Contrasting Internet and face-to- face focus groups for children with chronic health conditions: Outcomes and participant experiences. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 9(1), 105–21.
Orgad, S.S. (2005) Storytelling Online: Talking Breast Cancer on the Internet. Peter Lang.
Pirzada, K. & Khan, F. (2013). Measuring Relationship between Digital Skills and Employability. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(24), 124-134.
Rahmat, M., Shahrani, S., Latih, R., & Yatim, N. F. M. (2011). Major problems in basic programming that influence student performance. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 59 (2012), 287–296. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.277
Rifai, B. (2020). Produktif Meneliti Melalui Metode Riset Digital.
Rifai, B., Barid, V. B., Kurniawan, F. E., & Yayusman, M. S. (2020). Model Transformasi Riset Digital Sebagai Alternatif Metode Penelitian Sosial Humaniora.
Rogers, R. (2015). Digital Methods for Web Research. Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118900772.etrds0076
Roock, R., Bhatt, I., & Adams, J. (2016). Video Analysis in Digital Literacy Studies: Exploring Innovative Methods. In H. Snee, C. Hine, Y. Morey, S. Roberts, & H. Watson (Eds.), Digital Methods For Social Science (pp. 105–121). Palgrave Macmillan.
Rybas, N., & Gajjala, R. (2007). Developing Cyberethnographic Research Methods for Understanding Digitally Mediated Identities. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research.
Salmons, J. (2009) Online Interviews in Real Time. Sage Publications.
Sandvig, C. & Hargittai, E. (2015). How to Think about Digital Research. In E. Hargittai & C. Sandvig (Eds.), Digital Research Confidential The Secret of Studying Behavior Online (pp. 1-28). The MITT Press.
Schober, M. F., Pasek, J., Guggenheim, L., Lampe, C., Conrad, F.G. (2016). Social media analyses for social measurement. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80, 180–211.
Sessions, L, F. (2010). How offline gatherings affect online communities: when virtual community members “meetup.” Information, Communication, Society, 13, 375–395.
Shapka, J.D., Domene, J. F., Khan, S., & Yang, L. M. (2016). Online versus in person interviews with adoloscents: An explorations of data equivalence. Computers in Human Behavior, 58, 361-367.
Shumate, M. & Weber, M. (2015). The Art of Web Crawling for Social Science Research. In E. Hargittai & C. Sandvig (Eds.), Digital Research Confidential The Secret of Studying Behavior Online (pp. 201-222). The MITT Press.
Snee, H., Hine, C., Morey, Y., Roberts, S., & Watson, H. (2016). Digital Methods as Mainstream Methodology: An Introduction. In H. Snee, C. Hine, Y. Morey, S. Roberts, & H. Watson (Eds.), Digital Methods For Social Science (pp. 1–11). Palgrave Macmillan.
Suarez, M. (2018). What can multi-sited and digital ethnography contribute to innovation studies in the global South?. African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and development. https://doi.org/10.1080/20421338.2018.1528703
Turner, T. C., Smith, M. A., Fisher, D., & Welse, H. (2005). Picturing Usenet: Mapping computer-mediated collective action. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 10 (4), 7. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2005.tb00270.x
Weber, M. (2017). Methodology of social sciences.
Welles, B. F. (2015). Big Data, Big Problems, Big Opportunities: Using Internet Log Data to Conduct Social Network Analysis. In E. Hargittai & C. Sandvig (Eds.), Digital Research Confidential The Secret of Studying Behavior Online (pp.223-242). The MITT Press.
Wesler H, Smith M, Fisher D & Gleave E. (2008). Distilling digital traces: computational social science approaches to studying the Internet. In N. Fielding, R.M. Lee, & G. Blank (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods (pp. 116–140). SAGE.
Wetherell, C., Plakans, A., & Wellman, B. (1994). Social Networks, Kinship, and Community in Eastern Europe. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 24 (1), 639–663.
Wildemuth, B. M. (2016). Applications of social research methods to questions in information and library science. In B. M. Wildemuth (Ed.), Applications of social research methods to questions in information and library science (2nd ed.). Libraries Unlimited.
Zhang, M. (2010). Social Network Analysis: History, Concept, and Research. In B. Furht (Ed.), Handbook of Social Network Technologies and Applications (pp. 3 – 21). Springer.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. This license allows others to remix, adapt, and build upon the work, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the same terms.
2. Authors may enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., posting it to an institutional repository or including it in a book), provided there is an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their personal website) prior to and during the submission process, as this can lead to productive exchanges and increase citations of the published work (See The Effect of Open Access ).
