About Research Proposals
According to Dr. Sandra Jamieson, a research proposal is a roadmap for a research topic; it guides the research and keeps it on correct track, or road (Jamieson, 1999). The main purpose of a research proposal is to explore a topic more intensively and discover potential problems during research or experimentation. Through writing the proposal, it may be discovered if an idea is feasible, or how an idea can be modified or reworked to create a unique, more virulent research topic. There are several parts to a good research proposal; these include the title, statement of purpose, background, significance, description, methodology, problems, and bibliography. I will summarize the aforementioned sections.
Statement of Purpose: What is the motivation for students to engage in playful, stalker-like behavior on social networking sites? How has this affected the nature of friendship?
Tentative Title: Stalk Me!: Social Networking and the Changing Nature of Friendship
Research Proposal
Introduction: The future of the past brings to mind halcyon days of yore in which flying cars, instant dehydrated feasts, and robotic attendants all populate our daily activities Little could the science fiction writers of the not-so-distant past predict that in 2010 the very basic unit of human connectivity, the friendship, would be one of the most rapidly changing units in a sociological context. Websites such as Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and Stickam have all created a new age of friendship, for better or worse.
The rise of social media and networking has only been a recent undertaking. In 2000, the internet was still accessed by the likes of dial-up AOL; cell phones were a fashion of the upper-middle class, and utterances such as “unfriending”, “creeping”, “tweeting”, and “digging” would have drawn an askew eyebrow. With the advent of widespread broadband connectivity, the open standardization of internet protocols, and the Web 2.0 revolution, the dawning of social media had begun before the hangover from the last millennium dissipated.
The definition of social media is, ironically, one of the most difficult phrases to define because of its very nature. Generally, social media is summarized as content which is user-created, modified, and shared among a population through electronic media. One subset of social media is social networking: the use of media to create a network of persons in pursuit of a common goal. One of the most common usages of social networking today is assisting real-life friends to create virtual friendships in a network. However, as the population of the globe increases, a paradigm shift is occurring as more people will be born after social media has become a societal norm. More friendships will begin in virtual networks rather than in a brick-and-mortar world which seems so ironically artificial.
The nature of my research will concern a phenomenon yet to be named in academia, but is commonly referred to as “Facebook creeping” or “Facebook stalking” among the college populace. The playful stalker-like behavior I describe is not limited to Facebook; it spans all social networks. My desire is to discover why students are motivated to actively seek information about friends of friends when there is no real-life relationship. I wish to study the likes of approximately 100 of my peers at Indiana University of Pennsylvania via an online survey to quantitatively gauge the motivations for participation in this behavior.
Background: Debatin et al. conducted a study showing a double standard between privacy comprehension and personal information disclosure on social networking websites. Threats to privacy were perceived as more of a threat to those “that asked for it” rather than to themselves. Some people tend to view online activities via a “third-person-effect”, whereas reasonable expectations of privacy area abolished in favor of disclosure because they feel a lack of personal responsibility for their actions (Debatin et al., 2009). This may contribute towards play-stalking behavior. This behavior may be encouraged by results found by Ellison, Steinfeld, & Lampe which shows that friendships formed online are more long-term and casual, which could lead to the possibility of a one-sided friendship where one party continues to monitor the activities of another (Ellison, Steinfeld, & Lampe, 2007). The risks for online stalking behavior are exacerbated by a study undertaken by Kuntsche et al., which demonstrates a strong correlation between social media usage and face-to-face contact among friends. This would seem to suggest that more popular students would have a higher rate of being stalked due to the number of mutual friends (social capital) and time spent online (Kuntsche et al., 2009).
On the subject of how social networking has affected friendships, many more studies have been performed, but the challenge will be integrating this information specifically with the information on “creeping” also known as “play stalking”. One study of note was conducted by Sheldon, which is entitled “The relationship between unwillingness-to-communicate and students’ Facebook use.” This study strengthens arguments with Kutsche et al. that extrovertedness is more likely to correlate with more friendships formed exclusively online. For introverts, “respondents who felt anxiety and fears in their face-to-face communication used Facebook to pass time and feel less lonely more than other respondents, but they had fewer Facebook friends” (Sheldon, 2008). In a related study, Tong et al. discovered that there is a curvilinear relationship between the number of friends on Facebook and the perceived social attractiveness of a peer. In other words, there is a perceived optimal number of friends in social networking sites (Tong et al., 2008). Too few friends and a person is perceived as a recluse, and too many friends leads to an association of an extreme introvert who cannot carry on real-life friendships or an extreme extrovert whose friendship is not as substantial due to the abundance of friends.
Some of my own presumptions about motivations to engage in stalking and general constructs about social media are as follows:
- Social media due to ‘global flattening’ has placed the focus on individuals rather than groups of people; people are now more willing to take the spotlight because they have more of a focus in Life 2.0
- People see online friendships as more dispensable, because online friendships can be terminated with more ease and less confrontation than real-life-only friendships.
- Stalker-like behavior on social network sites has become a societal norm within the college complex.
- The said behavior is almost universally participated in, however it is considered shameful and an invasion of privacy when in the company of peers, giving rise to a double standard.
- People may engage in reviewing information about themselves on their own profiles in order to boost their self-esteem or revise their internal image of themselves.
- There are fundamentally different attitudes towards reasonable expectations of privacy among age groups; specifically younger age groups encourage the behavior.
Methodology: To complete my research I will distribute a survey to approximately 100 students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, who have an online social networking identity and have used it in the past week. On my survey, I will ask questions concerning their attitudes towards social networking, use of technology, whether or not they have engaged in play-stalking in the past month, their attitudes towards a reasonable expectation of privacy, societal acceptability of play-stalking, questions on self-esteem, how often they update their profile, and finally their attitudes towards closeness of friendship and “disposability” of online friendships.
Limitations: One concern is that students may not be completely honest about their attitudes towards expectation of privacy, or may in fact have a double standard which is self-censored when answering the survey. I suspect that many people engage in playful stalking, however, they would not answer this truthfully if they see the mere suggestion that some have a right to privacy. Therefore, I will have to construe the questions in such a way as to prevent bias. One other potential limitation is finding enough participants to engage in a study. I wish to perform meaningful statistical analysis, so my minimum cutoff will be 30 participants, however it is much preferred if 100 are surveyed, as it allows for more leeway if outliers are found or a multi-dimensional pattern needs to be analyzed.
References
Debatin, B., Lovejoy, J., Horn, A., & Hughes, B. (2009). Facebook and online privacy: Attitudes, behaviors, and unintended consequences. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 15(1), 83-108. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01494.x.
Ellison, N., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook ‘friends:’ Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x.
Kuntsche, E., Simons-Morton, B., ter Bogt, T., Sánchez Queija, I., Muñoz Tinoco, V., Gaspar de Matos, M. Santinello, M., Lenzi, M. & HBSC Peer Culture Focus Group. (2009). Electronic media communication with friends from 2002 to 2006 and links to face-to-face contacts in adolescence: an HBSC study in 31 European and North American countries and regions. Int J Public Health. 2009 September; 54(Suppl 2): 243–250. doi: 10.1007/s00038-009-5416-6.
Sheldon, P. (2008). The relationship between unwillingness-to-communicate and students’ Facebook use. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 20(2), 67-75. doi:10.1027/1864-1105.20.2.67.
Tong, S., Van Der Heide, B., Langwell, L., & Walther, J. (2008). Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(3), 531-549. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2008.00409.x.
Research Outline
- Introduction
- Personal Anecdote & Humor about Facebook creeping
- Statement of purpose
- Important Definitions for the non-technical
- Background
- A brief history on the rise of social media, distributed computing, and social networking in the last five years
- A brief explanation of the sociological aspects of friendship formation
- Explanation of cyberstalking and its prevalence
- Social media and the need to feel famous for more than fifteen minutes
- Reasonable expectations of privacy among various age groups and demographics
- How do online friendships compare to face-to-face friendships?: A brief summary
- The “third-person” syndrome and guilt associated with stalking
- The double standard between privacy concerns and engagement of Facebook creeping
- Methods
- Anonymous online survey
- Sample survey questions
- Outlier checking & Correct Data Analysis
- Participants
- Ideally, 100 IUP students who have participated in social networking activities in the past week.
- Limitations
- Not all students will be honest in their responses, even in an anonymous survey.
- Must be very careful as to not lead into certain questions, as it could modify a student’s opinion towards a previous answer as they attempt to cover up their social faux paus.
- Problems with getting a large enough sample size
- Results of Study
- Demographics of those surveyed
- Averages of all statistics
- Analysis
- Why do people engage in Facebook creeping?
- What kind of demographic is the usual target of Facebook creeping?
- How does the nature of the stalking vary between acquaintances, close friends, and strangers?
- Does Facebook creeping constitute a form of stalking as determined by public attitude, both in practice and theory?
- Conclusion
- Summarize findings of research
- Suggest further research and tangents
- Discuss possible improvements to research
- Draw back to conclusion
The title, while the shortest part of the proposal, may be one of the most important. While many are told to not judge a book by its cover or title, many peers may judge a research paper by its title. A good title should be intriguing, concise, and descriptive. Research proposals should include a clear and concise purpose, which contains questions which can be easily answered in a conclusion (Jamieson, 1999). The background should provide the reader with an explanation as to why the topic was chosen, and any relevant personal experience and interest to the subject. The significance is one of the most crucial parts, as it can re-energize the researcher and guide them on the right ‘road’ if they are stuck during the research process (Jamieson, 1999). The significance explains why the topic is important to society and how will the results of the research affect the knowledge in the field. The significance should also explain how the research will provide a new perspective to the field. The methodology section should provide a detailed explanation of how the research will be conducted. Specifically, the reader should know what types of sources will be used and how the data is extracted and analyzed. One of the final sections is “Problems”, which lists all potential issues which may arise during research and how they may be confronted. However, no method of testing is perfect, so unforeseen problems may arise, and the research proposal may be modified as the research becomes more in-depth (Jamieson, 1999). Finally, a complete and properly formatted bibliography is necessary for reference and fact-checking among peers.
About Research Outlines
(Added February 3, 2010)
A research outline is a tool for preparing a first draft of a research essay. Like the research proposal, it will also serve as a roadmap, but more specifically for the essay itself rather than the conduct of the entire project. The research outline will help you determine if there is enough or too much material to support your thesis (Samuels). Research outlines will generally consist of five or more subtopics, with several statements and supporting evidence for each one of these. The order should be in a logical manner and transition well. All of these subheadings should draw back to the thesis statement. Finally, there should be a conclusion to the outline to summarize all of the points and reference the thesis (Samuels).
Works Cited
Jamieson, Sandra. Writing Research Proposals. 1999. 1 February 2010. <http://users.drew.edu/sjamieso/research_proposal.html>
Samuels, Holly. Making An Outline 2004. 3 February 2010. <http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/14_Making_An_Outline.asp>
