Digital Workflows: Special Issue Roundtable 2

Interested in online research? Register now for a May 2024 webinar, “How to do research in a digital world,” livestreamed from the Center for Advanced Internet Studies with Janet Salmons, CAIS fellow, and other researchers from the center.

by Janet Salmons, PhD Manager Sage Research Community
Dr. Salmons is the author of Doing Qualitative Research Online (2022).

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How do you design, organize, and manage qualitative research using online tools and applications?

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Jessica Lester and Trena Paulus co-authored the book Doing Qualitative Research in a Digital World (2021). They co-edited a December 2023 special issue for the Sage journal, Qualitative Inquiry, “Qualitative inquiry in the 20/20s: Exploring methodological consequences of digital research workflows.”

This special issue focuses on the reciprocal relationship between the digital tools and spaces that we use and the methodologies and methods that we take up in designing and carrying out a qualitative research study.

In addition to reading this excellent collection of articles, you can also listen to the contributors discuss their research, trends, issues, and design considerations. This is the second roundtable discussion; see the first roundtable here.

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Digital Workflows: A roundtable discussion with contributors to the special issue

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Roundtable Participants and Their Articles

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• Pengfei Zhao and Peiwei Li
  Co-authors of “The Affordances of Videoconferencing Technology for Doing Interviews With Children Online: Methodological Explorations Based on a Critical Ethnography.”
  Abstract: In this article, we engage with the concept and theories of “affordance” in the adoption of digital tools to perform qualitative inquiry. We first raise the question of what is afforded when we use online digital tools such as Zoom to interview young children (5–10 years old) and then draw on empirical examples from our multi-sited critical ethnography with transnational Chinese children to illustrate our key methodological points. We lay out three dimensions along which the concept of affordance can be conceptualized: the relational, the embodied situational, and the social-cultural. We discuss the potential to map out a critical approach to enable qualitative researchers to practice reflexivity in technology-mediated qualitative research.

• Vivek Vellanki
  Author, “Image Technologies and Visual Methodologies: Reflections, Experimentations, and Future Redirections.”
  Abstract: More images have been made and circulated in the last decade than in all of the 20th century. This is a startling yet obvious fact that illustrates the central role that images have come to play in contemporary life. However, technological changes in image-based practices have outpaced methodological responses to these transformations. In this article, I reflect on some of the drastic transformations that have occurred over the last two decades within the realm of image-making, image-circulation, and image-engagement. I ask: How are emerging tools and practices of image-making and image-circulation shifting how we understand and use visual methodologies? How might an engagement with the works of contemporary artists offer insight into methodological concerns and offer possible methodological responses? To answer these questions, I place artistic works in conversation with scholars who address methodological concerns. I focus on two key aspects of image-based practices: the nature and structure of cameras, and the form of the image alongside the modalities of engaging, circulating, and analyzing images. In each area, I identify a focal artist and a scholar whose work(s) can respond to emergent concerns. Through this dialogue, this article brings to light emergent concerns for scholars interested in engaging with visual methodologies.

• Pengfei Zhao and Jessica Lester

  Co-authors of “Digital Worlds and Our Folding Realities: Implications for Qualitative Inquiry.”
  Abstract: In this article, we think with the ongoing conversations on “embracing digital worlds” through juxtaposing the methodological practices enabled by “digital worlds” with the writings of science fiction. Specifically, we leverage the criticality of a Chinese sci-fi text, Folding Beijing, to shed light on issues of equity and justice in qualitative inquiry. This approach allows us to interrogate, problematize, and trespass the boundaries of the digital worlds as well as the underlying digital infrastructure. We discuss three types of boundaries that shape our use of digital tools/spaces: broadband internet accessibility, the borders of language, and universal design and digital inclusion.

See the first roundtable discussion about the special issue, “Digital Worlds and Our Folding Realities: Implications for Qualitative Inquiry.

The discussion featured Susan Naomi Nordstrom, author of “Good, Bad, and Hopefully Not the God Trick: Technological Systems in Qualitative Inquiry,” Shannon A. B. Perry, author of “Embodying Affective Intra-Actions Online: Enacting Posthuman Methods in Virtual Spaces,” Darcy E. Furlong, author of “Enabling Crip Time With Digital Tools in Qualitative Inquiry,” and Luc S. Cousineau, co-author of “Methodology in Motion: Reflections on Using Appnography for the Study of Dating Apps.”

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