Helene Snee

Adoption and use of Web 2.0 in scholarly communications

Sharing research resources of different kinds, in new ways, and on an increasing scale, is a central element of the unfolding e-Research vision. Web 2.0 is seen as providing the technical platform to enable these new forms of scholarly communications. We report findings from a study of the use of Web 2.0 services by UK researchers and their use in novel forms of scholarly communication. We document the contours of adoption, the barriers and enablers, and the dynamics of innovation in Web services and scholarly practices. We conclude by considering the steps that different stakeholders might take to encourage greater experimentation and uptake.

On Social Class, Anno 2014

This article responds to the critical reception of the arguments made about social class in Savage et al. (2013). It emphasises the need to disentangle different strands of debate so as not to conflate four separate issues: (a) the value of the seven class model proposed; (b) the potential of the large web survey – the Great British Class Survey (GBCS) for future research; (c) the value of Bourdieusian perspectives for re-energising class analysis; and (d) the academic and public reception to the GBCS itself. We argue that, in order to do justice to the full potential of the GBCS, we need a concept of class which does not reduce it to a technical measure of a single variable and which recognises how multiple axes of inequality can crystallise as social classes. Whilst recognising the limitations of what we are able to claim on the basis of the GBCS, we argue that the seven classes defined in Savage et al. (2013) have sociological resonance in pointing to the need to move away from a focus on class boundaries at the middle reaches of the class structure towards an analysis of the power of elite formation.

Taking the next step: class, resources and educational choice across the generations

Most young people in the UK now stay on in education or training when they finish school. Numbers will continue to increase following the implementation of raising the participation age. Despite an upward trend in further education participation, young peoples pathways continue to be shaped by class and gender. This paper explores the choices and decisions made by young people in their final year of compulsory schooling and describes how these class and gender inequalities are reproduced. We also spoke to parents about their own trajectories and their involvement in guiding their childrens next steps. Our concern is with young people in ‘the middle’: not most at risk of social exclusion, but certainly not the most privileged. The decisions at this key transitional point are socially embedded. Processes of class reproduction and class mobility are dependent upon both structural context and access to advantageous resources. The opportunity structures for our participants were very different for the two generations. We note the wider role that social resources play at this moment, and the classed differences between the children of parents who had experienced some upward mobility and those who had remained in working-class positions.

Doing Something ‘Worthwhile’: Intersubjectivity and Morality in Gap Year Narratives:

Gap years are often put forward as an opportunity to engage in individualized, reflexive, identity work. In contrast to this position, I draw upon a qualitative analysis of young peoples travel blogs to highlight the tendency for gap year narratives to stick to standard scripts. Four key narratives frame gap years, which centre on making the most of time to do something worthwhile. I explore issues of intersubjectivity in the representation of gap year experiences, in terms of tacit consensus, moral boundary-drawing and reflexivity prompted by dialogue. Considering intersubjectivity in such accounts can add to our understanding of critical reflection in self-development strategies without resorting to the voluntarism of a reflexive model of identity. It also provides a critique of the individualized responsibility placed on young people to make the right choices.

Making Ethical Decisions in an Online context: Reflections on using blogs to explore narratives of experience

Internet research methods can present some challenging ethical dilemmas. Although they are subject to the same guiding principles as ‘offline’ research, it can be difficult to apply these online given the blurring of boundaries presented by digitally-mediated environments. This paper considers a study that utilised personal blogs as primary data to outline two common ethical tensions in internet research: whether online communications can be considered public or private, and whether the people who produce them can be considered subjects or authors. The study examined the narratives of young people who took gap years overseas as represented in their travel blogs. While the blogs were technically public, they contained personal information, and individual perceptions or expectations of privacy can be different. The paper also explores how to establish if human subjects are involved in internet research, including the difficulties of protecting identity and the case for recognising authorship when appropriate. In line with contemporary scholarship on internet research ethics, this paper highlights the need for a contextual approach that recognises the specificities of the communications studied, the methods employed to generate and analyse data, and how the research is disseminated. The decisions made in the gap year study are critically evaluated, and alternative options presented, including a focus on ensuring that data are not linked to individuals without consent. The article aims to contribute to dialogue and debate in online research ethics through offering some reflections on the course of action taken.

Youth Research in Web 2.0: A Case Study in Blog Analysis

New Internet technologies provide social researchers with an opportunity to conduct innovative studies in youthful spaces. Recent developments termed ‘Web 2.0’ offer a unique insight into the lives, tastes, preferences and interactions of young people. Social networking sites such as Facebook, for example, are hugely popular and part of everyday life. Recent Facebook statistics state that there are 400 million active users of the website, 50 per cent of whom log on in any given day (Facebook, 2010). This chapter draws upon a research project that examined the phenomenon of gap-year travel by utilising one such Web 2.0 development, the ‘weblog’ or ‘blog’, in order to explore young people’s representations of their gap-year story in their travel blogs. The gap-year study highlights the benefits but also the challenges of conducting blog analysis. Benefits included the advantage of being able to access more gap-year stories than might be possible with ‘offline’ methods, and the ability to access textual accounts of experience that were spontaneous and naturalistic. Some of the challenges included dealing with lots of multimedia data, which raised the importance of considering what was central to the research questions; the question of whether traditional standards of validity are applicable to blog data, particularly with reference to authenticity and representativeness; two overlapping ethical questions: whether blogs are public or private data, and whether we deal with human subjects or authors when we conduct blog analysis; and the importance of matching research aims and objectives to the potential of online methodologies.

Digital Methods as Mainstream Methodology: An Introduction

This book explores exciting innovations in the field of digital social research. The growing significance of ‘the digital’ for contemporary social life is undeniable; nevertheless digital methods have yet to be fully accepted into mainstream social science. By presenting a range of work by social scientists from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, it is our aim to highlight digital methods as a valuable and increasingly integral part of the social research toolkit. They offer the chance to access, generate and analyse new kinds of data on the social world in novel ways and address new research questions, as well as providing different approaches to long-standing questions. In this collection, we define digital methods as the use of online and digital technologies to collect and analyse research data. Our concern is not only with research that explores online phenomena, but also with a broader interest in utilizing digital methods to engage with all aspects of contemporary social life.

Volunteer tourism and the ‘cosmopolitan’ gap year

This is a reply to:Calkin, S. 2014. “Mind the ‘gap year’: a critical discourse analysis of volunteer tourism promotional material.” Global Discourse. 4 (1): 30–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2013.855008.

Doing the Great British Class Survey

This paper introduces the Great British Class Survey and describes how it came to be, providing an insight into the work that has led to this special issue on the contemporary British elite. We discuss initial work with the BBC Lab UK team, the construction of the web survey and its launch. We also consider the response rate and how an additional face-to-face nationally representative survey was then commissioned to deal with sample skew. The way in which subsequent analysis addresses this challenge is also addressed, along with how this ‘problem’ has provided rich, granular data on the most privileged and powerful in UK society. We reflect on a piece of research which enjoyed considerable attention, and how we might interpret this in terms of public engagement. We also acknowledge some of the immediate academic responses to this innovative collaborative adventure. Finally, we indicate how the GBCS team will be developing this work in the future, before outlining how the papers in this special issue offer insights into the anatomy of power and privilege in modern Britain.

Fair chances and hard work? Families making sense of inequality and opportunity in 21st-century Britain

In British social mobility discourse, the rhetoric of fair access can obscure wider issues of social justice. While socio-economic inequalities continue to shape young peoples lives, sociological work on class dis-identification suggests social class is less obviously meaningful as a source of individual and collective identity. This paper considers subjective understandings of the post-16 education and employment landscape in this context, drawing on qualitative research exploring the aspirations of young men and women as they completed compulsory education in north-west England, and the hopes their parents had for their future. It shows how unequal access to resources shaped the older generations expectations for their children, although this was rarely articulated using the explicit language of class. Their children recognized they faced a difficult job market but embraced the idea that success was possible through hard work. Both generations drew moral boundaries and made judgments based on implicit classed discourses about undeserving others, while at the same time disavowing class identities. There was a more explicit recognition of gender inequality among the parents framed with reference to hopes for greater freedom for their daughters. Opportunities and inequalities were thus understood in complex and sometimes contradictory ways.