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ARCH9090 2h

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STEPHANIE’S REFLECTION

The public involvement process over the past couple of weeks allowed for the group to analyse and evaluate the public’s views on social media censorship. Delving into this topic and gaining qualitative and quantitative data on the issue of censorship, allowed the group to collate a broad data set to assist in the understanding of social media usage in today’s society. Through online research, monitoring twitter posts, conducting interviews and surveys, the group was able to gain subjective opinions from people of different ages and backgrounds. The data gained from these methods were diverse and categorised accordingly so that the group was able to evaluate the direct effects of social media censorship on the community.

What did you learn from this process?

The process from beginning till end was well managed and enjoyable. From collating the data to the process of evaluating the information, the team worked extremely well together. Due to this, undertaking the comms collateral, creating the surveys and writing the interviews was a fluent process. Some of the things that I learnt throughout this was how different types of data can provide different lenses on the topic, some more helpful than others. However, I learnt that it is essential to have a variety of data collection methods to be able to provide a wholesome understanding of social media in addition to the qualitative and quantitative research collated.

What surprised you about the process?

Something that surprised me about the process was that I got very unexpected, yet valuable data from the interview process. As many of the interviews were conducted with students living overseas, I was able to gain an insight on how social media censorship operates globally, and different views on monitoring online platforms. There are also many different social media forums overseas that are not used within Australia as their main form of communication, especially in China, where Facebook is not being used as frequently.

Globally, there are also many topics that aren’t able to be expressed online. For example, in China, gambling is prohibited on social media platforms. Gaining an insight into how other countries control their social media platforms alongside how their terms and conditions operate was very interesting to learn about and surprised me throughout the research process.

What would you do differently?

Throughout the process, something that I think we should have done differently is have the ability to speak to or survey the younger generation. As we only had a limited amount of questionnaires that we could collect, we didn’t gain any information about how the youth (between the ages of 10-16) use social media and their views on censorship. As social media use is extremely prevalent among this generation, it would have been interesting to have their opinion as a comparative measure among the rest of the interviews and questionnaires.

What advice would you give?

For future groups studying this topic, some of the advice that I would give is to do research early and gain an understanding of a variety of components within social media before conducting any questionnaires or interviews. This will then narrow down what to focus on, as the topic of social media has an abundance of information and is a broad topic. I would also recommend carefully thinking about the survey and interview questions prior to creating them in order to gain relevant and useful answers from the interviewees. This will allow for an efficient process that will assist when collating the final report.

HAWRAA’S REFLECTION

The public involvement process conducted as a group happened through three particular methods, conducting surveys, interviews and collating twitter posts relevant to social media and censorship. These methods allowed us a group to better understand the opinion and knowledge of the public, through these methods we were able to collect specific data to later analyse in order to put together a report showing the effect of social media censorship on the community and have first-hand primary data of the community’s opinion due to this effect.

What did I learn from this process?

The process of data collection has been a very smooth, as a team we cooperated, ensuring we regularly meet to put together the data collection methods accurately, to be able to receive the most beneficial feedback from our surveys and interviews. I specifically learned that team work can be a lot easier then imagined when every team member contributes with the knowledge they have, also having a team organiser was a bonus and one of the reasons our group was run smoothly, confidently a skill I could later apply to future projects. Through the data collected I also learnt that it is essential for primary data collection to happen across a broad age group, ethnicity and gender, as the results were very broad and every human category had their own voice which was important to be heard for a fair analysis.

What Surprised me about this process?

In general, I was surprised by the broad results retrieved, opinions ranged differently to my expectations in regards to censorship. A lot of international candidates actually enjoyed the influence of the government and did not mind at all that their access was limited and censored, an opinion I did not expect to receive, whilst Australian candidates more specifically wanted stricter censorship on certain topics, whereas my expectation were people were more after eased restrictions and freedom of speech.

What would I do differently?

The process of data collection was very smooth, I believe this was the case as we did not undertake these methods under real circumstances, for instance surveys were only limited to our family, friends and close work colleagues, It would have been interesting to see if these survey and interviews were conducted randomly with strangers who were not expecting the topic of social media and censorship, would the results had differed?

What advice would I give?

My advice to future groups would be to study your topic very well, ensure your group as a whole are understanding of your aims and objectives from the methods of data collection. Communicate regularly with your team and ensure everyone is working towards the same objective during all stages of the research. It is also very essential to be very specific with the questions asked in questionnaires and interviews, they must be sharp questions that are not long and only use simple language to ensure you are understood by all.

RACHEL’S REFLECTION

The overall public involvement process was extremely successful, as it allowed us to gain a greater insight into the usage and behavioural patterns of people who are currently signed up to varying social media applications and delve into the existence of censorship on these online platforms. Whereby, a multifaceted engagement process was conducted and consisted of initial online research, twitter posts, in-depth interviews and questionnaires. These differing methods thus enabled the group to complete a rigorous investigation process that effectively responded to existing data sources and additionally facilitated the collection of subjective data. The key takeaways from the process are further identified below:

What did you learn from this process?

Consultation is not as easy as it appears, there are numerous factors that need to be taken into account when attempting to engage with the community, such as equity, accountability, honesty, responsibility and transparency. As a means to ensure that our consultation strategy appropriately responded to these themes various engagement methods were utilised, therefore allowing us to capture a broader pool of opinions and insights from people of differing backgrounds and experience levels.

What surprised you about the findings?

Data that was retrieved from the questionnaire was generally expected, with the results reflecting many of our initial presumptions regarding general usage patterns and the level of people’s understanding of where the responsibility of regulation typically lies. Nevertheless, what did surprise me was the data that was received during the interview process. I naively went in with the assumption that the information that would be attained would ultimately mirror that of the data collated via the questionnaire, however I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of information that came out of our interviews. During the interviews that I personally conducted I was able to delve deeper into one’s experience with social media and also gain a greater insight into trends and usage conditions for social media platforms internationally. A number of our participants were situated in China and their responses effectively provided a comparison between patterns that are currently unfolding in Australia versus overseas.

What would you do differently if you got the chance to do the whole process over again?

The only component that I would do differently if I was given the opportunity to partake in this consultation process again would be to become more familiar with Twitter earlier in the course opposed to leaving it towards the end of the intensive unit to engage with the application. Unfortunately because I had not used Twitter before I wasn’t very comfortable in retweeting posts, however once I sought assistance from teams members and started to engage with content it became easier.

What advice would you give someone consulting on your hot topic, the next time around?

Social media as a topic is extremely broad and I would suggest narrowing down the overarching research aim and objectives. Even though as a team we were solely investigating the presence of censorship in social media platforms it was still quite broad and drilling down further would have been more beneficial. It is believed that the findings drawn from the data would have been more insightful if a single focus area was identified, as it was an immensely ambitious proposal to explore themes surrounding censorship, freedom of speech and fake news in the short period of time that we were allocated.

HUSNA’S REFLECTION

The public involvement carried out during the past three weeks brought a deeper insight on the public’s experience, opinion, and expectations on social media censorship. The process was a collaborative effort of every team member to gather data points for qualitative and quantitative analysis. The data collected from primary and secondary sources through research, online survey, online in-depth interviews, and monitoring twitter database, provided a pool of information from people of diverse characteristics (age, country, social profile). This information helped the team to evaluate the effect of social media censorship on the public and understand the expectations on the future of social media.

What did you learn from this process?

Although public involvement gives an apparent impression of being an easy task, it isn’t. It requires sophisticated understanding of the process and experience. In my opinion, the process of designing a questionnaire and framing interview questions had been a challenging part. For instance, the importance of considering the research aim and translating it into the measurement scale for the questionnaire had taught me the skill of extracting relevant information for analysis. Also, during the interview, Although the list of probe questions was already prepared, some of the interviewee’s answers were unexpected. The challenge of following the interviewee’s answer and guiding them with relevant questions, taught me the skill to frame impromptu questions in an interview. I also realised that this skill of mine improved with the number of interviews conducted; hence experience is important component in public involvement.

The process also taught me the important components of successful teamwork. With an intensive task of public involvement within a short span of time, the importance of teamwork is imperative for its success. The best practices, I take from this project is to clearly frame and mutually decide the roles and responsibilities of every team member at the beginning of the task. This practice of project management has helped in smoothly conducting the teamwork.

What surprised you about the findings?

The surprise moment in the entire public involvement process was during the analysis of the in-depth interview session. With my upbring in a country with democratic values, my experience on social media censorship has been starkly different from my interviewees in the in-depth interviews. It was surprising to learn how social media censorship has manifested globally across countries, with countries like China have their own social media platforms (which were unfamiliar to me). This process gave me a new perspective in understanding different cultural backgrounds and helped me to improve my cultural competence.

What would you do differently if you got the chance to do the whole process over again?

With limited time and resource constraints in this process, some of the methods were limited to outcomes for class requirements. However, if the process is to be repeated, the participants for the online survey could be taken from beyond friends and families. This widening pool of audience would bring a wider perspective to the hot topic. Also, I would consider taking a survey by getting myself on the streets and experience the process of talking to strangers. Secondly, I would consider using sophisticated software to scrape twitter data and analyse how the debates on social media censorship has change over the time.

What advice would you give someone consulting on your hot topic, the next time around?

For the upcoming research groups, exploring this topic (social media censorship), I would recommend to firstly narrow down the topic. Although this process has given a broader understanding of social media censorship, the topic can solely focus on content to be censored and expected governance structure for rich insights. Also, the process can also be restricted to one country, rather than focussing on how it differs globally.