Via Facebook to Jerusalem
Social Media as a Toolbox for the Study of Religion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v6i1.8Keywords:
Access, Facebook, fieldwork, Gate-Keeper, religion, research methodology, socialAbstract
Social media contain a significant potential as a research tool in the scholarly study of contemporary religion. This article, therefore, does not feed into the thematic field of “online ethnography” further, but is instead an attempt to utilize the online sphere as constructive research tools to gather more thorough ethnographic data in the field. Approaching Facebook as a toolbox rather than an object, this article is an attempt to demystify social media in general and Facebook in particular. Utilizing these media forms as efficient tools throughout the research process, the article looks at primarily two phases of the process, pre fieldwork and post-fieldwork, and explores the various components of Facebook in combination with these two phases. It is argued that Facebook represents a “Hub Keeper,” which is a generic term referring to three primary methodological functions: it is a Gate-Keeper that enables identification and recruitment of interviewees; it is a hub containing a variety of data; and, it is a Gateway for validation of data.
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References
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Benton, David C., and Desmond F. S. Cormack. 2000. “Gaining Access to the Research Site,” in Desmond F. S. Cormack, ed. Research Process in Nursing. Oxford: Blackwell, 129–35.
Berg, B. L. 2004. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Birch, Maxine, and Tina Miller. 2005. “Encouraging Participation: Ethics and Responsibilities,” in Julie Jessop and Tina Miller, eds. Ethics in Qualitative Research. London, Thousand Oaks and New Dehli: Sage, 91–106.
Brasher, Brenda. 2000. Give Me that Online Religion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Broadhead, Robert S., and Ray C. Rist. 1975. “Gatekeepers and the Social Control of Social Research,” Theoretical Issues in Research Techniques, 23, 325–36.
Butcher, R., and J. Eldridge. 1990. “The Use of Diaries in Data Collection,” The Statistician, 25– 41. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2348192
Campbell, Lisa M., Noella J. Gray, Zoë A. Meletis, James G. Abbot and Jennifer J. Silver. 2006. “Gatekeepers and Keymasters: Dynamic Relationships of Access in Geographical Fieldwork,” The Geographical Review, 96, 97–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.19310846.2006.tb00389.x
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Cobb, J. 1998. Cybergrace: The Search for God in the Digital World. New York: Random House.
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— 2004b. Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet. London: Routledge.
Denzin, Norman K., and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. 2003. Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage.
Ellison, Nicole B., Charles Steinfeld and Cliff Lampe. 2007. “The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends’: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network sites,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, 1–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101. 2007.00367.x
Facebook. “www.facebook.com.“
— n.d. “Press Room: Statistics.”
Feldman, M. S., J. Bell and M. T. Berger, eds. 2003. Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Fu, Yang-chih. 2007. “Contact Diaries: Building Archives of Actual and Comprehensive Personal Networks.” Field Methods, 19, 194–217.
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.
Gosling, Samuel D., Sam Gaddis and Simine Vazire. 2007. “Personality Impressions Based on Facebook Profiles,” in International Conference on Weblogs and Media (ICWSM). Boulder, Colorado, USA: ICWSM. At http://www.icwsm.org/papers/3--Gosling-Gaddis-Vazire.pdf
Guest, Greg, Arwen Bunce and Laura Johnson. 2006. “How Many Interviews are Enough? An Experiment with Data Saturation and Variability,” Field Methods, 18, 59–82. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903
Ha’aretz. 2008. “IDF Soldiers Ordered Not to Reveal Too Much on Facebook,” in Ha’aretz. Tel Aviv/Jerusalem, 12/04/2008.
Ha’aretz/TheMarker. 2008. “Facebook Face-off: Settlers Win Right to List Country as Israel,” in Ha’aretz. Tel Aviv/Jerusalem, 18/03/2008.
—2008. “IDF Soldier Jailed for Posting Sensitive Photos on Facebook,” in Ha’aretz. Tel Aviv / Jerusalem, 23/04/2008.
Hammersley, Martyn, and Paul Atkinson. 1995 [1983]. Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London and New York: Routledge.
Hilton, M. E. 1989. “A Comparison of a Prospective Diary and Two Summary Recall Techniques for Recording Alcohol Consumption,” British Journal of Addiction, 84, 1085–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.1989.tb00792.x
Hoover, Stewart M. 2006. Religion in the Media Age. London: Routledge.
Horsfield, Peter G., Mary E. Hess and Adán M. Medrano, eds. 2004. Belief in Media: Cultural Perspectives on Media and Christianity. London: Ashgate.
Jensen, Jeppe Sinding. 2009. “Religion as the Unintended Product of Brain Functions,” in Michael L. Stausberg, ed. Contemporary Theories of Religion: A Critical Companion. London and New York: Routledge, 129–55.
Johnson, J. M. 1975. Doing Field Research. New York: Free Press.
Katz, Yakov. 2010. “Facebook Details Cancel IDF Raids,” in Jerusalem Post, 4 March, 2010.
Kong, Lily. 2001. “Religion and Technology: Refiguring Place, Space, Identity and Community,” Area, 33, 404–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-4762.00046
Magolda, Peter M. 2000. “Accessing, Waiting, Plunging in, Wondering, and Writing: Retrospective Sense-Making of Fieldwork,” Field Methods, 12, 209–34. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1177/1525822X0001200303
Mann, Chris, and Fiona Stewart. 2000. Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online. London: Sage.
Markham, Annette. 2004. “Internet Communication as a Tool for Qualitative Research,” in David Silverman, ed. Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice. London: Sage, 95– 124.
Mauthner, Melanie, Maxine Birch and Tina Miller, eds. 2005 [2002]. Ethics in Qualitative Research. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage.
McNamara, Karen Roberts, 2007. Blogging Breast Cancer: Language and Subjectivity in Women’s Online Illness Narratives. Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication, Culture, and Technology, Washington, DC: Georgetown University.
Miller, Gale, and Kathryn J. Fox. 2004. “Building Bridges: The Possibility of Analytical Dialogue between Ethnography, Conversation Analysis and Foucault,” in David Silverman, ed. Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice. London: Sage, 35–55.
Miller, Tina, and Linda Bell. 2005. “Consenting to What? Issues of Access, Gate-keeping and ‘Informed Consent’,” in Julie Jessop and Tina Miller, eds. Ethics in Qualitative Research. London, Thousand Oaks and New Dehli: Sage, 53–69.
Morse, Janice M., Michael Barret, Maria Mayan, Karin Olson and Jude Spiers. 2002. “Verification Strategies for Establishing Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1, 1-19.
Nardi, Bonnie A., Diane J. Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht and Luke Swartz. 2004. “Why We Blog,” Communications of the ACM, 47, 41–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1035134. 1035163
Parks, Malcolm R., and Kory Floyd. 1996. “Making Friends in Cyberspace,” Journal of Communication, 46, 80–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1996.tb01462.x
Patton, M. Q. 2002. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Read, Benjamin L., Lauren MacLean, Melani Cammet, and Bernd Reiter. 2006. “Symposium: Field Research: How Rich? How Thick? How Participatory?” Qualitative Methods. Newsletter of the American Political Science Association Organized Section for Qualitative and MultiMethod Research, 9–24.
Ryen, Anne. 2002. Det kvalitative intervjuet: fra vitenskapsteori til feltarbeid [The Qualitative Interview: From Theory of Science to Fieldwork]. Oslo: Fagbokforlaget.
Shapir, Yiftah, and Tamir Magal. 2010. “Middle East Military Balance Files: Israel,” in Military Balance Files. INSS, The Institute for National Security Studies (Incorporating the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies), 1–24.
Shenton, Andrew K., and Susan Hayter. 2004. “Strategies for Gaining Access to Organisations and Informants in Qualitative Studies,” Education for Information, 22, 223–31.
Silverman, David. 2006. Interpreting Qualitative Data. London: Sage.
Smith, David M. 1999. “Geography, Community, and Morality,” Environment and Planning A, 31, 19–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a310019
Walther, Joseph B., Brandon van der Heide, Sang-Yeon Kim, David Westerman and Stephanie Tom Tong. 2008. “The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?” Human Communication Research, 34, 28–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00312.x
Wanat, Carolyn L. 2008. “Getting past the Gatekeepers: Differences between Access and Cooperation in Public School Research,” Field Methods, 20, 191–208. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1177/1525822X07313811
Wilkinson, Sue. 2004. “Focus Group Research,” in David Silverman, ed. Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice. London: Sage, 177–99.
Antes, Peter. 2004. “A Survey of New Approaches to the Study of Religion in Europe,” in Peter Antes, Armin W. Geertz and Randi R. Warne, eds. New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Volume 1 – Regional, Critical, and Historical Approaches. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 43–62.
Arksey, Hilary, and Peter Knight. 1999. Interviewing for Social Scientists. London: Sage.
Atkinson, Paul. 2005. “Qualitative Research – Unity and Diversity,” in Forum: Qualitative Social Research, art. 26.
BBC. 2008. “Israeli Soldier Jailed for 19 Days for Facebook Photo,” in BBC News, London, 23/04/2008.
Bell, J. 2003. “Crossing that Yellow Line: Obtaining Access to the Police Department,” in M. S. Feldman, J. Bell and M. T. Berger, eds. Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 133–38.
Benton, David C., and Desmond F. S. Cormack. 2000. “Gaining Access to the Research Site,” in Desmond F. S. Cormack, ed. Research Process in Nursing. Oxford: Blackwell, 129–35.
Berg, B. L. 2004. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Birch, Maxine, and Tina Miller. 2005. “Encouraging Participation: Ethics and Responsibilities,” in Julie Jessop and Tina Miller, eds. Ethics in Qualitative Research. London, Thousand Oaks and New Dehli: Sage, 91–106.
Brasher, Brenda. 2000. Give Me that Online Religion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Broadhead, Robert S., and Ray C. Rist. 1975. “Gatekeepers and the Social Control of Social Research,” Theoretical Issues in Research Techniques, 23, 325–36.
Butcher, R., and J. Eldridge. 1990. “The Use of Diaries in Data Collection,” The Statistician, 25– 41. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2348192
Campbell, Lisa M., Noella J. Gray, Zoë A. Meletis, James G. Abbot and Jennifer J. Silver. 2006. “Gatekeepers and Keymasters: Dynamic Relationships of Access in Geographical Fieldwork,” The Geographical Review, 96, 97–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.19310846.2006.tb00389.x
Casey, Cheryl Anne. 2001. “Online Religion and Finding Faith on the Web: An Examination of Beliefnet.org,” Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association 2, 32-40. At http://www. media-ecology.org/publications/MEA_proceedings/v2/Casey02.pdf
Cobb, J. 1998. Cybergrace: The Search for God in the Digital World. New York: Random House.
Dawson, Lorne L., and Douglas E. Cowan. 2004a. “Introduction,” in Lorne L. Dawson and Douglas E. Cowan, eds. Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet. New York and London: Routledge, 1–16.
— 2004b. Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet. London: Routledge.
Denzin, Norman K., and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. 2003. Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage.
Ellison, Nicole B., Charles Steinfeld and Cliff Lampe. 2007. “The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends’: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network sites,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, 1–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101. 2007.00367.x
Facebook. “www.facebook.com.“
— n.d. “Press Room: Statistics.”
Feldman, M. S., J. Bell and M. T. Berger, eds. 2003. Gaining Access: A Practical and Theoretical Guide for Qualitative Researchers. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.
Fu, Yang-chih. 2007. “Contact Diaries: Building Archives of Actual and Comprehensive Personal Networks.” Field Methods, 19, 194–217.
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.
Gosling, Samuel D., Sam Gaddis and Simine Vazire. 2007. “Personality Impressions Based on Facebook Profiles,” in International Conference on Weblogs and Media (ICWSM). Boulder, Colorado, USA: ICWSM. At http://www.icwsm.org/papers/3--Gosling-Gaddis-Vazire.pdf
Guest, Greg, Arwen Bunce and Laura Johnson. 2006. “How Many Interviews are Enough? An Experiment with Data Saturation and Variability,” Field Methods, 18, 59–82. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903
Ha’aretz. 2008. “IDF Soldiers Ordered Not to Reveal Too Much on Facebook,” in Ha’aretz. Tel Aviv/Jerusalem, 12/04/2008.
Ha’aretz/TheMarker. 2008. “Facebook Face-off: Settlers Win Right to List Country as Israel,” in Ha’aretz. Tel Aviv/Jerusalem, 18/03/2008.
—2008. “IDF Soldier Jailed for Posting Sensitive Photos on Facebook,” in Ha’aretz. Tel Aviv / Jerusalem, 23/04/2008.
Hammersley, Martyn, and Paul Atkinson. 1995 [1983]. Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London and New York: Routledge.
Hilton, M. E. 1989. “A Comparison of a Prospective Diary and Two Summary Recall Techniques for Recording Alcohol Consumption,” British Journal of Addiction, 84, 1085–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.1989.tb00792.x
Hoover, Stewart M. 2006. Religion in the Media Age. London: Routledge.
Horsfield, Peter G., Mary E. Hess and Adán M. Medrano, eds. 2004. Belief in Media: Cultural Perspectives on Media and Christianity. London: Ashgate.
Jensen, Jeppe Sinding. 2009. “Religion as the Unintended Product of Brain Functions,” in Michael L. Stausberg, ed. Contemporary Theories of Religion: A Critical Companion. London and New York: Routledge, 129–55.
Johnson, J. M. 1975. Doing Field Research. New York: Free Press.
Katz, Yakov. 2010. “Facebook Details Cancel IDF Raids,” in Jerusalem Post, 4 March, 2010.
Kong, Lily. 2001. “Religion and Technology: Refiguring Place, Space, Identity and Community,” Area, 33, 404–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-4762.00046
Magolda, Peter M. 2000. “Accessing, Waiting, Plunging in, Wondering, and Writing: Retrospective Sense-Making of Fieldwork,” Field Methods, 12, 209–34. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1177/1525822X0001200303
Mann, Chris, and Fiona Stewart. 2000. Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online. London: Sage.
Markham, Annette. 2004. “Internet Communication as a Tool for Qualitative Research,” in David Silverman, ed. Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice. London: Sage, 95– 124.
Mauthner, Melanie, Maxine Birch and Tina Miller, eds. 2005 [2002]. Ethics in Qualitative Research. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage.
McNamara, Karen Roberts, 2007. Blogging Breast Cancer: Language and Subjectivity in Women’s Online Illness Narratives. Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication, Culture, and Technology, Washington, DC: Georgetown University.
Miller, Gale, and Kathryn J. Fox. 2004. “Building Bridges: The Possibility of Analytical Dialogue between Ethnography, Conversation Analysis and Foucault,” in David Silverman, ed. Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice. London: Sage, 35–55.
Miller, Tina, and Linda Bell. 2005. “Consenting to What? Issues of Access, Gate-keeping and ‘Informed Consent’,” in Julie Jessop and Tina Miller, eds. Ethics in Qualitative Research. London, Thousand Oaks and New Dehli: Sage, 53–69.
Morse, Janice M., Michael Barret, Maria Mayan, Karin Olson and Jude Spiers. 2002. “Verification Strategies for Establishing Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1, 1-19.
Nardi, Bonnie A., Diane J. Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht and Luke Swartz. 2004. “Why We Blog,” Communications of the ACM, 47, 41–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1035134. 1035163
Parks, Malcolm R., and Kory Floyd. 1996. “Making Friends in Cyberspace,” Journal of Communication, 46, 80–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1996.tb01462.x
Patton, M. Q. 2002. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Read, Benjamin L., Lauren MacLean, Melani Cammet, and Bernd Reiter. 2006. “Symposium: Field Research: How Rich? How Thick? How Participatory?” Qualitative Methods. Newsletter of the American Political Science Association Organized Section for Qualitative and MultiMethod Research, 9–24.
Ryen, Anne. 2002. Det kvalitative intervjuet: fra vitenskapsteori til feltarbeid [The Qualitative Interview: From Theory of Science to Fieldwork]. Oslo: Fagbokforlaget.
Shapir, Yiftah, and Tamir Magal. 2010. “Middle East Military Balance Files: Israel,” in Military Balance Files. INSS, The Institute for National Security Studies (Incorporating the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies), 1–24.
Shenton, Andrew K., and Susan Hayter. 2004. “Strategies for Gaining Access to Organisations and Informants in Qualitative Studies,” Education for Information, 22, 223–31.
Silverman, David. 2006. Interpreting Qualitative Data. London: Sage.
Smith, David M. 1999. “Geography, Community, and Morality,” Environment and Planning A, 31, 19–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a310019
Walther, Joseph B., Brandon van der Heide, Sang-Yeon Kim, David Westerman and Stephanie Tom Tong. 2008. “The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?” Human Communication Research, 34, 28–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00312.x
Wanat, Carolyn L. 2008. “Getting past the Gatekeepers: Differences between Access and Cooperation in Public School Research,” Field Methods, 20, 191–208. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1177/1525822X07313811
Wilkinson, Sue. 2004. “Focus Group Research,” in David Silverman, ed. Qualitative Research: Theory, Method and Practice. London: Sage, 177–99.
Published
2012-01-20
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Roislien, H. (2012). Via Facebook to Jerusalem: Social Media as a Toolbox for the Study of Religion. Fieldwork in Religion, 6(1), 8-26. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v6i1.8
