The methods chosen for my study have been defined in various ways in literature (Atkinson and Hammersley, 1994, Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, Preissle and Grant, 2004, Wimmer and Dominick, 2006) and have been used extensively in social science research. Each of these methods has its own unique advantages, requirements and outcomes. For example, scholars have noted that field methods like participant observation are characterized by the need to immerse oneself in a particular culture or context for a sufficient period of time. In some instances, this has led to situations in which the researcher becomes native to the research environment (Wimmer and Dominick, 2006). However, the circumstances that surround field studies vary from one research project to the other – such as the nature of the research environment, the
topic and purpose of the research and the position of the researcher in relation to the field. I present a detailed description of each method in my research but, before doing so, I reflect on my position as a researcher among my research participants and how it may have affected (positively or negatively) the results of my study. I do this in order to provide a rationale for the methods chosen for the research and how they were used in the fieldwork.
Three important factors defined my position in this research: first, my identity as a Nigerian; second, my status as an academic and researcher and; third, my previous association with the industry as a new media worker. In the first place, being a Nigerian (and having lived there for most of my life) potentially had some effect on my approach to the themes and ‗way of life‘ being studied in field. For example, before embarking on the project I was reasonably familiar with (and had experienced) the infrastructural challenges (of electricity and internet) commonly faced by Nigerians. I also belong to a specific ethnic group (even though not the major ones – Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa – mentioned in Chapter 3) which has a distinct culture and language. For this reason, it can be said that I began the fieldwork with reasonably clear expectations of what kind of data I would find. However, rather than being a disadvantage, I suggest that this proved to be an advantage in the context of my PhD study. Although the time spent for fieldwork varies for doctoral studies in social science, I would argue that my pre-knowledge of the Nigerian context lessened the demand for a lengthy period in the field. This is because I did not need to integrate myself with the idiosyncrasies of life in Nigeria. Instead, I was able to focus on salient and inconspicuous points that could be observed in the Nigerian context. For example, my experience as a Nigerian enabled me to identify my respondents‘ ethnic origin without necessarily asking them about it – I was able to decipher this information from their names or their accents. In addition, being conversant with the Nigerian context meant that it was easier to arrange times and schedules for the interviews while trying to get the most out of my participants. For example, thanks to my awareness of the customs (such as the appropriate forms of formal or informal greeting) and challenges (such as the patterns of traffic in Lagos), I had a better sense of the places to meet my interviewees, the amount of time to dedicate to interview sessions and the most
suitable tone for conducting the interviews. This last point leads to the second important factor in my position during the research: my status as a researcher.
Although some writers have pointed to the limitations of being native to the culture or context being studied especially with reference to the lack of objective distance (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995), I believe that my position as an academic and a researcher helped to mitigate the effects of that challenge. Specifically, I argue that my status as a researcher from a foreign university helped to establish some distance between me and my research participants. This was made evident to me by the way my respondents treated me with arguably more respect than they might do to non-researchers or other non-researchers from local universities. In addition to this, my affiliation with the Pan-Atlantic University as a lecturer contributed to the high regard they appeared to have towards me. The Pan-Atlantic University (PAU) is a private institution in Lagos which is well respected in country9. Although I introduced myself as a PhD student of University of Leeds, my association with the PAU was made clear by the fact of having organized the focus groups and held some of my interviews at its premises. What is more important, this status made it easy to gain access to my research participants. This was evident in my invitations for them to participate in the focus groups, to be interviewed or to be observed. It was even more so for those participants who had previously been my students at the university. As with my identity as a Nigerian, this factor helped in minimizing the time I spent in the field.
Finally, my previous association with new media industry played a role in the outcome of my fieldwork. Since I had previously been engaged in new media work (for 7 years as a web designer and developer), I was conversant with some of the conditions new media workers faced in the Nigerian context. For example, I was aware of the economic challenges of purchasing original licenses of software like Adobe as well as the ubiquitousness of pirated versions10. However, since my activity had been restricted to freelance work while holding full-time web design related jobs at
9 This respect is mostly because it is the parent institution of the Lagos Business School which has previously been placed highly in one of the global rankings of Financial Times.
10 This was the case even though I never purchased pirated software for my own personal use
media companies, my knowledge of the intricacies of the new media industry were, at best, limited. Nevertheless, my grasp of the technical details involved in new media practice made it easy for me to understand some of the technical aspects of work talked about by my respondents during interviews. For this reason, I was also able to quickly integrate myself into the working life of the company I researched as participant observer. I would argue therefore that my familiarity with new media work along with and the other factors discussed above (my Nigerian identity and my researcher/academic status) facilitated and contributed to the relatively successful outcome of my fieldwork. I also argue that the methods chosen for the fieldwork (focus groups, interviews and participant observation) were ideal because they were sufficient for gathering the data required for my research particularly under the circumstances described above. In the next section, I provide detailed descriptions of each of the phases of my fieldwork: first, the preliminary research phase and; second, the field research.
4.2.3 Preliminary research phase