Edición de cuestionarios para el estudio de validación

To recruit participants, the researcher informed her own friends on Facebook about the study. Two of the participants were recruited through friends’ networks (purposive sampling) and they were asked to introduce the researcher to people they knew would fit with the characteristics of participants for the study (Iranian nationals, adults, active Facebook users). Those “friends of friends” who agreed to participate in the study were contacted and recruited for interviews in person in Tehran and in the UK. Fifteen participants were recruited in Iran from the snowball process (RP15-RP30) and another fifteen informants agreed to participate in the UK (RP1-RP15). The majority were engaged in full-time employment but three of the participants worked part-time and were studying for a postgraduate degree. The minimum age for this study was 30 years old. To gain the informants’ trust, snowballing was used through introduction to other eligible friends from those participants who were recruited through purposive sampling from known contacts. However, this did not guarantee the attendance of recruited participants to the appointment and hence, the process of data gathering was faced with a number of obstacles. Five of the interviewees did not attend the interviews. The study continued with ten informants at that time. The absent informants were contacted by telephone on the same day to find out the reasons for their absence. Two of them failed to answer their mobile phones. The remaining three provided different explanations that implied they were concerned about attending interviews regarding their use of Facebook. One of them explained on the telephone that he became afraid of participating in the interview as a new job contract required him to sign a declaration not to join Facebook and other SNSs. He said, “I signed the paper while I was active on Facebook and continued using it under a pseudonym”. He felt he might risk his job by participating in my research interviews.

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Two of the interviewees decided to withdraw their participation, after almost a year after the interview date. To achieve the requirements of the study (based on ethical approval form), seven more participants were recruited in Iran during 2013-14. The empirical material of the study includes the complete transcription of thirty session interviews with thirty informants, fifteen living in Iran and fifteen living in the UK. All informants showed their Facebook profiles to the researcher and the relevant information was discussed during the interviews. However, only ten agreed to participate in observation sessions. Interview participants did not agree to contribute to observation sessions, due to personal reasons. Some cancelled participant observations due to shortage of time and wanted to terminate the data gathering process after interviews. Others (mainly those who were introduced to the researcher through snowball sampling) felt uncomfortable showing their profile page to the researcher as there was no previous social connection between the researcher and participants. This could be explained as a lack of trust, in Iranian society to research in general as they accosiate it usually towards government policies. Iranian population in which it is difficult to build trust and disclose information about personal activities in the first meeting. The order of the questions was not strictly followed as planned, and the interviewees were to a certain extent, given the chance to lead the interviews . Interviews from Group one was held in Persian and conducted at the researcher’s home in Tehran. Each interview lasted about sixty minutes and was recorded. Observation took longer, between 2-3 hours for each case.

3.11.1 Data collection and research implementation process

A semi-structured interview question guide was developed to address the research questions. The guide provides a range of open-ended questions to prepare a discussion with participants about their experiences of Facebook use. Each interview started with a generic question about the participant’s general use and the background of their Facebook membership. All interviews followed a natural pattern of conversation with the same interview questions.

The interview process started with the arrangement of an appointment. This was confirmed and an email with an overview of the research and a consent form was sent to the interviewee. Interviews were tape-recorded. Once the interview was transcribed, it was emailed to the participant for approval. Generally, the interviewing process started with an explanation of the research and the signing of the consent form. The same

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questions and facilitation guides were used for all interviews. The questions were open- ended, allowing the participant to feel more comfortable by taking control of the dialogue and talking about what they wanted to. If any interesting issues emerged, these were probed further. The second half of the interview was more specific asking the participants questions which built on previous interview and observation data. Despite the benefits of the semi-structured interview method and its appropriateness for the research topic, there were some disadvantages. The most labour-intensive part of the process was transcribing hours of audio recordings. The observations made in this research are based on the author’s perception of face-to-face sessions and electronic interactions with participants. The initial focus was on the privacy element of Facebook, since it was the use of settings and tools on the SNSs which was of particular interest to the author. The observations were not structured in any particular order and any events that were perceived as ‘unusual’ were given particular attention. The author was able to sit next to the participant, observe their Facebook activity and make notes on the process. In other sessions the author was engaged with participants via Facebook as the author was added to the friend list of participants and was able to follow their activities for an agreed period of time.