The first step in the data collection process was to select relevant Facebook pages for the case study. Facebook was preferred over other social media platforms as the primary data source because Facebook is the most popular social networking portal in India. It has the third largest user base in India after the US and Brazil. By 2016 India is poised to overtake the US and become the largest market for Facebook (‘India to have world's largest’, 2013). For the Delhi rape 2012 an in-depth analysis of several Facebook pages was conducted as there is not any one single official Facebook page dedicated exclusively to it. The incident had generated massive protests across the
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nations, but these were not an effort of any singular party rather a collective initiative by several disparate groups of people.
As Facebook was a vital data source for this thesis it is essential to elaborate on a few key concepts peculiar to Facebook and which occur repeatedly in the course of the study. Facebook is structured around the concept of profiles created by any person in their individual capacity or as representative of a specific person, issue, organisation, or idea. A personal profile is an account that anyone joining Facebook has to make and through which they can connect with friends, post status, share photographs, upload videos, links and so forth. Facebook does not allow the users to conduct any business or monetary activity through personal profiles. A more formal of the profile is the public profiles also known as pages and these are created for businesses, public figures, organisations, causes or brands with the intent of publicity. Pages are similar to the general personal profile in the sense that the owners can update statuses, photos, videos or any information they would like to share. Unlike regular personal profiles public profiles do not gain ‘friends’, but fans or supporters who choose to ‘like’ a page, and all content is visible to anyone who chooses to visit. The pages can only be created by an official representative of the celebrity, brand, or organisation that the page is going to represent. They can even be kept private requiring an invitation or administrator approval in order to join, or can be made public. Facebook pages can be customised according to the preference of their creator by adding apps, hosting stories etc. Apps enhance the functionality of the Facebook page as they allow connections with other relevant links.
Groups are a more informal way of registering a presence on Facebook by anyone representing any idea or topic of interest. They act as a platform for people to come together for a common cause, disseminating information, organising activities, sharing photos, discussing issues, and events. Groups have more control over their members than a general page as owners can restrict people from joining the page. There are three privacy options for a group: open, closed and secret. Open groups are visible to everyone with a Facebook profile and anyone can join or invite members. There is no restriction as all the content is public. Closed groups are invitation only
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groups and only the members can view the content though any one can ask to join the group. Secret groups are those in which anyone can join but they have to be invited by a member and they are not visible to the non-members. Only members can find the group or view its content (Facebook, 2013b).
A Facebook community page is similar to normal Facebook group pages but with one fundamental difference which makes them ‘community’ pages; they are not run by a single author and a user has to ‘like’ them in order to connect with them.
Events on the other hand are a date-based application through which any reminder or invitation for any occasion can be created. An event can be open or private and the creator can invite anyone on Facebook to join it. It is like an invitation and even has a RSVP list displaying the names of the invitees along with their responses. The list is created on the basis of response that is based on the options like “going”, “not going”, and “maybe” going. An event can be created by any individual Facebook member or by pages and groups. It also has a wall for communication but it does not have a dedicated forum for deliberation. A Discussion board is an application in the Facebook page that allows supporters of a page to initiate any discussion or share information with other supporters. The freedom for the members to participate in the discussion or post on the discussion board depends on the settings of that particular page which in turn depends on the discretion of its host or creator.
These Facebook features are used in the present study to organise data; the Facebook data is classified on the basis of the category which it falls into. For example, pages on Delhi Rape 2012 are divided into community pages, group pages and so forth, in order to determine whether the type of page influence the amount of public sphere-like discussion that happens there.
Furthermore, data was also collected from different blogs, the selection of which was a fairly straightforward process. These blogs were studied to supplement the findings on the Facebook pages so as to present a holistic picture of women’s’ issue-
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based participation online and was also an important research strategy that helped enhance the findings. Blogs were selected through the purposive sampling strategy which is a common sampling technique that relies on the most productive sample to answer the research questions (Given, 2008). This involves selecting samples in conjunction with preselected research questions. Purposive sampling relies in large part on the researcher’s insight into the research area, availability of the resources and the objectives of study as well. It is highly useful if a researcher is sure of the questions they want to ask and are looking at specific characteristics in their sample. Of the different types of purposive samplings for the purpose of this study criterion sampling was selected as it was thought to be most relevant to the objectives of the research. Criterion sampling is defined as a kind of sampling in which cases are selected according to a particular criterion predetermined by the researcher (Given, 2008). During the research criterion sampling method was employed in regard to the study of blogs. As the objective was to identify the ways in which women bloggers in India are shaping the digital public sphere criterion sampling was deemed as the most relevant method. Moreover, I was specifically looking for women bloggers of Indian ethnicity preferably residing in India and writing on some specific subjects. Therefore, criterion sampling was adjudged as the most suitable form of research inquiry.