On the issue of method, I've liked the approach Nersessian (2002) has taken in her study of a science laboratory, using an ethnographic approach that combines a history of artefacts and interviews with the students and researchers using a science lab to provide a rich cultural, social and cognitive understanding of how people work and conceive ideas. My basic approach is to look at the artefacts in the social networking site - videos, photos, audio, comments, discussions and wall posts - and further enrich that understanding by talking with members of the site through discussion forums and interviews.
Taking an ethnographic approach to the research means that I will have to pay attention to patterns and possible coding and classification of what I observe, or else run the risk of incoherence. I do need to read some ethnographic reports to get more familiar with their style and methods.
From what I have read of Dervin's methodology, I will have to be careful not to be leading in my questions. The balance is to guide respondents into the general areas I'm interested in without interfering with their ideas of what is important. Reading over my initial questions, they will need some modification to do this. I was wondering which questions to include in the online forums and which to perhaps reserve for the interviews, as some subjects will be involved in both. I think the opportunity to 'circle' the same concepts in a couple of different ways (Dervin, 1998) is useful.
References:
Dervin, B. (1998) Sense-making theory and practice: an overview of user interests in knowledge seeking and use. Journal of Knowledge Management 2(2).
Nersessian, N. J., W. C. Newstetter, E. Kurz-Milcke, and J. Davies (2002). A mixed-method approach to studying distributed cognition in evolving environments. In Proceeedings of the International Conference on Learning Sciences, pp. 307 - 314. Accessed August 7, 2010 from http://clic.gatech.edu/papers/mixed-media-approach.pdf
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