Surprisingly I'm nearly two thirds of the way through my degree at Bournemouth University. I don't think I'll ever understand how time seems to melt away while my back is turned. Still, it means the final year is fast approaching, which means it's dissertation time. That's right, the stressful moment in a student's life where they need to wrack their brain for something they've learnt in the last few years that'll make an interesting thesis. Well, it's a little more exciting than that but it certainly feels that way sometimes!
The first step in the life of a dissertation is the proposal, the proof of concept that outlines your thesis and the theories and topics that will be discussed within. At this point it's all a bit up in the air and open to change, although that doesn't make it any less difficult to decide upon. I believe I'm nearly there in regards to my own dissertation proposal and in an act of madness or, I hope, genius, I would like to share my thoughts with you with the aim of bringing to light any glaring issues.
It's not what you know, it's who you know
During my time at university I've become increasingly interested in network theory. From crowdsourcing to simple communication, I'm fascinated by the psychology behind their structure, and amazed at the power they wield. There are many other topics I'm interested in, like the issues surrounding ubiquitous computing, but it's networks that I always come back to time and time again so it would be a mistake not to include them in some way.
It would be wrong to try and tackle the entire concept of networks in a single dissertation so I plan to refine my definition of networks, at least in relation to my research. The dramatic rise of Twitter as a tool for social communication, as well as it's open data and API, makes it a prime specimen for analysis. I may expand my outlook after the initial research, but I believe Twitter is an extremely potent example of how networks work and illustrates beautifully the ways in which they can be used.
It's an emotional business
At the core of my dissertation proposal are the concepts of emotion and sentimentality, in particular their effect on behaviour. When coupled with networks this becomes a rich area of research. For example;
- Are sentiments and emotions reciprocated across networks?
- Are the actions of one's self defined by the perceptions of others in the network?
- Can emotion and sentiment be predicted based on that of the network as a whole?
- In what way is individual behaviour affected by the emotion and sentiment of a network?
- Does the emotion and behaviour on social networks reflect that of the offline world?
Those questions alone fascinate me, and I'm sure there are plenty of other insights that will arise from this area once I get started. Needless to say, my hobbyist interest in psychology and behaviour will drive my passion in this area of research.
Measuring Christmas spirit
The main aim of the dissertation is to expand from my work with the Redweb spirit of christmas project, a project which analysed in a basic way the emotion of individual tweets in relation to a particular subject. My plan is to dig a little deeper and find out if the widespread analysis of such information on social networks can be used to predict behaviours. One such example could be in the ability to use this information to gauge public opinion on particular issues. Is the opinion expressed on a social network comparable to that of the offline world?
Bringing in the big guns
A dissertation is useless without academic foundations and solid support from existing theories and research. Fortunately there is a wide variety of work out there today that relate to individual areas of what I hope to research. Here are just a few;
- Erving Goffman and his presentation of self
- Leon Festinger's social comparison theory
- Social network analysis
I hope that during my reading during the summer I will uncover many more theorists and concepts that relate to my thesis.
My question to you is this
I'm settled on the core focus of my dissertation proposal but I would very much like to hear about concerns or ideas that may enhance my research. Please get in touch with me via the comments or my Twitter account and I will answer each and every one of you. I'd also appreciate any pieces of advice from anyone who's already completed a dissertation.
Transmissions Received
JohnONolan
Great idea, I’d absolutely be interested in reading the final result of that - it’s something that has interested me for a long long time.
You *definitely* need to check out this talk by Jeremy Keith on networks:
http://dconstruct.s3.amazonaws.com/2008/podcast/dConstruct2008-Keith.mp3
Seriously - listen to it like 5 times, it’s good.
Lizzy Robins
Sounds really good.
I was thinking it may be cool to try and create a system like www.twanalyst.com that calculates your twitter personality. Or look in to how something like that can measure such things.
Obviously you need to think long and hard about quantitative vs. qualitative as something Twanalyst I’m pretty sure only goes on statistics and not meanings.
On the theory side, there is probably quite a lot of research that has been done into online behaviour, but I’m not sure whether this would fit in enough?
Hope this helps.
Rob Hawkes
@John: I’m glad you find the concept interesting, it’s a fascinating topic and I really hope to do it justice. Thanks for the Jeremy Keith link, I’ll check that out later, although I swear I must’ve been at that dConstruct so hopefully it’ll all come flooding back.
@Lizzy: Thanks for bringing up Twanalyst, I found a whole bunch of stuff about the psychology of words after looking over their about page. Very useful! I’m still a bit of a n00b when it comes to researching so I’ll be spending a lot of time making sure I get the balance and type of research right, whether that is quantitive or qualitative. Any and all previous research into online and offline behaviour is useful, particularly if it’s related to networks (of friends, etc) or communication.
paul
Hi Rob,
your dissertation proposal is an interesting one and because the topic is really hot (look at how fast those social networks are growing!) you should be able to publish quite a few papers, without the need to really polish them.
Your research questions seem ok to me. Nevertheless, get yourself a copy of the “Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers” and review your research questions after reading the book (there you will find lots of useful information on that topic). Often, the problem with research questions is that they are very hard to answer, if at all. Assume, for example, I would ask what skin color dinosaurs had. In principle, this is a question worth answering because it could teach us something (or maybe a lot?) about evolution. But since dinosaurs disappeared a long time ago, I will *never* find enough, if any, evidence to back up any possible answer to my question.
And that brings me to something I see as a problem that you must solve for your proposal. To find an answer to your questions you must be able to measure things. For example: “Does the emotion and behaviour on social networks reflect that of the offline world?” requires you to
1. measure the emotion and behaviour in the internet
2. measure those things in the real world
3. compare your measurements
which in turn requires you to define a sound metric for both emotion and behaviour. So from the scientific point of view, the value/impact/correctness of your findings is determined
1. by the way you measure things, and
2. by the metric used to describe what you measure
So be sure to choose a sound metric and sound measurement data! And most important, have fun!
Good luck with your dissertation!
Rob Hawkes
@Paul: I’ve just emailed you. In a nutshell: your comment is one of the most valuable I’ve ever received, I’ve bought the book, and I’ll be refining my area(s) of research to accommodate these issues. Thank you!
Richard Poole
Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point may be a worthwhile read, especially if you’re interested in how emotion propagates a social network. His theory identifies 3 personalities that are instrumental in propagating a wave of change: Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen. Wikipedia has a good summary: http://bit.ly/cl44i1
Whether or not it holds true on Twitter is another matter.
Good luck!
Rob Hawkes
@Richard: Thanks the suggestion. I actually have The Tipping Point on my bookshelf, I’ve just not got round to reading it yet. It’s definitely something I’ll look into as it sounds very related to my potential thesis.