Case Notes Manual for Business Research Methods, 5e Bell, Bryman, Harley (All Chapters)

Case Notes Manual for Business Research Methods, 5e Bell, Bryman, Harley (All Chapters) Case 1. Content analysis A content analysis of universities’ and further education colleges’ Twitter usage Introduction De ...

Case Notes Manual for Business Research Methods, 5e Bell, Bryman, Harley (All Chapters) Case 1. Content analysis A content analysis of universities’ and further education colleges’ Twitter usage Introduction Despite its popularity and growth, recent research suggests that organizations are not successfully utilizing social media to conduct dialogic communication (Rybalko and Seltzer, 2010) and therefore there are queries whether social media can be an effective relationship-building tool (Taylor and Kent, 2010). This study explored how universities used Twitter deploying Kent and Taylor’s (2002) five principles of dialogic communication. These principles are as follows: a) the dialogic loop b) the usefulness of information c) generation of return visits d) ease of interface and e) the conservation of visitors. Research questions The first research question was ‘Which dialogic principles are present in the individual Tweets of Colleges and Universities in the United States?’ The second research questions asked ‘Which publics are targeted in the individual tweets of major universities and colleges in the United States’. The third and last research question was ‘Do universities employ the principles of dialogic communication to a different degree than do liberal arts colleges?’ Methods The researchers chose every third institution listed in the United States News and World Reports (2012) of the best colleges and universities. The sample size was initially 133 institutions in total. Researchers then visited Twitter.com to see if each of these institutions had an active Twitter profile. Profiles were considered active if they Bell, Bryman & Harley: Business Research Methods, 5 th edition had tweeted within one week of 13 October 2011. This criterion gave a final sample of 113 institutions (60 national universities and 53 liberal arts colleges). The ten most recent tweets for each of these institutions posted on or before 13 October 2011 were then sampled for inclusion in the study producing a total of 1130 tweets. The date was chosen in an attempt to represent a typical week on Twitter for a college or university. Two of the authors of this study coded all 1130 individual tweets. Each tweet was first coded for its target audience: Prospective Student, Student, Faculty, Alumni, or Parents. Individual tweets could be coded for multiple target audiences. If a target audience was not identified the audience was coded as General. Each dialogic principle outlined above was then coded as either present or not present. If present, a category was noted for what qualified that principle as present. The two coders began with a sub-sample of 100 common tweets. Reliability testing was performed for each principle using Cohen’s kappa and ranged between .66 (conservation of visitors) and 1.0 (usefulness of information). Results An independent sample t-test was conducted to compare the use of each of the four dialogic principles by both national universities (n = 60) and liberal arts colleges (n = 53). Three of the four principles were employed by national universities to a greater extent than they were by liberal arts colleges. The key finding of the study was that the majority (89.1%, 1007 tweets out of 1130) of universities’ Twitter accounts are directed towards a more general audience. Just 54 tweets (4.8%) were directed towards prospective students, 69 (6.1%) were directed towards current students, 18 (1.6%) towards faculty, 19 (1.7%) towards alumni and 54 (4.8%) towards parents. It was also found that 790 (69.9%) of the 1130 tweets contained links; 587 (51.9%) of these were links to other parts of the institutions’ internet presence. Just 29.5% of Bell, Bryman & Harley: Business Research Methods, 5 th edition tweets met the dialogic loop principle, primarily through retweets, indicating that universities are not successfully using this tool in the way it is promoted.