Analysis

Analyze This!!

            Turning my interview into a transcript and reviewing the answers that J gave, I was able to get clear insight to answer my research question. Stepping into another demographic, my thoughts were that possibly another answer would be stated.  Being as how Zhang’s journal already concluded that the answer was that there was no influence in these at all, hopefully choosing a different individual of different gender and age will support or thus go against Zhang’s conclusion.

            I started the interview by asking the miniscule questions about how long has he used social networking sites and what does he do. His tone followed by quick answering of these getting-to know-questions showed his confidence in the fact the he was tech-savvy. His experience of using social network sites for three years is pretty recent concerning the constant change technology, but aids me as he knows the ins and outs of the sites. J’s exploration of the vast amount of pages is contained only to his friends and family. With some hesitation, J does state that he also is involved with  the community pages, but not as much as he would like to be involved in them.   

Slowly but surely working my way up to the ultimate question, I asked him about his involvement in politics. A brief excerpt of the transcript shown that he was widely involved with politics and even did things with his specific local government:

D:Since you said you love politics; I am guessing you have a pretty deep involvement.

J: I really do, uh, I plan to make politics my career in the near future. I aim to be a voice to the people and help any way I can.

D: Now since you said this, how much involved in politics are you?

J: I make observations based on situations contact local officials as well as federal legislators with suggestions for political discussions. I understand that they do not take citizen opinions seriously, but I hope they take the opinions of the public seriously.

D: So you would like to be a politician as a career.

J: Yeah, that’s the reason I took the major I did. I love it.

            With this excerpt from the transcript, there was many signs of confidence and a bit of assumed affection when it came to this part of the interview. The word ‘Love’ was a very big indicator when it came to the topic of politics. Also considering the passion in his voice when he explained that he wanted politics to be his career, I could see that J really enjoyed talking about politics and that this interview would be easier than expected. For me, J’s passion concerning politics would help a lot in my research because his involvement and intermediate use of Facebook are great tools in finding out social networks’ influence.

            My next set of questions concerned the usage of social networking sites as a reference. Facebook and other sites have means to have statuses for socializing and keeping in touch with friends, but also contains news posted by different organizations and even news channels. Seeing as how J likes to use Facebook, I wanted to see if he checked the news on politics on Facebook or used it as a reference in any manner. Followed by this, I asked him about the last presidential election and his Facebook usage at that time.

            D: Now, considering social networks have a  lot of news on them. Do you personally use Facebook as a political reference at all?

J: (Laughs) Not at all. I take my news from CNN, MSNBC, Huff-Post, and liberal biased media networks. Sometimes I’ll look at posts on facebook for news.

D: Think about the last presidential election. Did you have activity on facebook at all?

J:I only use it to voice my opinions off of news channels and what I saw during debates. That was about it.

D:Did you use social networks as a political reference during the last election?

J:Being as how I study politics and also research my local politicians and country’s politicians during debates and meetings, I believe I was informed without having to look at my facebook as a reference. I wouldn’t even consider that a reference.

D: For the elections, did you check out the candidates campaign pages?

J: No, not really. I was already informed about them and considering I do my research on an unbiased statute, I really wouldn’t check a campaign page on a social network.

D: Why is that?

J: The campaign sites talk about what they plan to do or what they have done that was great, but I want to know everything about them. Not just the good stuff they did.  It’s like jumping into a relationship blind. If you don’t know the person but believe all the good things they give you at face value, you will never know that person truly. Just my opinion.

D: Have you seen the pages at least?

J: Yes, just to see what they were dealing with. It didn’t impress me. It was no more than someone putting up a page about a car dealership and advertising that this car has great mileage. You won’t know anything if you don’t see the carfax (Laughs jokingly)

This is as far as i got with my analysis, but it all will be odne on tuesday. I just wanted to show you that the analysis has been done. Analysis still needs work and i would like feedback on this please.