Six The application of digital methods in a life course approach to family studies
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Alexia Maddox
Abstract
This chapter considers how the emerging field of digital research methods can be applied in a life course approach to family studies. It first describes the methodological dimensions of the life course approach to family studies before discussing what analytical elements of this approach may be aligned with digital methods. It then provides examples of digital methods present in family studies and goes on to examine digital thinking that leads to the development of three tropes through which to order and align digital approaches: networks, big data and ubiquity. It also explains how digital research methods may be used to identify data sources (such as the use of digital traces of online activity within social media), within data collection techniques (such as web scraping techniques) and through data analysis approaches, including data visualisation. The chapter concludes by highlighting the limitations and ethical issues of employing these methods.
Abstract
This chapter considers how the emerging field of digital research methods can be applied in a life course approach to family studies. It first describes the methodological dimensions of the life course approach to family studies before discussing what analytical elements of this approach may be aligned with digital methods. It then provides examples of digital methods present in family studies and goes on to examine digital thinking that leads to the development of three tropes through which to order and align digital approaches: networks, big data and ubiquity. It also explains how digital research methods may be used to identify data sources (such as the use of digital traces of online activity within social media), within data collection techniques (such as web scraping techniques) and through data analysis approaches, including data visualisation. The chapter concludes by highlighting the limitations and ethical issues of employing these methods.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and tables v
- Notes on contributors vi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- The family has become a network xv
- Connecting families? An introduction 1
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Theoretical and methodological approaches
- Theoretical perspectives on technology and society: implications for understanding the relationship between ICTs and family life 21
- Recursive approaches to technology adoption, families, and the life course: actor network theory and strong structuration theory 41
- Weaving family connections on and offline: the turn to networked individualism 59
- Oversharing in the time of selfies: an aesthetics of disappearance? 81
- The application of digital methods in a life course approach to family studies 97
- Cross-disciplinary research methods to study technology use, family, and life course dynamics: lessons from an action research project on social isolation and loneliness in later life 113
- From object to instrument: technologies as tools for family relations and family research 133
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Empirical approaches
- Use of communication technology to maintain intergenerational contact: toward an understanding of ‘digital solidarity’ 159
- Careful families and care as ‘kinwork’: an intergenerational study of families and digital media use in Melbourne, Australia 181
- Floating narratives: transnational families and digital storytelling 201
- Rescue chains and care talk among immigrants and their left-behind parents 219
- ‘Wherever you go, wherever you are, I am with you ... connected with my mobile’: the use of mobile text messages for the maintenance of family and romantic relations 237
- Permeability of work-family borders: effects of information and communication technologies on work-family conflict at the childcare stage in Japan 255
- Digital connections and family practices 273
- Index 295
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and tables v
- Notes on contributors vi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- The family has become a network xv
- Connecting families? An introduction 1
-
Theoretical and methodological approaches
- Theoretical perspectives on technology and society: implications for understanding the relationship between ICTs and family life 21
- Recursive approaches to technology adoption, families, and the life course: actor network theory and strong structuration theory 41
- Weaving family connections on and offline: the turn to networked individualism 59
- Oversharing in the time of selfies: an aesthetics of disappearance? 81
- The application of digital methods in a life course approach to family studies 97
- Cross-disciplinary research methods to study technology use, family, and life course dynamics: lessons from an action research project on social isolation and loneliness in later life 113
- From object to instrument: technologies as tools for family relations and family research 133
-
Empirical approaches
- Use of communication technology to maintain intergenerational contact: toward an understanding of ‘digital solidarity’ 159
- Careful families and care as ‘kinwork’: an intergenerational study of families and digital media use in Melbourne, Australia 181
- Floating narratives: transnational families and digital storytelling 201
- Rescue chains and care talk among immigrants and their left-behind parents 219
- ‘Wherever you go, wherever you are, I am with you ... connected with my mobile’: the use of mobile text messages for the maintenance of family and romantic relations 237
- Permeability of work-family borders: effects of information and communication technologies on work-family conflict at the childcare stage in Japan 255
- Digital connections and family practices 273
- Index 295
