Methodological implications of social media as a research setting for IS studies in healthcare: Reflections from a grounded theory study

Hamid Pousti, Cathy Urquhart, Frada Burstein, Henry Linger

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingPaper in conference proceedingpeer-review

Abstract

Over the last decade, social media environments have increasingly become an attractive research setting for Information Systems researchers. However, the methodological implications of this research setting for IS studies, are still not fully understood. In this paper we develop and present a framework to reflect on a recent qualitative healthcare IS study that focussed on the use of social media as a research setting. We argue that focusing on social media as a research setting in qualitative IS study can have implications for the contextualisation of the study (implications for the research paradigm), defining research setting (implications for research design), theoretical sampling (implications for data collection and data analysis), and research ethics (implications for research design). With the popularity and growth of IS studies that focus on social media as a research setting in healthcare context, we conclude by calling for an extensive re-examination of methodological practices to meet the challenge of researching of social media in healthcare.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationACIS 2013: Information systems: Transforming the Future: Proceedings of the 24th Australasian Conference on Information Systems
EditorsHepu DENG, Craig STANDING
PublisherRMIT University
ISBN (Electronic)9780992449506
Publication statusPublished - 2013
Externally publishedYes
Event24th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, ACIS2013 - Melbourne, Australia
Duration: 2013 Dec 42013 Dec 6

Conference

Conference24th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, ACIS2013
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityMelbourne
Period2013/12/042013/12/06

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Hamid Pousti, Cathy Urquhart, Frada Burstein and Henry Linger 2013.

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Information Systems, Social aspects

Free keywords

  • Grounded theory method
  • Healthcare IS
  • Interpretative paradigm
  • Research setting
  • Social media

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