Dear all, I take it that we all know what is an interpretive ethnographic perspective. I wonder though when and whether one can say that there are missing data when engaged in fieldwork. Take the case of entering a primary school classroom, you might have access to the teacher's log, yet again the school's head may refuse you access to a school policy either because the document is outdated, or not in place. In this case the ethnographer should report what has happened, or base him/herself on what she can have access to. As for online qualitative research, then again we should ask ourselves first whether the screen is a viable fieldwork and whether the screen either hinders or helps the ethnographer to reconstruct the cultural ecology of the space that s/he is engaged with. One thing is for sure, one has to go deep and, in so doing, I mean that it is worth looking beyond the boundaries of the socio-cultural space one is trying to reconstruct. Take the case of fan cultures. A fan may well be part of a fan group on Fb, s/he might flag off a certain identity, say certain things (appropriate himself of the genre that s/he thinks he should use in order to be part of this fan group). In my view though it is also worth looking beyond that fan group and see whether the fan in question has a blog or a webpage, and maybe through this webpage of his, one can have access to his writings and to how his inhabited identity of being a fan is constructed (beyond) the fan wall on Fb. That may lead to cater for those data that one has not been able to collect and it may also cater for triangulation. I hope this helps a little. Best wishes, Max Spotti -----Original Message----- From: "Mohammad H. Hasani" <mh_hasani@yahoo.com> To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2010 13:01:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Air-L] Fw: Re: Missing Data in Qualitative and Online Research --- On Sat, 8/7/10, Mohammad H. Hasani <mh_hasani@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Mohammad H. Hasani <mh_hasani@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Missing Data in Qualitative and Online Research To: "William Dutton" <william.dutton@oii.ox.ac.uk> Date: Saturday, August 7, 2010, 12:59 PM Generally speaking, 1. I think missing data in a Qual research is data could make a significant contribution to the grounded concept or theory but researcher neglects or fails to collect. Repeating some phases in data collection/analysis, conducting parallel Qual research or reverse previewing of the research phases seems to help. 2. The same for CMR, but here, the researcher should also pay more attention to the cases; inappropriate cases may cause collecting poor data could be seen as missed. Triangulated observations may help in this case.   Mohammad H. Hasani, Instructor in Sociology Payame Noor University      --- On Fri, 8/6/10, William Dutton <william.dutton@oii.ox.ac.uk> wrote: From: William Dutton <william.dutton@oii.ox.ac.uk> Subject: [Air-L] Missing Data in Qualitative and Online Research To: "air-l@listserv.aoir.org" <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Date: Friday, August 6, 2010, 8:17 AM Dear List Members, My colleagues and I would greatly appreciate your input to an exploratory project on missing data in qualitative and online research.* We would appreciate anything from your immediate reactions while reading this e-mail to detailed references to literature that has addressed our questions. There are two very general but heuristically useful questions. Your views on either would be welcomed. Feel free to reply privately or to the list, as you wish. 1. What is ‘missing data’ in the context of qualitative research and how is it dealt with? 2. Likewise, in computer-mediated research, are researchers missing particular kinds of data, or believe that they are missing particular kinds of observations, and how are they compensating or otherwise addressing this gap? Thoughts? Thank you, Bill *This is a collaborative project between the ESRC’s National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) ‘hub’ (Graham Crow, Rose Wiles), WISERD (Amanda Coffey), Oxford eSocial Science ‘node’ of NCeSS (Bill Dutton, Alison Powell), and Qualidata/Timescapes (Libby Bishop), based on our recognition of a shared but not well developed problem. William Dutton, Director Professor of Internet Studies Oxford Internet Institute 1 St Giles', Oxford OX1 3JS  UK e-mail: william.dutton at oii.ox.ac.uk Web: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=1 Phone: +44 (0)1865 287 212 Cell: +44 (0)7768 823906 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ Dr. Massimiliano Spotti Babylon/ Dept. of Culture Building D, Room 219 Faculty of Humanities Tilburg University 5000LE - Tilburg The Netherlands Phone: *31-13-4662258 Fax: *31-13-4662892 http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/babylon ------------------------------------ Researcher Finland Distinguished Professor Scheme Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä Tel.: +358 14 260 1372