Training young researchers to study family’s media use. Notes from the Digital Inclusion and Participation Proj

Ponte, C., Simões, José Alberto (2011). Training young researchers to study family’s media use. Notes from the Digital Inclusion and Participation Proj. Zagreb conference: "New challenges and methodological innovations in European media audience research". 7-9 April 2011.

Training young researchers to study families.pdf

Abstract: Abstract: This article presents a research and teaching experience occurred in an international research project, Digital Inclusion and Participation (2009-2011) involving researchers from Portugal and the USA (Texas). The main aim of the project is to understand the conditions and tendencies of access and appropriation of digital media by users and no users, with a particular focus on families and groups which are more vulnerable to digital exclusion (elderly people, immigrants, ethnic and linguistic minorities). Together with this aim the project also includes advanced education in digital media, focusing on the training of graduate students through supervised research among those social groups. These two objectives were gathered together in an interdisciplinary Seminar on Methods of Researching Media and Journalism (2009-2010 and 2010-2011) co-lectured by the authors of this paper, respectively from the Departments of Media Studies and Sociology. This article will focus on the process of research and teaching that was activated in the Seminar, how graduate students were prepared and supervised to conduct interviews with two members of the same family from different generations, how they were actively involved in the adaptation of the original questions, used in the University of Texas at Austin, into a narrative script focused on life stories and relationships with the media (in Annex), and in the sampling process of the interviewee families. The implications of using such a qualitative methodology and research-based learning for the students, as well as the other advantages and pitfalls found during this process will be discussed in detail.