My CCCC 2013 presentation, describing how I used social media streams to supplement more traditional qualitative data in two recent projects.

1. Triangulating Qualitative
Research with Social
Media Streams
Clay Spinuzzi
clay.spinuzzi@utexas.edu

2. Social media's promise...

3. Two workplace studies
Coworking:
o Spinuzzi, C. (2012). Working alone, together:
Coworking as emergent collaborative activity.
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
26(4). 399-441.
Nonemployer firms:
o Spinuzzi, C. (Accepted). How nonemployer firms
stage-manage ad-hoc collaboration: An activity
theory analysis. Technical Communication Quarterly.

4. Coworking: Research questions
• What is coworking?
• Who coworks?
• Why do they cowork?

5. Coworking: Social media
• Coworking proprietors: self-promotion and
business promotion
o Websites for coworking sites
o Facebook pages for coworking sites
o LinkedIn profiles for proprietors
o Craigslist ads for coworking sites
• Coworkers: self-promotion, business
promotion, ratings, comments on sites
o LinkedIn profiles for coworkers
o Foursquare and Gowalla checkins
o Yelp and Google Places reviews

6. Coworking: Social media
• Coworking proprietors: self-promotion and
business promotion
o Websites for coworking sites (What/Who/Why?)
o Facebook pages for coworking sites (What/Who/
Why?)
o LinkedIn profiles for proprietors (Who?)
o Craigslist ads for coworking sites (What/Who/Why?)
• Coworkers: self-promotion, business
promotion, ratings, comments on sites
o LinkedIn profiles for coworkers (Who?)
o Foursquare and Gowalla checkins (Why?)

7. Coworking: Triangulating social
media with other data
• Proprietor interviews
• Coworker interviews
• Walkthroughs
• Offline collateral
Social media provided
• Confirmation
• Distinctions
• Additional information

8. Nonemployer firms
• How did NEFs represent themselves to
clients?
• How did NEFs find and establish
relationships with subcontractors who could
support their self-presentation to clients?
• How did NEFs coordinate subcontractors in
ways that reinforced rather than disrupted
their self-presentation to clients?

9. Nonemployer firms: Social media
Representation via
o Websites
o LinkedIn
o Twitter profiles
o Yelp and Google Places reviews
Social media were more restricted here (just
one research question).
But they provided
• Confirmation
• Additional information

10. Pitfalls