My choice to study Gay Latinos’ perception on gay-friendly advertising came after reading an article about the gay community as a niche market that companies are attempting to reach.  Most gay-friendly advertisements are directed at gay men but  that doesn’t necessarily reach the lesbian community. Aside from that, most advertisements directed at gay men feature mostly white men.  I know how I felt as a gay Latino about gay advertisements, but I wanted to find out the perception other gay Latinos had and how they experienced it.

The Latino community in the US is racially diverse, but has a collective culture where language, customs, and perceptions are the same. Therefore, racial categorization can be difficult because it’s possible for a Latin person to identify as White because of their race, but they may not feel White. So,  with this in mind I wanted to see how some gay Latinos felt about gay-friendly advertisements, whether they identified with them, and see if they identified more as a Latino consumer or a gay consumer.

I held a focus group with 2 participants (it was supposed to be 3 but the third person was sick) where we spoke for approx. 1 hr to discuss being a gay Latino and gay-friendly advertising.  During the focus group I showed the participants 2 advertisements to get their commentary. One was an ad from Miller Lite  which was a direct  advertisement to the gay community. The second was an “in-group” advertisement, which is an ad that features language or imagery that is unique to the market it’s aimed at but can go unnoticed by other consumers.

The focus group went really well and I found out that the participants were unaffected by gay-friendly advertisements if it was something they would buy anyway. One of my participants said  “Seeing a Latino in a gay-friendly advertisement would be nice but it  wouldn’t change my mind about buying something because Latinos aren’t featured in most advertising anyway”. It wasn’t what I thought I would get but interesting nonetheless.

Below you’ll see the advertisements I used

Courtesy of Miller LIte

Courtesy of Travelocity

I am studying the sub culture around electronic dance music (EDM). Dance music has become more popular in the US in the past couple of years. I am interested in why people enjoy listening to this particular type of music as well as possibly uncovering any reoccurring themes in the interview responses that may be interesting to report.

In order to do research on this subject, I attended Webster Hall nightclub on a night when a world famous DJ group was performing. I participated in the event as, well, a participant! I also interviewed 10 other participants chosen at random with the help of an assistant interviewer. Answers to the interview questions were recorded as well as any noteworthy body language or other observable phenomena during the interview. The study will be more ethnographic than phenomenological because I will be asking open ended questions about the experience of electronic dance music rather than the specific event taking place.

At this time I am not experiencing any issues writing up my report but that will likely change as we get closer to Thursday.

I look forward to presenting my findings.

How corporate identity drives corporate communication goals.  

I’m trying to dig on the first of the Barcelona Principles of Measurement: “The Importance of Goal Setting and Measurement”. They were established in 2010 to systematize the best practices on PR measurement techniques all over the global PR community.

I’m approaching this issue by comparing objective and subjective values within a broad corporate identity framework.  Objective values can be deduced from the objective allocation of resources and sources of income, namely, the financial statements. While people encode values by means of narrative structures of a symbolic character.

• What is the relationship between the objective values provided by the financial statements of Facebook, and the subjective values provided by the narratives of the users?

The purpose of the interviews is letting the participants generate/reproduce narratives about the company of interest to identify the predominant values. Every value must receive a score measuring the intensity with which it was regarded by the participants. This way we could compare them with the relative budgetary weight of the objective values provided by the financial statements.

Challenges:

They’re abundant : I’ve just found four papers on corp. comm. goal setting. The load of information provided by five interviews is far from enough to make me feel comfortable with the findings. I may need to use mixed methods in the future to extract more information after the regular interviews from the participants. Another solution would be working in a new longer sharper questionnaire.

I seek to investigate if there is a relationship between employee motivation and the way in which their performance is evaluated and communicated to them. If employers can be given some insight on how to effectively increase employee motivation, they can directly impact corporate culture, which in turn may contribute to overall positive company performance. I seek to take a look at the calibration model used in performance management systems in corporate environments and determine the impact on employee motivation. Through the use of interview, guided by specific questions, I have collected information from three employees at different levels within the same department at a large international organization. I am in the process of analyzing the results and drawing a conclusion on what I have found, as far as common themes and unexpected perceptions and feelings about the experience of being evaluated using calibration.

It was a little confusing decided whether to choose a phenomenological or social constructivism approach, but I think that capturing the feelings and the experience of going through the process can lead to a more honest view of the impact on motivation, if any.

It would be helpful to get more information that clearly defines the creation, implementation and also different views on using calibration to evaluate employee performance. This would help get the organizational view point on the topic, for a well rounded conversation.

For my mini research study, I want to understand how people think about social responsibility when purchasing their fruits and vegetables. My research question aims to discover how important the concept of having and buying ethically sourced produce is to the end consumer. I’m seeking to find out if the idea of being socially responsible really resonates with the public and if it affects the consumer’s shopping behaviors. Through analyzing shared experiences amongst grocery shoppers, I hope to know how much social responsibility is (or isn’t) a factor in their produce shopping.

I am conducting this study using the phenomenological, hermeneutical approach, since I am looking to understand a shared experience amongst a group of people; this shared experience will be grocery shopping for produce. I will be conducting this study using the social constructivism framework, which is designed for analyzing emerging ideas through interviewing and observation. Social constructivism was the appropriate framework because of its emphasis on the importance of culture and context in understanding what occurs in society. In this scenario, I’m deducing how the culture and environment contribute to the context in which I understand the shoppers’ behavior and their sentiments towards responsible shopping. Hopefully, analyzing experiences amongst shoppers will indicate that some people think about social responsibility when making their purchases.

Interestingly enough, some of the results found from my one-on-one interviews have actually got me thinking about a different idea when it comes to ethical shopping, and that regards ethical concerns when purchasing meat, poultry and fish. But, that is something I may consider for my bigger project – the thesis. I still have one more interview to conduct, but I’m really looking forward to finally just digging in and analyzing the data. I noticed that one of the issues I had when coming up with questions was really trying to develop questions that elicit emotion, since I am conducting a phenomenological study. But I still am getting information worth noting. I am hoping that the information I find at the end of my research will be useful for everyday consumers in understanding their own behaviors, and possibly so they can understand how socially responsible shopping has a positive effect for the community, and even possibly local economy. I am hoping to find data that will also be of use to farmers, produce companies and vendors – so that they can see trends and have a better understanding for what public demands/needs and concerns are.

The research question that needs to be addressed through my mini study is : How do blogs about obesity influence 30-40 year old men’s choices between visiting a doctor and self-diagnosing from the blog?

I am conducting in-person, individual interviews with three men (of Indian origin, all working professionals here in the US). I have conducted two interviews so far and will be conducting the third today. The interview questions that I have designed will help me understand the rationale and motivation of these participants behind using blogs to address their concerns about obesity.

Following are the ten questions that I have planned for the individual interviews. Feel free to go through these. Are they sufficient? Is any question directing the participant toward a particular answer?:

1. According to you what should be the functions of obesity- related health blogs?
2. In the past 12 months, what activities did you do while visiting health blogs?
3. What questions/concerns about obesity do you try to address through blogs?
4. How frequently do you visit obesity-related health blogs?
5. How did you become familiar with the concept of these blogs?
6. Before being introduced to these blogs, what other resources did you refer to for getting answers to your questions?
7. What do you think about the content that is out there on the blog?
8. Do you feel the need to ask a doctor either before or after reading the blog?

–          If yes, why?

–          If no, why not?

9. How has referring the blogs impacted your relationship with your doctor?

10. What makes you revisit the blogs?

Any feedback / suggestion is welcome.

I wanted to study employee communication at my organization because of the apparent division between union and non-union staff members, especially during times of contract negotiations where anti-management sentiment is at its peak. Specifically, my goal is to understand the perceptions of unionized employees as it pertains to communications sent by management when policies or procedures are implemented. How do union employees perceive these communications? Why are they perceived as such? By studying their perceptions, I hope to gain an understanding of what the organization can do to improve its communications to employees (which may ultimately affect employee morale, but that would be a bonus).

Using social constructivism as a framework and phenomenology as the theoretical approach, I conducted a focus group with 3 union staff members from the same department within the organization in an attempt to answer my research question:

How do full-time union employees in the Administrative Services department at the Research Foundation perceive executive-level communications.

The raw data that I gathered from this one-hour focus group was absolutely amazing. I thought I may have some bias as the researcher in terms of my association with the three staff members, but I was surprised by what I heard from the three participants and how they each strongly defended their opinions and articulated their personal experiences. They were supportive of one another and yet they confidently expressed their own ideas, which at times, were contrary to those of their colleagues. Overall, a great experience to watch unfold before my eyes.

I transcribed the data verbatim (which took many, many hours) and immediately began to notice the patterns emerge. It’s exciting and exhausting at the same time. I found myself attempting to manage pages and pages of transcribed raw data and the organization of this data seemed overwhelming. I read and re-read Powell & Renner’s Analyzing Qualitative Data, but I found that organizing narrative data is just incredibly tedious. My issue became one of “What do I include and what do I exclude?” “This seems good, but there are too many extra words; do these words really express emotion?” I found this part of the project to be the most challenging, but I finally figured out a system that worked by placing each participant’s comments side-by-side on a spreadsheet and highlighting the text that screamed for attention. The patterns were crystal clear.

I’m not sure whether there’s anything concrete that could have actually helped me more than the article on Analyzing Qualitative Data (other than having an expert actually walk me through the data analysis process). In undertaking this research project, it seems you just have to learn by doing and develop a system that makes sense to you and allows you to understand your data to the degree that you can clearly explain what you’ve found.

ecommerce is now being introduced in social media. It could be a revolutionary component of social media. Facebook is one of the first platforms to introduce this. In my study I want to analyze reactions to the introduction of ecommerce in Facebook. Social media is of personal interest to me. Companies who are contemplating introducing ecommerce to their official Facebook pages can benefit from this study.

I used content analysis. I observed 61 comments from two articles posted about the introduction of ecommerce in social media. I am interested in databases that are pertinent to social media marketing. I have not been able to fine many studies in this domain. Perhaps it is a new concept? In the future I plan to study other aspects about social media and using social media as a platform to improve sales.

I have an interest in employee communications, and how to make employees feel appreciated through employee communications in particular. In large corporations with thousands of employees, it’s easy for individuals to feel lost, and as though their contribution to the company is not appreciated. Companies can communicate to their employees through an employee intranet, emails, webcasts, town halls, and weekly newsletters.

I chose to examine a company’s weekly newsletter, and my research question is: Do weekly employee newsletters make employees feel appreciated and promote a feeling of belongingness to the large corporation?

My study will use a phenomenological approach. The phenomenon is how individual employees feel appreciated by their employer in a large corporation. Through a focus group, I will examine whether a weekly employee newsletter affects this phenomenon, and if so, how it does.