A complete research proposal
Chapter 1
Introduction of the Research Problem
The present world is known as the age of science and communication. The way of communication has changed with the development of technology. By the internet networking system now the communication is much easier than that of the past. For the mutual communication and transmitting information, various social networks like Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter and others are active in internet.
At present, in all types of forums, people talk about Facebook. Today it has become a fashion, trend and symbol of status. Already it has been included in the dictionary as a word. In every country of the world, Facebook has become an essential part of many people’s life. For this, the present generation is often termed as “Facebook generation”.
1.1 Goals and Objectives of the study:
The main objective of this research is to explore the role of Facebook in increasing or decreasing social relationship. If it will reveal whether Facebook plays a vital role in increasing social relationship or not, how depth this relationship is and how long it continues? Also whether the relation developed through Facebook persists in real life or not, what important role is played by this such kind of social friend in practical life? The depth of relationship will be measured by Knapp’s relational stage model.
Furthermore, what is the impact of Facebook in decreasing social relationship, if so, to what extent or level, it decreases the relationship will also be found out. Also the impact of Facebook in real life friendship and its deterioration after it turns into virtual world will be focused through this study.
1.2 Rationale of the Research:
This research work will be carried out from the very perspectives of social necessity as we need to be conscious about the role of Facebook in social relationship.
Every person who uses Facebook, are mostly for making social relationship. But the main question is, does it really increase the social relationship? If not, then why the users tend to spend long time in Facebook.
For this research aims to show the effectiveness of Facebook based virtual and real life communication pattern, its result will help to determine the process for adopting effective communication pattern to the Facebook user. It will also guide the different organizations, both professional and non-professional, to persuade their targeted audience.
Chapter 2
History and Background
2.1 Facebook:
Since its inauguration in 2004, Facebook was reported to have more than 21 million registered members generating 1.6 billion page views each day by 2007. (Needham & Company, 2007). Following its success among college students, Facebook launched a high school version in early September 2005. In 2006, the company introduced communities for commercial organizations; as of November 2006, almost 22,000 organizations had Facebook directories (Smith, 2006).
`Facebook, enables its users to present themselves in an online profile, accumulate “friends” who can post comments on each other’s pages, and view each other’s profiles. Facebook members can also join virtual groups based on common interests, see what classes they have in common, and learn each other’s hobbies, interests, musical tastes, and romantic relationship status through the profiles’ (Ellison, N., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. 2007).
Facebook makes it simpler to communicate with multiple people at one time. Social media may also make it easier for users to monitor activities of people they have not seen in a while as well as reconnecting with new and old friends (Quan-Haase & Young, 2010).
2.2 Users in world:
Now Facebook.com is said to be one of the most visited websites in the world. According to Statisticbrain, the total number of monthly active Facebook users are 131,00,00,000 while the total number of mobile Facebook users are 68,00,00,000. 48% percentage of Facebook users log on in any given day. The average time spent on Facebook by per visitor is 18 minutes. And the total number of Facebook pages are 5, 42, 00,000 (Statisticbrain, 2014).
The top five countries on Facebook are the United States with15,49,57,740 users, Indonesia with 3,66,04,760, the United Kingdom with 2,84,09,040, Turkey and India with 2,53,98,600 (Bangladesh Facebook Statistics, 2014).
2.3 Users in Bangladesh:
A total of 15, 55,720 people, 0.98% of the whole population, use Facebook in Bangladesh (Bangladesh Facebook Statistics, 2014). “There are 7.4 million Facebook users in Bangladesh and 6.4 million are using Facebook from mobile devices! This is a brief break-down of some key numbers” (Slideshare, 2014).
2.4 Literature Review:
From the early moment of social media, its great role in social relationship has been remarkable. Now with the passage of time, Facebook fulfils the need mostly with its tremendous expansion. If we looked back to the last century, we saw the role of social media in the election of 1996 in USA, how the candidates developed relationship with the voters. ‘Journalist and scholars disagree as to why the new media could play such a prominent role in the election and whether this will be a feature of further campaigns. The new media offered voters direct access to the candidates and a great sense of political participation than traditional media - a change they believe it positively and permanent’ (Bender, Leone, Barour, Stalcup and Winters, 1996).
Previous research suggests that Facebook users engage in “searching” for people with whom they have an offline connection more than they “browse” for complete strangers to meet (Lampe, Ellison & Steinfield, 2006).
Online SNSs support both the maintenance of existing social ties and the formation of new connections. Much of the early research on online communities assumed that individuals using these systems would be connecting with others outside their pre-existing social group or location, liberating them to form communities around shared interests, as opposed to shared geography (Wellman, Salaff, Dimitrova, Garton, Gulia, & Haythornthwaite, 1996).
A hallmark of this early research was the presumption that when online and offline social networks overlapped, the directionality was online to offline—online connections resulted in face-to-face meetings. For instance, Paks and Floyd (1996) reported that one-third of their respondents later met their online correspondents face-to-face. As they write, “These findings imply the relationships that begin on line rarely stay there”.
In the field of communication research, there is going a debate on about the role of internet to make people social or non-social that Burnett (2003) depicts as `will the internet unite us or further divide us ?’ (P. 65)
This debate further intensified by the arguments of Kraut et al. (1998) who found that `greater use of the internet was associated with subsequent declines in the size of both the local social circle and, marginally, the size of the distant social circle’. It is further supported by Nie, Hillygus and Erbring’s (2002) research that presented `on average, the more time spent on the internet, the less time spent (offline) with friends, family and colleagues’ (P. 238).
PEW project on the internet and American life (2000) and The UCLA Centre for Communication Policy (2000) in different surveys found that internet users were more socially active than non-users. A study of Nie and Erbring (2000) argues that use of the internet challenges traditional relationships, lessens total social involvement, increases loneliness, and increases depression.
There have also some opposite findings according to Robinson, Kestnbaum, Neustadtl, and Alvarez’s (2000) findings, `when compared to those who did not use the Internet, Internet users were likely to spend more time communicating face-to-face and over the phone with family and friends’. Another study suggests ‘Internet contact neither increases nor decreases contact with people in person or on the telephone. It adds on to it, so that the more people use the Internet, the more overall contact they have with friends and relatives’ (Haythornthwaite & Wellman, 2002:28). Walther argues computer mediated communication as being more `social' than face-to-face interaction (Walther et al., 1994).
An organization based on USA ‘Center for Communication Policy’ (2000) conducts some surveys about internet and the life of Americans. The result of this survey shows that those persons who use internet they also maintain more social relations than others.
Considering the gender perspectives in the social media, various studies have been carried out so far. Women are more likely than men to have a personal profile on Facebook, but men are more likely than women to sustain a profile on LinkedIn (Lenhart et al, 2010). Furthermore, women were four to five times more likely than men to use social networking sites (Tufekci, 2008). Moreover, Sheldon (2008) found that overall women were more likely to use social media for maintaining relationships with family and friends, passing time, and entertainment, but men were more likely to use social media to meet new people. College women were also more likely than men to use the internet for relational communication, such as contacts with friends, family, and romantic partners (Baym, Zhang, Kunkel, Ledbetter, & Mei-Chen, 2007).
Data has shown that individuals who used Facebook for communication had better qualities for friendships. Using social media sites helped improve the quality of relationships between users. Some reasons for improving quality of relationships through using Facebook included: it was easier to get to know others better without having face-to-face conversation, users felt more comfortable and users spent more time communicating over the computer so they gained more social support (Baker & Oswald, 2010).
Chapter 3
Research Questions
This Study will employ the following principal questions:
Does the Facebook increase social relations or decrease social relations or both of these?
If it increases the social relations, then how and to what stage it reaches?
If it decreases social relations, then how and to what stage it reaches?
What is the real life effectiveness of the relationship of Facebook friendship?
Chapter 4
Theoretical framework
In this research, there will be followed the Knapp’s Relational Stage Model theory to determine the relational stage of the Facebook users.
Knapp’s Relational Stage Model
Knapp’s (1978) relational stage model is a foundational theory in interpersonal communication. Stage models assume a social exchange framework wherein individuals involved in romantic relationships seek to maximize their rewards and minimize their costs (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959), choosing to engage in or disengage from relationships based on the equity of costs and rewards in that relationship (Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978).
Knapp’s (1978) dual staircase model elaborated how relationships escalate, stabilize, and descend over time through communicative processes. The model assumes relationships escalate in five distinct stages: initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, and bonding.
Relationship Stage: From Beginning to Bonding
Stage 1 – Initiating:
Initiating is defined as the first interaction between two individuals. It occurs immediately upon meeting someone and involves making a first impression. Initiating is often dictated by social norms and standards for greeting another person; handshakes, introductions, and superficial topics dominate initial conversation (Knapp & Vangelisti, 2009).
Stage 2 – Experimenting:
Experimenting involve the use of secret tests (Baxter & Wilmot, 1984) within the relationship to evaluate the interest or commitment level of the target. Information is gathered and weighed, as the initial stages of relationships require that individuals filter information about a potential romantic partner (Fox, Warber & Makstaller, 2013).
Stage 3 – Intensifying:
The next stage in escalation, intensifying, occurs when the relationship becomes less scripted. Relational partners’ self-disclosure increases and relational commitment begins to manifest (Knapp & Vangelisti, 2009; Shea & Pearson, 1986).
Stage 4 – Integrating:
During the integrating stage, couples form a sense of shared, public relational identity. Couples are less likely to rely on social norms to dictate their relationship and instead focus on connectedness within the dyad. In this stage, couples typically refer to themselves as “we” and “us” as a way to assume an interdependent relational identity (Knapp & Vangelisti, 2009; Shea & Pearson, 1986).
Stage 5 – Bonding:
Finally, couples publicly announce their relationship which is often solidified in the formal, typically legal (e.g., marriage or civil union) bonding stage of Knapp’s model (Knapp & Vangelisti, 2009).
Relationship Stage: From Bonding to Ending
Stage 6 – Differentiating:
Instead of continuing to emphasize ‘we’, in this stage the parties to the relationship attempt to reestablish an ‘I’ orientation in an effort to regain a unique identity. They ask, ‘How are we different?’ ‘How can I distinguish me from you?’ (Gamble & Gamble, 1987).
Stage 7 – Circumscribing:
In this stage, both the quality and the quantity of communication between the parties to the relationship decrease. Sometimes an effort is made to carefully limit areas open for discussion to those considered ‘safe’. Other times, there is no actual decrease in topic breadth, but subjects are no longer discussed with any real in-depth (Gamble & Gamble,
1987).
Stage 8 – Stagnating:
When circumscribing continues, the relationship stagnates, IN stage 8, participants feel that they no longer need to relate to each other because they know how the interaction will proceed; thus they conclude, ‘it is better to say nothing,’ (Gamble & Gamble, 1987).
Stage 9 – Avoiding:
During this phase, participants actually go out of their way to be apart; they avoid contact with each other. Relating face to face or voice to voice has simply become too unpleasant foe one or both to continue ‘the act’ (Gamble & Gamble, 1987).
Stage 10 – Termination:
In this point, the bonds that used to hold the relationship together are severed; the relationship ends. Depending on how parties feel, this stage can be short or deawn out over time, can end cordially or bitterly (Gamble & Gamble, 1987).
Chapter 5
Methods of Data Collection and Analysis
5.1 Methods of Data Collection:
In this study, survey method will be applied to gather general data and In-depth interview will be conducted to observe the bonding and terminating pattern of their relations. But, both of them will be used according to Knapp’s relational stage model.
5.1.1 Survey Method:
This study will gather data and opinions from the users. As this research’s aim is to find out the relational stage of the users, and how they build up the relationship in Facebook and how their relationship is terminated.
5.1.2 In-depth Interview:
This study will also be applicable through In-depth interview method. The selected Facebook users will be asked by in-In-depth questions like: how they make friendship in Facebook, why they make such kind of friendship, what they feel the differences between real friend and Facebook friend and how they conduct physically with the Facebook friend. Also they will be asked the question about the impact of Facebook on determination of the relationship.
5.2 Tools of Data Collection:
In this research, some structured questionnaires will be framed to sample respondents directly and some will be sent through e-mails and Facebook messages. The general respondents will answer the questionnaires.
On the other hand, in-depth interview will be taken via face-to-face conversation. They will be asked some open-ended questions and the questions will be selected. But in necessary cases, the questions will be modified with the flow of answers. When someone’s answer will introduce the new concept of relational bonding or ending, he or she will be asked new questions by instant brilliance.
5.3 Methods of Data Analysis:
The survey data and the In-depth questions answer will be presented differently. The survey data will be analyzed normally and presented in different tables. Data will be shown to signify relational stages, how much people reached the final stage of relation by Facebook, how much people’s previous relation also terminate after becoming a Facebook friend.
The result of In-depth interview will be shown in qualitative method. It will demonstrate the whole process of relational development of the interviewed people, how they begin their relation, how they come in bonding stage, how their relation terminated, how they become the real life friend from Facebook friendship and judging which qualification and symptoms they make real life friendship with a Facebook friend. It will be an empirical study representing the different angles of relationship.
Chapter 6
Limitations of the Research:
Respondent collection is difficult, because the lack of specific data on Facebook users of Dhaka University.
Privacy may hamper to see the number of friends of Facebook users.
Chapter 7
Sampling
One hundred Facebook users from University of Dhaka will be selected in this research. Students who have more than 1000 friends in their Facebook, and have the average ‘like’ number of their most updated 3 profile pictures with some 200 likes and those who use Facebook for more than 1 hour on average per day will be picked as random sampling to sort of active users. And this research will take in-depth interview of 20 Facebook users, who have more than 2,000 Facebook friends and everyday they spend more than 2 hours in Facebook.
To ensure equal representation, this research will use equal respondents from every faculty. At the same time, it will ensure the participation both male and female students. This research will take help from other people to find respondents.
Chapter 8
Timeline:
Time budget of this research:
Tasks/week
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18th
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Preparation
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Introduction
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Literature Review
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Methodology and Sampling
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Respondents Collection
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Survey question
Preparation
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Survey
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In-depth Interview
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Survey Data Analysis
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In-depth interview Analysis
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Draft Report
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Final Report
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Chapter 9
Budget
Financial budget of this research:
Se. No.
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Description
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Taka
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Article and previous research collection
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5000/-
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2.
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Transport
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1000/-
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Internet bill
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1000/-
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4.
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Note and pen
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700/-
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Pencil and others
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300/-
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Compose and binding
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1000/-
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Others
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1000/-
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Total 10,000/-
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Chapter 10
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The End.
Courtesy: R. Shikdar.
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