Towards Democratisation?: Understanding university students’ Internet use in mainland China
Appendices Appendix I: Interview Guide for In-Depth Interview
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- Appendix II: Informed Consent Form Template for In-Depth Interviews
AppendicesAppendix I: Interview Guide for In-Depth Interview1. Introduction Thank you for agreeing to meet me. My name is Jin Xuelian. I’m a second-year PhD student in the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield in the UK. My study tries to understand the Internet use of university students like you, your understanding of your Internet use and its political implications. This is an in-depth interview about your use of the Internet and your understanding of your usage. I am going to give you information and invite you to be part of this research. It may take about one to three hours and the process will be recorded if you agree. I hope that we could go into details of your Internet use and what you really think about your usage. It is up to you to decide whether or not you will participate in the research. Before you decide, you can talk to me about the research. This consent form may contain words that you do not understand. Please ask me to stop as we go through the information and I will take time to explain. If you have questions later, you can ask them of me. To protect your privacy, the record will be stored anonymously with a code for the project and destroyed after this project. Any information about your identity will not be released in any of my publications. I have already signed the Informed Consent Form in which your rights are stated. (Show the participant the form.) You can keep it and sue me with this form if my publication brings you any trouble or loss due to the leak of your identity. The webpage of the Research Ethics Committee at the University of Sheffield is http://www.shef.ac.uk/ris/other/committees/ethicscommittee. You have the right to ask and leave any time you want during the process without giving a reason. And you also have the right the check the record and notes to see if you are correctly understood. In return for your favour, you could ask me any question that you are interested in after our interview. I also need your signature for the Informed Consent Form to confirm that your rights are concerned and protected. (Show the participant the form.) Please read the form carefully and sign it if you agree. (Read through the form with the participant). Thank you again. 2. Opening questions: demographic features and online skills 2.1 Demographic features 1) Gender (by observation) 2) How old are you? 3).What course do you study? 4) Which year are you in? 5). Where were you born? 6) What course did you study during your senior high school, science or social science? Online skills: I used the Online skills scale (alpha = .75) created by Brian S. Krueger (2005) which consists of four items
1) Are you able to send an attachment via email? 2) Are you able to download a program from the Internet? 3) Are you able to post a file to the Internet? 4) Have you designed a web page? 3. Key questions: online experience and participant’s understanding 3.1 Habits of Internet use: Could you please describe your habit of using the Internet? It includes where, when, how frequently and with what device you use the Internet. 3.2 Privacy concern while surfing on the Internet in the dormitory (It aims to find out if the participants consider politically sensitive topics private or sensitive among their roommates and how Internet use affects their offline discussion with their roommates.) Usually are your roommates in your dormitory while you are surfing on the Internet? Do you have privacy concerns while you are online in your dormitory? If yes, what do you concern about? Does your privacy concern affect what you do online? Will you share or discuss with your roommates what you have learned from the Internet? If yes, what do you share or discuss with them? 3.3 Internet surfing with the mobile phone What do you do online with your mobile phone? How frequently do you use your mobile phone to surf on the Internet? Online activities: general picture What do you do online? Could you list all your online activities in the order you usually do when you surf on the Internet?
The researcher took notes of the online activities the participants listed and investigated each online activity in great detail in the order the participants provided. The branch questions varied in accordance with the answers of the participants. Therefore, only the stem questions are listed below. Online forums: What online forums do you use? What is the content of the online forums? How do you get to know about the online forums? What do you do with the online forums? How frequently do you use the online forum? News and information Through what Internet applications do you read or search for information or news? How frequently do you read or search information or news online? What kinds of information or news do you read or look for online? Could you describe your online news reading habit? What will you do after you read a piece of news online? Could you describe your online information search habit? Do you share, discuss or comment on what you read or find online? If yes, through what online and offline channels do you do it? What do you share, discuss or comment on? With whom do you share or discuss? How frequently do you do you do that? (Ask the frequency of each activity) Micro-blog Which micro-blog do you use? Are you anonymous on the platform? How many micro-blogs do you follow? How do you classify them? How do you find them? Why do you follow them? How many fans follow you? How do you classify them? What do you share, comment on or discuss on your micro-blog? How frequently do you do that? Will you share or discuss what you learned from micro-blog through other online or offline channels? If yes, through what online and offline channels do you do it? What do you share, discuss or comment on? With whom do you share or discuss? How frequently do you do you do that? (Ask the frequency of each activity) Censorship Do you have privacy concerns when you read politically sensitive content online? Does censorship affect what you read or search online? Does censorship affect what you share or post online? What kinds of content do you know will be censored? What do you think of the censorship in China? QQ (ICQ) What do you do with QQ? How many QQ contacts do you have? How do you group your QQ contacts and how many persons in each group? How many QQ groups do you have? And what are they? What do you chat, share or discuss with your QQ contacts or in QQ groups? How frequently do you use QQ? Renren
How many friends do you have on Renren? How do they become your Renren friends? What do your friends share, post or discuss on Renren? What do you share, post or discuss on Renren? Will you share or discuss what you learned from Renren through other online or offline channels? If yes, through what online and offline channels do you do it? What do you share, discuss or comment on? With whom do you share or discuss? How frequently do you use Renren? Online participation Have you participated activities arranged through the Internet? If yes, could you describe your experience of that activity? How did you get to know about it? For what purpose did you do it? Have you joined organisations or associations through the Internet? If yes, could you describe the organisation or association and your role in it and your experience with it? How did you get to know about the organisation or association? For what purpose did you join it? Have you organised any activity through the Internet? If yes, could you describe your experience of the activity? Have you established any organisation or association through the Internet? If yes, could you describe the organisation or association and your experience? Online novels What kinds of novels do you read online? How frequently do you read novels online? Influence Do your online activities have influence on the Chinese society? If yes, how do you think does it work? Do your online activities have influence on you? If yes, how are you affected? Does the Internet have influence on the Chinese society? If yes, how do you think it works? Do you think the issues and the problems published or discussed online relate to you? In the interviews, the participants were asked to share with the researcher their understanding of each of their online activities and their understanding of the online content they had encountered. 4. Closing questions The purpose of the interview is to find out every detail about your Internet use. Do you have anything to add to the previous questions? Did we miss anything about your Internet use? Do you have any suggestion or question for my research topic? Do you have any suggestion or question about the interview? Did you keep anything from me for private concerns or any other reasons? If yes, could you tell me the reason? Appendix II: Informed Consent Form Template for In-Depth Interviews
University Research Ethics Committee (UREC) http://www.shef.ac.uk/ris/other/committees/ethicscommittee Informed Consent Form Template for In-Depth Interviews Informed Consent Form for university students in mainland China who I am inviting to participate in my PhD research, titled “Understanding university students’ Internet use and its political implications in mainland China: using grounded theory” Investigator and Interviewer: Xuelian Jin Position: PhD student Supervisor: John Steel Institution: The Department of Journalism Studies, The University of Sheffield, UK Address (UK): 18-22 Regent Street, Sheffield, S1 3NJ E-mail: jop10xj@shef.ac.uk This Informed Consent Form has two parts: • Information Sheet (to share information about the study with you) • Certificate of Consent (for signatures if you choose to participate)
Thank you for agreeing to meet me. My name is Jin Xuelian. I’m a second-year PhD student in the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield in the UK. My study tries to understand the Internet use of university students like you, your understanding of your Internet use and its political implications. This is an in-depth interview about your use of the Internet and your understanding of your usage. I am going to give you information and invite you to be part of this research. It is up to you to decide whether or not you will participate in the research. Before you decide, you can talk to me about the research. This consent form may contain words that you do not understand. Please ask me to stop as we go through the information and I will take time to explain. If you have questions later, you can ask them of me. Purpose of the research The Internet has been developing rapidly in China. Many people are interested in how the Internet influences China. I try to understand its influence through the perspective of university students. How do you use the Internet? What do you use it for? And how do you explain and understand your usage? Type of Research Intervention This research will involve your participation in an in-depth interview that will take about one to three hours. Participant Selection You are being invited to take part in this research because you volunteered (or your tutor recommended you to me). As a university student, your online experience and your understanding of your online experience can contribute much to my understanding and knowledge of my research topic. Voluntary Participation Your participation in this research is entirely voluntary. It is your choice whether or not to participate. You can choose to withdraw any time you wish without giving a reason even after you agree to participate. Procedures If you accept my invitation to participate in the interview, you and I will have a private conversation here in this consulting room (or café) or any other place of your choice. If you do not wish to answer any of the questions during the interview, you may say so and I will move on to the next question. The information recorded is confidential, and no one else except I will access to the information documented during your interview. The entire interview will be recorded, but no-one will be identified by name on the document. The document will be kept in my personal laptop and a digital storage device that can be accessed only by me. The information recorded is confidential, and no one else except I have access to the documents. The documents will be destroyed when the project is closed. Duration The interview will be held once and will take about one to three hours. You could leave me a means to reach you if you agree to further contact you when questions emerge during the research. Risks As the research tries to understand every aspect of your Internet use, I may ask you to share with me some very personal and confidential information that you may feel reluctant or uncomfortable to talk about, like politically sensitive content or pornography. You do not have to answer any question or take part in the interview if you don't wish to do so, and that is also fine. You do not have to give me any reason for not responding to any question, or for refusing to take part in the interview. I hope that you could let me know that you don’t wish to answer the question instead of lying when you feel uncomfortable to talk about it. Benefits There will be no direct benefit to you, but your participation is likely to help me to gain a better understanding about how a university student uses the Internet and how you understand your usage, and thus how the Internet might influence China. Reimbursements You will not be provided any incentive to take part in the research. Confidentiality I will not be sharing information about you to anyone. The information that I collect from this research project will be kept private. Any information about you will have a code on it instead of your name. Only the transcription of our conversation will be shown to the coders and be coded, but with all information about your identity concealed. Sharing the Results My PhD dissertation based on the data I collect from you and other participants will be submitted to my department, my university and to one external examiner. I will also try to publish the results so that other interested people may learn from the research. But nothing will be attributed to you by name. You can receive a summary of the results if you wish and leave your contact detail. Right to Refuse or Withdraw You do not have to take part in this research if you do not wish to do so. You may stop participating at any time that you wish. I will give you an opportunity at the end of the interview to listen to the record, and you can ask to modify or remove portions of those, if you do not want it to be recorded. Who to Contact This proposal has been reviewed and approved by University Research Ethics Committee (UREC) which is a committee at the University of Sheffield whose task it is to make sure that research participants are protected from harm. If you wish to find more about the UREC, visit http://www.shef.ac.uk/ris/other/committees/ethicscommittee to find out who and how to contact. You can ask me any more questions about any part of the research, if you wish to. Do you have any questions?
A copy of this ICF has been provided to the participant. Print Name of Researcher/person taking the consent________________________ Signature of Researcher /person taking the consent_________________________ Date ___________________________ Day/month/year Download 3.43 Mb. Share with your friends:
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