Reflecting on asynchronous internet mediated focus groups for researching culturally sensitive issues

ABSTRACT

Internet-mediated focus groups (FGs) have become a feature of qualitative research over the last decade; however, their use within social sciences has been adopted at a slower pace than other disciplines. This paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of internet-mediated FGs and reflects on their use for researching culturally sensitive issues. It reports on an innovative study, which utilised text-based asynchronous internet-mediated FGs to explore attitudes to abortion, and abortion as a workplace issue. The authors identify three key elements of text-based asynchronous online FGs as particularly helpful in researching culturally sensitive issues – safety, time and pace. The authors demonstrate how these elements, integral to the actual process, contributed to ‘opinion change/evolution’ and challenged processes of stigmatisation centred on over-simplification, misinformation as to the incidence of a culturally sensitive issue in a population, and discrimination.

KEYWORDS:

• Abortion
• online focus groups
• qualitative methods
• sensitive research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Funded by Unite the Union, Unison, GMB, CWU Ireland and Mandate

Notes on contributors

Noirin MacNamara

Noirin MacNamara is a Data Analyst in Technological University Dublin. Her research focuses on reproductive justice and feminist political theory. @noirinmac

Danielle Mackle

Danielle Mackle is a Lecturer in Social Work at the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences at Ulster University. Danielle’s research interests include the human development and well-being of the LGBTQ+ community, separated young people and refugee and asylum seeking people. Danielle has a keen interest in reproductive justice and has written with colleagues on issues relating to FGM and abortion policy. @MackleDanielle

Johanne Devlin Trew

Johanne Devlin Trew is Course Director of Social Policy at Ulster University. Her research focuses on migration, racism and digital applications of qualitative methodologies. @jd_trew

Claire Pierson

Claire Pierson is a Lecturer in Gender Politics at the University of Liverpool. She specialises in reproductive rights and activism and women, peace and security. @piersonclaire

Fiona Bloomer

Fiona Bloomer is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at Ulster University. She has written extensively on abortion policy in and is co-author of a newly published book Reimagining Global Abortion Politics. @DrBloomer