Page 91 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 4. Methodology

of online or quasi-public sphere in China. The Xiamen PX plant case focused on the

problem of environmental protection in China, and the relationship between the media
companies and the official sectors. The Yihuang incident concerned the situation of
urbanization in China. Through the information and discussions about this incident, I
investigated how online public participation develops on social networking sites.
This chapter begins with the explanation of two types of data in my book: the

primary data and secondary data. It then covers the design and the content of the three
main research methods. The last section deals with the ethical consideration in my
book.

4.2 Primary data and secondary data

Both primary and secondary data were used in the book. Here, primary data refers
to the original data collected through the questionnaire surveys and semi-structured in-
terviews. Secondary data is extracted from existing materials, including previous stud-

ies in the area, newspaper reports, online articles and comments.

4.2.1 Primary data

There were two parts in the questionnaire. The first consisted of control variables
to collect basic personal information from the respondents, and their opinion of ICT.
There were three different versions of the second part in the survey, which correspond-

ed to the three cases in the book. It consisted of explorative questions which investigat-
ed the respondents’ experience in citizen engagement, motivations in public participa-
tion, views in the online public sphere and attitudes toward government performance.
Because the number of internet users is enormous, it is not feasible to conduct
a study individually and questionnaires are the most suitable approach to such large

research subjects. The data collected from a questionnaire is presented in a relatively
systematic and straightforward way, which can also alleviate the difficulty in analysing
and interpreting it.

To explore the media’s perception of ICTs and its coping mechanism with the in-
creasing number of users and the government’s control, the collection of objective data

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