The (online) tools of the trade

In the last few decades, technology has transformed academic research in ways that scholars limiting themselves to offline resources would find themselves excluded from the action taking place in the larger community of knowledge generators. Nowadays, it is imperative for researchers regardless of  specialization to create a space for themselves in the online world. The Internet offers a wide range of possibilities for anyone to deepen and expand knowledge in his/her specialization, gather and store information, collaborate with fellow researchers,  and promote scholarly work to a wider audience.       

The importance of the Internet is all the more felt in the field of communication. Whereas before, communication research only involved the study of television, radio, print and celluloid, these days no right-thinking scholar would not include the conversations taking place in social media, websites, blogs and other online platforms to get a full sense of communication in the 21st Century.

It goes without saying that the use of social media platforms plays a central role in my study, more so because my topic of choice, the role of participatory communication in social mobilization, is a phenomenon largely made possible by the boom in social media. Monitoring communication 'events' related to my topic across popular social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and select WhatApp groups) as well as in traditional media is an important component of my data gathering process.

Aside from data gathering, social media is also a source of valuable information with respect to beefing up the theoretical framework of my study and finding its place in the wider context of  national and international research on the subject. For instance, I would not have had direct contact with some of the recognized names in my field of study had it not been for Twitter and LinkedIn and introduction emails sent through their Research Gate and Academia accounts.

This is not to say that these tools are perfect and that they are accessible to all researchers. It must be taken into account that not all of these resources are free, some would only offer very basic features while others would give full access for a limited time only in hopes that users would later avail themselves of the paid subscription. 

It is often said that there is nothing free on the Internet, and that if you´re not paying for it with your money, you must be paying for it with something else. In this case, it is highly likely that your personal information is the one at stake. It is therefore incumbent upon researchers to validate and re-validate the credibility of the platforms they´re using and make sure that they do not compromise the data provided them.

In addition to this, there is also a need for extra diligence in assessing the quality of information made available to the researcher. In contrast to articles appearing in prestigious journals, a lot of the materials  on the Internet  are not reviewed nor evaluated by experts, thus there is always the possibility of citing works that are less credible than we´d like them to be. A responsible researcher would make sure that the materials he or she is using only come from legitimate sources.

In conclusion, I would say that learning about the tools covered by Module VI of the PhD seminars goes a long way in enriching my research. While I have maintained accounts in most if not all of these social networking platforms, the course was able to re-frame my appreciation for them and provide the impetus to optimize their use in scholarly work.

What I find most useful though are the recommendations made in organizing the huge amount of information that we researchers collect, select and save for easy reference during actual thesis writing. Given the multitude of social media feeds, academic articles, blogs, websites and newspapers, etc. that I have to filter on a regular basis, tools such as Hootsuite, Feedly and Symbaloo are very helpful in separating wheat from the chaff and giving a semblance of order on my desktop.

Likewise, getting reacquainted with these tools at these extraordinary times helps to lessen the impact of physical restrictions on scholarly work. It appears that doing research remotely, away from the university or the library, will now be a standard practice for scholars in the era of the  'new normal', and everyone must adapt flawlessly and quickly to this big shift.

On the whole, these resources help enrich the research experience in a manner that is orderly, less time-consuming and stress-inducing. They allow the researcher to really focus on the task at hand, which is to rise above the quagmire of external chaos and generate new knowledge for our ever-changing world. 

My Personal Learning Environment (PLE) consists of the following:

• Research databases - Mendeley, Scopus, Research Gate, Academia, Google Scholar
• Information storage and sharing - Google Drive, UBU OneDrive 
• Social media manager  - Hootsuite (consolidates my activities and the entities I follow on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, among others)
• Search engine  - Google 
• RSS reader - Feedly (consolidates my regular reading materials including digital version of national and community newspapers and blogs)
• Some websites relevant to my dissertation - Soria Ya, Teruel Existe
• WhatsApp for following community-based groups in Soria and Teruel (this app is not among those that can be included in Hootsuite)

A screenshot of my PLE       

A screenshot of my Hootsuite panel