Chichi ​Onwuegbu

Elizabeth Kim
Kayla Schorr
Garrett Hall

Proposal for the Ethnographic Research Project

Introduction

The future is here. Culture ticks by the second and there is no such thing as being ​offline​. The
ways in which our world communicates in the digital age is evolving in revolutionary ways never
seen before. Businesses run entire marketing campaigns on Facebook, celebrities manage their
public relations affairs over Instagram, and our very own President of the United States
notoriously turns to Twitter as his primary method of announcing policy stances. Evidently,
social media has become an integral part of our everyday lives. The unstoppable integration of
social media usage throughout every industry has carved out a special space for social media
writing in the world of professional writing.

This ethnographic study explores the ways in which social media revolutionizes communications
in the professional world and challenges traditional methods of professional writing. The
research practiced throughout this study seeks to explore how professional social media writers
differ from traditional professional writers in their approach to writing.

Research Question(s)

This project aims to answer many questions; however, the main topic of speculation would ask
how social media writing is different from traditional writing. Social media is a paradigm, very
new and specific to the millennial generation; much of the way we communicate on social media
reflects people’s personalities and temperaments. This project is significant because of the
prevalence of social media in today’s world. ​Statista ​has concluded that approximately 81% of
the U.S. population has an active account on at least one social media platform. With this in
mind, social media communication is constantly happening. To adapt to today’s digital culture,
we must understand the strategies of social media communication, and how these strategies aid
companies’ goals and objectives.

Some of the questions we intend to ask are about how the research subject uses tone in social
media posts, how she decides to use symbols, emojis and emoticons in posts, and how
punctuation affects her voice on social media.

This topic is not only pertinent to today’s culture, but also important to study for the purposes of
intellectual and professional development. In just a short period of time, all members of this
group will be in the workforce, and presumably working for a company with several social media
accounts. Even if some of us may not be entering the communications or marketing fields, it will
still be important for us to support our companies’ public relations endeavors through social
media.

Research Subject

The research subject we plan to study is Seton Brems, Marketing and Communications
Coordinator at Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic. Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic is a chapter of
Make-A-Wish, the largest wish granting organization in the world. Make-A-Wish’s mission is to
grant the wishes of children with critical illnesses. When a child is diagnosed with a critical
illness, they can be referred by a parent or medical professional to their local Make-A-Wish
chapter. if the organization deems that they are eligible for a wish, these children determine
their one true wish. They think about what kind of experience could help them get through the
hardships that have come along with their recovery processes, and with enough funding,
donations, and proper documentation, these wishes can be granted.

Essentially, Make-A-Wish is a non-profit, which means that over 75% of their funding goes
toward granting wishes. The only revenue the organization brings in is in the form of donations.
For these donations to come in, someone needs to promote the organization, raise awareness
for the types of illnesses that warrant a wish, and truly showcase the inspiring work that the
organization performs every day. These types of roles fall to Seton.

Before her role at Make-A-Wish, Seton served as a Staff Assistant at the U.S. House of
Representatives. This job required a ton of writing and communicating with government officials.
Because of this role, Seton understands how to use specific tones to target a segmented
audience.

As Marketing and Communications Coordinator at Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic, Seton is

responsible for managing the organization’s publicity, website, content, and social media. She
strives to ensure that all content drafted by Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic coincides with their
national branding principles and company voice. One of her main tasks is managing the
chapter’s social media accounts. Seton consistently posts content that promotes the company’s
achievements, showcases current wishes, and advertises for donor events.

Because social media writing is a much different form of writing than typical essay writing or
related professional writing tasks, it will be helpful to speak to Seton about the specific
differences across writing platforms.

Data Collection

Our primary sources of data outside of the interviews being conducted will primarily consist of
our interviewees’ posts on mainstream social media sites, as well as posts from other
companies. We will analyze the content being posted, language used, the average length of
posts and the frequency of posts on the sites. Along with the posts themselves, we will collect
information about their engagement from others (clients, followers, other companies, etc.). The
reactions of people following these companies’ social media accounts is an important aspect of
technical writing in the social media field because the purpose of it is to not only share
information, but to evoke emotion and, consequently, reaction.

We will be conducting a semi-structured interview that will consist of open-ended questions,

geared toward learning about our informant’s expertise and knowledge in the field of social
media writing. We already have some knowledge of social media writing in general, so these
questions will help to clarify and progress our current knowledge. Also, it will give us a
first-person look at what it is like to write for a company’s social media.

Field notes will also be taken at Make-A-Wish to further understand the typical workday and
setting of a social media writer for a company. We will focus on topics such as atmosphere
(desk arrangement/proximity etc.), appropriate language used among employees, lunch break
timing and duration, work day length, acceptable attire, etc.

Data Analysis

To analyze our data we will be using concepts and descriptions from chapter 17 of the
book titled “Solving Problems in Technical Communication”. The chapter is titled “What do
technical communicators need to know about New Media?”. We chose to use the content in this
chapter due to the fact that it relates to technical communicators engagement in the new media
which is related to social media and therefore a great fit for analyzing our information. Concepts
in the book consist of some considerations involved in the use of new media such as text,
purpose, and audience. Other concepts revolving around new media include single sourcing
and content management.
We will use rhetorical analysis to analyze the data that we get from the interview and
outside the interview. The book declared that we apply rhetorical analysis by considering a few
elements, such as text, purpose, and audience, which we will consider. These three
considerations go hand in hand the text is to be presented in a way that shows the purpose of
the writers content, it is also supposed to leave an intended impression on their audience.
We will assess the documents and posts of the interviewer and other written social
media publications by looking at the structure of each content in the posts, we will look at the
arrangement of the posts and see how it presents the intended impressions of the writer to their
audience. We will also check to see how informal documents of our informants are structured
and if that structure presents its purpose effectively.
In considering the audience, we will go to posts created by the informants on social
media handles (Instagram, facebook, twitter) and we will review the comment section of each
post. This will allow us to see how the audience of the writers perceives their work. We will
check to see if the impression of each post by the writer resonated with the people in the
comment section (their audience).
 Other concepts involved that were pointed out in the textbook consists of multimodality,
single sourcing and content management. Single sourcing is the ability to use the same
information in different documents. Managing the information in single sourcing is content
management. We will look at posts and documents created by our interviewer and examine how
they presented a single information in different documents and posts. For example, we will look
at how the organization for our interviewer presented their purpose statement in their informal
and formal documents.

 
  

Schedule of Work

Deadline Task Assigned Status

To

3/12/18 Meet to work on Proposal for Ethnographic Whole

Research Project (Final Draft) Group

3/13/18 Contact Seton Brems - Kayla Completed

Marketing/Communications Coordinator at
Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic. Request and
schedule an interview

3/30/18 Interview Seton Brems Kayla

4/2/18 Write up summary and analysis of the Kayla

interview with Seton Brems

3/13/18 Collect social media samples Garrett

3/30/18 Complete ethnographic coding notes of Garrett

social media samples

4/2/18 Synthesize analysis of media samples Garrett

3/13/18 Collect at least five academic texts on social Bethy

media theory, strategy, and supporting
research
3/30/18 Complete annotations of the five texts Bethy

4/8/18 Synthesize analysis of the five texts Bethy

3/13/18 Collect social media engagement data Chi Chi

samples

3/30/18 Synthesize analysis of social media Chi Chi

engagement data samples

4/1/18 Compose progress report Whole

Group

4/5/18 Complete personal drafting Whole

Group

4/11/18 Design project website Kayla

4/11/18 Assist in design of project website Garrett &

Bethy

4/20/18 Submit all materials to project website Whole

Group

4/25/18 Complete reflective annotations for project Whole

website group