Chapter 4: The Case Studies
Chapter 1
The Case Studies
I chose to study four networks of respondents. The First network was also a trial of the
method and a practice of the interview schedule and conversation technique. The
following are summaries of the four networks. A full description of each respondent is
included in the appendix.
1.1 Group 1
The first network, group 1, is a group of 6 people I found through initial contact with an
acquaintance Valerie. Valerie agreed to help as favour and I was able to try out and
practice the interview with her. Valerie named 5 close contacts: four women and one
man. Four are in her family, her parents and sister and niece, and one is a colleague,
Amanda. Valerie is a senior teacher in a primary school in a small town near Edinburgh.
She is aged 40, and has worked as a teacher for 10 years. Before that she travelled and
studied. She has a responsible position at work, and a busy social life. She lives by
herself in her own flat in the city. Valerie named her sisters and mother as those she
speaks to the most and shares the most things with. At work, her closest colleague is
Amanda. Amanda is a younger woman in her mid 20s. She is starting a career in
teaching, having been born and bred and educated in Edinburgh. She has a close
network of friends she has made and kept over her life.
Valerie’s family live two and a half hours drive from Edinburgh in a rural area. After
training as a nurse and working in hotels, Fiona, her older sister, with her husband, took
over and transformed their parent’s hotel into a retirement home. She runs the business
largely single-handed as her husband has been ill for 12 years. She has two teenage
daughters. She is very active in outdoor pursuits and has many hobbies.
Valerie and Fiona’s parents, Mike and Helen, are retired and in their 70s. They are both
from Scotland, and were married in the local village in the 1950s. They ran a hotel that
they built, after living two years in the Far East. They live off investments and some
land they rent to a farmer. Mike has a quiet life doing jobs in the garden; Helen is more
active in the local community. Every year they travel somewhere around the world, and
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Chapter 4: The Case Studies
have a network of friends from outside the village. Fiona’s daughter Laura is 12 years
old, and goes to the local high school. Her favourite subject is IT and technology. She
has a few friends in the area whom she visits. Her sister Lisa is 16 and goes to a private
school in the Highlands. The group is all women bar one, and most of them have little
interest in new ICTs, although computers are very much part of their everyday lives.
1.2 Group 2
The second group I found after a search for artists working with multimedia. I thought
this would be an interesting group, with the principal respondent being conversant with
consumer and creative ICTs, but with an interesting perspective. I suspected that this
might also be in a milieu where computers were not commonplace, but where invention
and experiment were common. I eventually contacted Andy, who was doing a masters
degree in fine arts at a Scottish University, doing his dissertation on multimedia in art,
including creating a number of experimental works using computer graphics and sound.
When I interviewed him he was working in a small unit in a large higher education
college, developing multimedia applications for education. He became the main
respondent, and I built the group round people he nominated as important people in his
life. Part of that group were those who worked with him in the multimedia design office:
Noel, the head of department, Neil, the graphic designer and Alec the technical
specialist. I also interviewed Trevor and Nigel who are artists working in the north of
Scotland, with whom he had worked for many years. They ran an art exhibition curating
company, putting together local and international exhibitions to tour in Scotland, as well
as working on their own art. The group turned out to be all men around 40 years old, and
most of them heavy users of ICTs, designing multimedia, researching information,
publishing and communicating for work and in their personal lives.
1.3 Group 3
I started to find this Group by advertising on mailing lists for multimedia developers
who would be interested in taking part. I wanted to look the environment in which
multimedia products were being developed. I had a reply from Maurice, a computer
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Chapter 4: The Case Studies
software trainer who was also developing a multimedia city guide/e-commerce project
part time. However when I spoke to him in more depth, he admitted he worked alone
and had few friends, and suggested that his wife, Ruth, could be the principal
respondent. Group 2 had turned out to be a group of developers, so this was an
interesting alternative. It turned out that their were a number of similarities with the
other groups, with some of the members of the group sharing similar jobs (school
teacher, higher education college), and family status. Ruth is in her late 30s, and teaches
adults with learning difficulties in a higher education college. She is married with 3
children, and has three grown up children from a previous marriage. She is very busy
between her work and family. I interview her and her husband, and two of their children,
age 5 and 7. The children are both at school, and keen players of video games on the
computer. She introduced me to her parents, John and Dorothy, who are both retired and
living in the city. John had worked as a quality engineer in a local manufacturing
company, and was currently finishing a degree in literature with the open university.
Dorothy had been a secretary for a GP. They are both involved in local church and
history groups, including leading tours of a museum. Ruth also introduced me to a
colleague, Maura, and a friend, Mary. Maura is about 40 and works in the college with
her as an advisor for those with difficulties. She has a family with teenage children.
Mary is in her late thirties, and had just had a baby. At the second interview she had lost
her job in a special needs school and was looking for new employment. I interviewed
her with her husband, Terry, who is a manager at a commercial biological testing
laboratory.
This group included three generations of a family, 3 men and 4 women. They had a
range of use and interest in ICTs.
1.4 Group 4
In looking for the final group I noted that most of the people I was already asking were
in their 40s and in reasonably comfortable professional jobs. I want to find some
contrasting people, especially a group of younger respondents. I had been doing some
research in a publicly funded cybercafe in a relatively new public housing project, and
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Chapter 4: The Case Studies
this gave the opportunity to recruit a main respondent. I asked two boys in their late
teens who were in the café and filled out a questionnaire for me, if they would like to
help. Initially I interviewed Ross, who was age 19, and unemployed. He lived with his
father, Bob, who had brought up him and his sister after separating from their mother
(who lived near by). Ross had left school at 18, where he had enjoyed learning and using
a range of IT, and now dedicated himself to playing basketball for a team which his
father coached, and spending time with his friends. Ross’s team played in a national
league and he had also travelled abroad to play. During the research period he had a
number of part time jobs. His father Bob was an electronics enthusiast as well as being a
full time father and basket ball coach. He was studying electronics at the local
university, and looking for paid freelance work in electronics and computer control. I
then interviewed one of Ross’s friends, Aiden, who was the same age, and lived in a
nearby flat. He and Ross had been friends all their lives and were in and out of each
other’s homes all the time. Aiden had various part-time menial jobs, but spent much of
his time with his friends, playing video games, watching cable TV, reading popular
science and ‘Manga’ magazines, and learning to play music with Ross. Neither Ross nor
Aiden were interested in the free local Internet access, but Bob was. Unfortunately I
found it very difficult to pin down interviews with this group, and Aiden’s family and
friends declined to be interviewed, so the group is limited to only three people.
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Chapter 4: The Case Studies
1.5 Some statistics and graphs
Group 4
Group 3
Group 2
Group 1
F
F
M
F
F
40s
30s
70s
70s
40s
Laura
F
Lisa
41
27
72
72
48
R
el
a
to tio
in ns
fo hi
rm p
an
t
C
hi
ld
re
n
M
ar
rie
C
om d
th put
e er
ho in
us
U e
s
co e
m
pu
Lo
te
r
ca
lE
xp
er
t
n
io
up
at
cc
O
A
ge
A
ge
ro
up
Valerie
Amanda
Mike
Helen
Fiona
G
x
Se
N
G
ro
am
up
es
1.5.1 Summary Details of Respondents
employed
employed
retired
retired
self-employed
self
colleague
father
mother
sister
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
earlyteen 13
school
niece
0
0
0
1
0
F
lateteen
18
school
niece
0
0
0
1
0
Andy
M
40s
40
employed
self
0
0
1
1
1
Nigel
M
40s
40
self-employed
friend
1
1
1
1
1
Neil
M
40s
35
employed
colleague
1
1
1
1
1
Noel
M
40s
40
employed
boss
1
1
1
1
1
Alec
M
40s
45
employed
colleague
0
0
1
1
1
Trevor
M
40s
40
self-employed
friend
0
0
1
1
0
Maurice
M
40s
45
husband
1
1
1
1
1
Ruth
F
40s
39
self
1
1
1
1
0
John
M
70s
70
father
1
1
1
1
0
Dorethy
F
70s
70
employed/selfemployed
employed
retired/
student
retired
1
1
0
1
0
Terry
M
40S
44
employed
mother
friend's
husband
1
1
1
1
1
Mary
F
30s
38
1
1
1
0
0
Maura
F
40s
42
employed/mat
friend
urnity leave
employed
colleague
1
1
1
1
0
Daniel
M
under10
7
school
son
0
0
1
1
0
Ben
M
under10
5
school
son
0
0
1
1
0
Ross
M
lateteen
19
self
0
0
1
1
0
Aiden
M
lateteen
19
friend
0
0
0
1
0
Bob
M
40s
42
father
1
0
1
1
1
unemployed/
working
unemployed/
working
unemployed/
student/ self
employed
13
14
19
23
10
Table 1 Details of all the respondents
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Chapter 4: The Case Studies
1.5.2 Occupation
occupation
retired
retired/student
school
special school
unemployed
unemployed/student
work
Total
3
1
4
1
2
1
13
Grand Total
25
Table 2 Occupation
30
25
retired
20
school
retired/student
special school
15
unemployed
unemployed/student
10
work
(blank)
5
Grand Total
0
Total
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Chapter 4: The Case Studies
1.5.3 Age
Age of respondents
12
10
Frequency
8
6
4
2
0
Frequency
5
10
15
20
30
40
50
60
70
2
2
3
1
3
10
0
0
4
Age
Group
(over
age)
Table 3 Age
7