3 Research design
3.1 Methodology
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interconnection between traveling and telling, between undergoing profound
out-of-the-ordinary experiences and telling tall tales of these experiences, is creatively pursued.” Furthermore, he found there are two genres of narratives: (1)
Romantic-Adventurous narratives, in which the unique experiences of authenticity are typically conveyed, in fact, in terms of a personal change on behalf of the Romanticist traveler/hero. (2) Religious-Pilgrim narratives, which is similar with what Cohen (1972) and Turner (1987) illustrated in their studies. Noy concluded that “interpersonally, they are not mere (referential) descriptions of past events, but rather, should be constructed as their performance, as an enactment of present experiences.” To him, “backpackers will also pursue the experiences, as well as eventually becoming narrators who share their experiences with would-be-backpackers, thus perpetuating a cycle”.
3. Research Design
3.1 Methodology
The rise of experiential approaches to marketing during the last decade (Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Schmitt, 1999, 2003) has turned the understanding of consumption experiences into a hot topic for qualitative market researchers (Carù and Cova, 2007; Holbrook, 2005). In this study on the outbound experiences of Taiwanese backpackers, netnography will be the ruling method, along with other techniques to facilitate the analyzing process.
Netnography as a methodology for consumer and marketing research has been introduced in the late 1990s (Kozinets, 2002). It is an interpretive method designed to study the social
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web of cultures and communities online. Based on the traditions and techniques of cultural anthropology, netnography investigates the specific instance in which community is formed through computer-mediated communications (CMC), such as newsgroups, blogs, forums, social networking sites, podcasting, videocasting, photosharing communities and virtual worlds.
Among recent qualitative market researches, Goulding (2003) stressed the need for a greater emphasis on rich and varied forms of data collection in consumer and marketing research in order to get a deeper understanding of consumer society. Elliott and
Jankel-Elliott (2003, p215) suggest correspondingly ethnographic and quasi-ethnographic research methods that are able to develop “a ‘thick description’ of the lived experience of consumers”. Since the “interpretive turn” in market and consumer research, Internet-medium has been viewed as a tool for data collection. According to Kozinets (2002), netnography is useful for three types of studies and in three general ways. Firstly, as a methodology to study
“pure cybercultures and virtual communities that do not exist off-line in real life, but are manifest exclusively through CMC. Secondly, it is a methodological tool to study “derived”
cybercultures and virtual communities, and thirdly, as an exploratory tool to study general topics.
Online communication between consumers has been studied by using netnography (Kozinets, 2002) for understanding their attitudes, perceptions, imagery, and feelings. As Kozinets points out, the Internet offers increased opportunities for social group participation, where consumers form virtual communities of consumption in order to assert social power, to unite, and to claim symbols and ways of life that are meaningful to them and the
communities they build.
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Referring from the procedures of cultural ethnography, Kozinets (2002, p63) recommends the following methodological stages and procedures for netnographic studies:
(1) Entrée: formulation of research questions and identification of appropriate online materials for the study
(2) Data collection: direct copy from the computer-mediated communications of online community members and observations of the community and its members, interactions and meanings
(3) Analysis and interpretation: classification, coding analysis and contextualization of communicative acts
(4) Research ethics: “(a) The researcher should fully disclose his or her presence, affiliations, and intentions to online community members during any research; (b) the researchers should ensure confidentiality and anonymity of informants; and (c) the researchers should seek and incorporate feedback from members of the online community being researched (d) The researcher should take a cautious position on the private-versus-public medium issue. This procedure requires the researcher to contact community members and to obtain their permission (inform consent) to use any specific postings that are to be directly quoted in the research” (Kozinets, 2002)
(5) Member checks: presentations of some or all final research report’s findings to the people who have been studied in order to solicit their comments.
Regarding to analyzing messages from online community members, Kozinets (2002, p64) distinguished four types of members, which are tourists, minglers, devotees, and insiders, according to social ties and interests to the topic. And, he highlighted the information
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provided by devotees and insiders, since they are the most enthusiastic, actively involved and sophisticated users.
On the other hand, Carù and Bernard (2008) suggested an integrated ethnographic approach in understanding consumption experiences which combines observation and
introspection that is small stories with big stories (Bamberg, 2006) (as showed in figure 3-1).
This new type of method is especially useful when it came to understand the deep feelings and emotions lived by consumers, since consumers nowadays tend to focus more on hedonic gratification and search for identity. This concept perfectly fits the study of backpackers’
experiences, as analyzed above.
Figure 3-1: Complete ethnographic approach to consumption experiences
(Source: Carù and Bernard, 2008)
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While small stories usually happen during ordinary conversational exchanges and more scattered, big stories focus on self-identity and memorable consumption experiences that form life stories through autobiographical accounts. Though the two authors found that the combination of these two kinds of stories will make the method more complete; however, the authors (backpackers) of the selected narratives on backpackers.com.tw usually convey a more complete theme in big stories, instead of small stories. Therefore, in this study, only
“big stories” will be selected as data for analysis.
As discovered in the above literatures, backpackers’ sharing of journeys is most often understood as retrospective narratives. Thus, Helkkula and Pihlström (2010) introduced a new projective technique—event-based narrative inquiry technique (EBNIT)—in order to yield new ideas beyond the use of traditional qualitative method. It is a combined
application of narrative inquiry technique, critical incident technique (CIT), and metaphor, in order to understand narrator’s experiences. CIT focuses on “critical events, incidents, of factors that help promote or detract from the effective performance of some activity or the experience of a specific situation or event” (Butterfield et al., 2005). This study accordingly defines critical incidents as specific interactions between customers (backpackers) and physical surroundings and people they met during the journey that are especially memorable for them. Metaphors can be understood as ways of “comparing two different things on the basis of the characteristics they share” (Laing et al., 2009) and more simply refer to
metaphorical expressions or images used by narrators (backpackers). According to result of the study, there are seven categories of metaphors—DESIRE AND PASSION, FATE OR DESTINY, MYTHS AND LEGENDS, THE EXPLORER’S JOURNEY, DREAMS,
MYSTERY AND ILLUSION, FANTASIES AND FAIRY TALES, PERFORMANCE AND
‘PLAY’. As illustrated above, it’s clear to see that EBNIT can be used when ideas and
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hypotheses are required and to develop concept. It also helps co-create a better, holistic service experience for the customers and direct to “tactic knowledge” through retrospective analysis. Also, according to Pace (2008), “the narrative of the subject can convey a deeper meaning of a consumption experience than answers given in the interview” because “the consumer is considered as a writer of introspective accounts of her own experiences and feelings.”