Final Thoughts

My topic has not evolved much since I first started this project. Looking at how effective certain social media platforms are for archives trying to reach people otherwise unaware of their existence remains the focus. Platforms which allow users to go and look at content based on interest, geographic region, or even possibly some other specific category that might be related to a particular collection within the archives are still the basis of the research. Any platform that allows users to go on and see something based on any of those criteria without having to log in or make any particular effort searching for content may be worth looking at.

Much of the issues surrounding my topic were clear from the beginning for me as well, with stakeholders, context, and even sub-questions largely understood by the time I had finished the preliminary research. The way I was phrasing the question changed and became clearer, but the underlying question did not. What I had not done in the past was actually look closely at the different methods for doing academic research. In the end I found interviews would be the method that will work best for the majority of the questions surrounding my topic, particularly as qualitative information will allow for certain answers that otherwise could not be found. At the same time, some of the more quantitative methods actually turned out  to be a bit more interesting to me, even if they were not suitable for the particular question I was asking.

Where I learned the most throughout this process was in looking at the different research methods in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Even more specifically, looking at the different methods through the need to answer a particular research question allowed for a much greater understanding of the different research methods, even if the research question itself remained relatively unchanged throughout the process.