Interactionist Qualitative Research as a Semiotic Mediation Activity

In this article, we introduce qualitative research from an interactionist perspective. We specifically explore qualitative research itself as a semiotic process with associated actions. This enables researchers to make sense of human interactions in the world rather than solely focusing on semiotic analysis of qualitative data. We introduce Peirce’s semiotics and Vygotsky’s mediated action as tools for conceptualizing qualitative research in a semiotic mediation process. Understanding qualitative research as a semiotic mediation can help social scientists better understand their own role in research, while vicariously gaining experiences about human interactions that they later present to others

Narrative Inquiry With Activity Systems: A Story About Net Neutrality

The goal of this article is to introduce activity systems as a methodological tool in narrative inquiry to gain a holistic understanding of socially shared experiences from an examination of documents. The research question was how can qualitative researchers use activity systems as a tool for engaging in narrative inquiry of socially shared experiences to uncover new meanings by constructing a story? In this article, we share a sample analysis of our experience relying on documents and media as a form of narrative to begin to understand the socially shared human activity associated with net neutrality and its potential impact on U.S. residents. We end this article with reflections of lessons learned from our activity systems guided story construction process

Net Neutrality and Its Implications to Online Learning

In this article, we studied net neutrality as a complex sociocultural phenomenon that can affect the works of distance education scholars and online learners. We decided to take part in this research because many distance education scholars and learners take net neutrality for granted. We engaged in a qualitative investigation of US public documents and explored the effects of net neutrality and public digital access, which can influence learner engagement with online educational materials. We focused on identifying tensions in the discourse about net neutrality, especially surrounding the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) 2015 Open Internet Order. Our research question was: How do the complexities involved in the net neutrality debate in the United States affect public access to online information and services, and what implications does this hold for online learning? We relied on activity systems as an analytical framework for making sense of net neutrality