About media and communication

The research work and funding

The research work was funded by a research grant policy created by Caesars Hospitality Research Center. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is in charge of the program. The study’s explicit goal was to identify the types of social media messages that were more effective in promoting hospitality companies, especially restaurants. I assume there is no hidden intent to the analysis because anything about the effect of different types of messages on hospitality companies has been debated publicly and extensively. The study’s primary goal is to evaluate business-to-consumer communications in hospitality companies. Through the financial support, the institution influenced the explicit purpose of the survey by ensuring that there were enough funds to conduct an extensive research for the twelve companies.

Research Design

The study utilized text-mining techniques to analyze the social media messages. The method was adopted as a result of its ability to give population characteristics in many different ways as compared to the traditional quantitative techniques. Also, whereas the conventional methods called for scholars and researchers to assess the data based on the theoretical practices, a technique to mine texts from Facebook was expounded to collect textual data from the social media platform for further analysis. Additionally, text-mining gives room for electronic assessment of text documents which boost its strength compared to the traditional methods which need the researchers to come up with their interpretations. However good the technique may look, it has its limitations. One of the main weakness is copyright legislation. Due to the restrictions placed on several texts to protect the rights of individuals, it becomes challenging to copy and digitize the text data. Another major problem with the method is the high potentiality to gather false results due to poorly formed questions and the nature of the texts being studied. These are some of the challenges which reduce the applicability of the method in various studies.

Selection Strategy

The selection strategy gives the manner in which the samples sued in the study were obtained. Studies employ different sampling designs depending on the nature of the data to be collected and the objectives of the research. In this study, mixed-purpose sampling procedure was utilized in obtaining data of 12 restaurant brands. In the process, the researchers first identified 12 restaurant chains which had recorded the highest sales volume. Additionally, the researchers identified another 20 independent restaurants bearing the highest sales. Secondly, eight quick services restaurants were recognized whose Facebook page had more than 1 million fans. Finally, the researchers assessed the samples and finally came up with ten chain restaurants’ Facebook pages and two independent restaurants’ Facebook pages. One of the significant advantages of mixed-purpose sampling procedure is the fact that it is cost-effective and saves time compared to other sampling procedures. Additionally, the method can be beneficial in exploring anthropological scenarios. However, the technique has some severe limitations which must be addressed before using it otherwise it could lead to wrong reporting. First, the sampling procedure is highly vulnerable to errors. Secondly, the technique suffers from a low level of reliability and increased levels of bias which finally impact negatively on the credibility of the study. Also, the method does not allow for the generalization of the research findings.

Key Terms

The study had six key terms. These include the social media, the text classification, marketing, Facebook, communication and restaurant. In this paper, I chose Social media and Facebook for my analysis. Regarding conceptualization, social media has been defined as a set of online platforms which allows the restaurants to market their products to the public. The conceptual aspect of social media assumes one dimension, and thus no other indicators are used to mean social media throughout the research. Regarding operationalization, social media has been broken down to Facebook as one of its facets. It allows the researchers to measure the impact of the platform in spreading messages to influence consumers. The second key term is communication. Also, the words have been defined as a way of passing information from one point to another. Regarding operationalization, the communication aspects have been broken down into messages which are relayed through the social media (Facebook). It, therefore, allows the researchers to ascertain the impact of the messages by measuring the number of messages transmitted through the social media (Facebook). One of the significant limitation which may affect the use of these terms is the use of the terms in multidimensional perspective. It creates a lot of confusion especially when a word has more than one meaning in the study. It is critical to note that the operational decisions are always made based on the purpose and objectives of the research. The multidimensional use of important terms affects the operationalization of the words since most of the research variable are not the same. Using the same keywords to mean different things in research, therefore, makes it hard to ascertain the impact of specific variables. Additionally, using a key term to mean the same thing for different variables makes it hard to differentiate some of the variables in the research. It is, therefore, crucial to ensure that the key terms are defined and have specific definitions and meanings to minimize chances of making errors. With the multidimensional approach to keywords, it creates complexity in guaranteeing the validity and reliability of research.

Research Implementation

The implementation process involved the use of a computer program which automatically retrieved Facebook messages for the selected restaurants. The program (Facebook Query Language) collected the data after every two weeks for three months. The messages obtained by the computer were coded in four fields which included the body of the message, the message media type, the total number of customers who chose the “like” option on the displayed signal, and the tally of customers who posted comments regarding the messages. However, the method had some critical limitations which were addressed by the researchers. The Facebook Query Language only returned those posts made in the last thirty days, and the event, some of the messages were downloaded more than once. The researcher covered this error by deleting the duplicated messages before performing the final analysis. Out of the 1039 messages collected using the computer program, 982 were retained for the final report. The research was confidential since all the messages retrieved did not bear the names of those individuals who posted and made clicks on the posts. It ensured that the privacy of individuals was guarded as it is required in standard research. As discussed earlier, one of the ethical issues associated with such type of research implementation technique is the copyrights. The messages collected from the Facebook pages must not be copied or edited in any manner.

Conclusion

The research has utilized all the possible elements of a standard research study. Also, all the methods used in the study have been justified, and in the implementation, the researchers worked hard to cover some of the limitations of the data collection method used in the research. With the researchers having met the above criteria, the study in its entirety forms a good foundation for future studies in the same field. The authors were able to defend every step they undertook in the research, clearing any possible doubts regarding the validity and reliability of the data used. In this manner, the research findings can be used as a good source of information in understanding the nature of messages relayed over the social media platforms which suit the hospitality companies.

References

Kwok, L., & Yu, B. (2013). Spreading Social Media Messages on Facebook: An analysis of restaurant business-to-consumer communications. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 54(1), 84-94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1938965512458360