In order to increase the understanding of the role of mediated communication in family language policy, methodological protocols need to be adapted to capture current digital family practices. This paper discusses the potentials as well as practical and ethical challenges that come with data collection on digital practices in families.
Communication within Western contemporary families is to a significant and increasing extent mediated through technological devices (such as mobile phones) and digital apps (e.g. WhatsApp, FaceTime). As the technological tools facilitate multimodal communication across time and space, they play a significant role for many transnational families as well as for those sharing the same household. However, although digitally mediated language practices between family members are important – for example to understand processes of language transmission across generations – it is still an under-researched area within family language policy. In order to expand this knowledge we need to collect appropriate data, which require that we adapt and further develop current methodological protocols. Developing these methodologies requires flexibility, (some) awareness about technology, and to be prepared to do unorthodox and interdisciplinary thinking. Using an ongoing research project on digitally mediated communication in Finnish families as the point of departure, I will present and suggest different types of researcher-led, participant-led or co-constructed combinations of data collection methods that can be used, along with their potentials as well as their limitations. Based on the experiences from the research project I will also discuss major ethical challenges that come with collecting data on digital families in families such as the researcher entering into the private family domain, engaging children in the research and documenting their digital practices. Finally, the digi-ethnographic researcher need to navigate the complicated interfaces between the researcher's needs, compliance with GDPR and data management rules, and the ideas of 'open science'. The directives are sometimes contradictory and counter-productive which impede the research process.
