Myth, magic & method : using subphenomenology to analyse weblog data

Researchers from all disciplines are increasingly inclined to acknowledge intuition and reflective practice as a valid ways of knowing. But in technology and areas other than the arts, this thinking is still new, and few strategic frameworks are available to assist researchers to approach intuitive research with rigor. In this chapter, Subphenomenology is laid out as a methodology for analysing weblog writing, as data for research. As a template for other first-person research, the framework showcases the author’s own experiences as a novice Web 2.0 user. Starting with the research question, “Why do I resist learning with technology?” I show how candid blogs are analysed to reveal an archetypal image of Echo and Narcissus in response to the research question. This chapter formulates how Subphenomenology uses intuition to access unconscious knowing, and reveal an archetypal image of the research in question. The case studied, like all case studies, may not be applicable to every learner who, in the described sample, shies away from technology. But it may provide profound insight to those who self-identify with the given universal myth. Subphenomenology is a formula, which can be applied to any weblog data, or indeed any creative work, to enable researchers to understand more about the universal implicationsof their most subjective reflections.