By Lauren Ferrone
It’s become part of our everyday online dialogue. In fact, it’s not often you see a text message from a friend without the use of one. Now Flinders University researcher, Jennifer Fane, is using the emoji for a slightly different purpose… see how in our special Q&A 🙂
Q) INSIDE SOUTH AUSTRALIA: Tell us about your latest research
A) JENNIFER FANE: I’m looking at using emoji to help children communicate. Recognition of the need to move from research on children to research with children has prompted significant theoretical and methodological debate as to how young children can be positioned as active participants in the research process.
🙁 😀 DID YOU KNOW?… 🙂 😛
Emoji are a type of graphic symbol, originating from Japan, which express concepts and ideas pervasively used in mobile communication and social media. Emoji are the descendent of the emoticon, a shorthand form of a facial expression created using a standard keyboard, for example: : – )
Q) Why emoji?
A) Visual research methods such as drawing, photography, and videography have received substantive attention in child-centred research paradigms. However, despite technology or mediabased visual materials have received little interest. As technology and media become an increasing part of young children’s everyday experiences and lifeworlds, they offer a potentially fruitful avenue for the examination of how methodology can react or respond to technological and social change.
Ideas generated by three to five-year-old child participants using emoji as a visual research method
Q) Based on research, what effect can emojis have on children?
A) The use of emoji as a research method for engaging young children in how they understand and make meaning of their world, and may offer both a practical and an insightful approach to eliciting young children’s voices in childhood research.
Q) What is the aim of your research, in particular?
A) The aim of the paper is twofold. The first is to explore the utility and capacity of emoji as a visual research method for eliciting young children’s experiences and understandings of their own well-being. The second is to investigate the potential of emoji as both an additional method for researchers conducting child-centred research, and as an opportunity for young children to exercise further choice in the ways they can express themselves within the research process and matters that affect them.
Q) Who were the participants in the research?
A) There were 78 children (49 boys and 29 girls), aged three to five years across eight long day-care centres in metropolitan Adelaide.
Flinders University researcher, Jennifer Fane, is looking at the use of emoji to help children communicate
Q) What process was involved?
A) We began by giving child participants five different emoji representing feelings through facial expressions. Children were first asked to identify the feeling or emotion being portrayed by the five faces. Next, children were asked to pick one of the emoji, and tell a story about why someone might feel that way. The idea of storytelling was used to give children opportunities to share a personal feeling without having to identify themselves as the person feeling the emotion, or to be able to try out or express new ideas. Once children had shared all the ideas they wanted we gave each focus group 13 other emoji pictures, chosen to represent common objects, environments, or activities, that young children would be familiar with. Once child participants had the opportunity to explore the new emoji, they were asked to pick one and tell a story about the one they chose.
Q) What were the findings?
A) All 78 children who participated in the focus groups were willing to pick up an emoji of their choice at the researcher’s request. The vast majority of children readily gave verbal responses to the researcher prompts or engaged in conversation and discussion with their peers about the emoji and the feelings and stories being shared. Instead of or in addition to using verbal language, children used a variety of communication techniques including body language, noises/sounds, matching pictures together, and pairing pictures with their friends/peers. For children who were cautious about participating verbally, or had limited spoken English language abilities, the emoji offered a variety of ways for children to engage in the research process once they felt comfortable or had the language/vocabulary to express their ideas.
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Transcript of interaction between researcher and child participant
Researcher: Does anyone have any ideas for what this feeling is? [holding up the straight-faced emoji]
Tom: Um straight
Researcher: The mouth is a straight mouth? Yes? [Tom nods], but how are they feeling?
David: Angry
Researcher: Maybe angry? That’s a good idea.
Tom: No! Not angry! Because, because it hasn’t got a sad face, look, upside down is a happy face [pointing to the emoji to indicate that the angry face has a downturned mouth and the happy face has an upturned mouth]