Identifying and Locating Potential Informants

Exploring Facebook can provide basic information about principal actors in local politics. In low-information contexts such as those of local districts in Latin America, even a cursory review of this social-networking site provides valuable information about the principal actors and their positions vis-à-vis certain politicians and also identifies previously unknown but equally important actors (e.g., social leaders, local activists, and brokers). These people typically do not appear in common Google searches of the district or in news stories about the particular locality in national newspapers. Thus, in gathering basic information about daily life in a district, “researchers suddenly become insiders of some sort” (Côté Reference Côté2013, 616).

In many cases, the official website of a municipal government provides minimal information about what is going on in the city, the principal local public-policy initiatives, and the mayor’s activities. Informal Facebook groups of citizens and neighbors provide alternative sources of information. These groups can be either pro- or anti-government, but the latter typically tend to be more vocal. These groups (often public, but in some cases with required and approved membership) suggest the current social and political agenda, the main problems in the district, and the activities of and critiques about the mayor and local council members.

In most of these Facebook groups, it is possible to identify who contributes opinions most often, social leaders who frequently participate and criticize, and an administrator who conducts the debate or simply manages the group page. In any case, these people typically have a more public stance, a more critical position, and—above all—access to information. In La Cisterna (Chile), for example, I was able to individually interview three members of one group opposed to a long-standing local mayor who were identified by their activity in the group. Therefore, these groups constitute a source of prospective interviewees with informed opinions about district politics.

On a group or institutional level, navigating on Facebook also enables identifying and locating important local social organizations. In many cases, researchers can recognize that these organizations are important even if they are not personally acquainted with a single member. Nonetheless, the Facebook groups could include important social leaders with valuable information regarding the city’s situation and political context. It is not uncommon that a list or the addresses of these social and sports organizations do not appear on the municipal website or the internet in general. However, in many cases, they have a public profile on Facebook where a physical or email address and telephone number are listed. For example, in Chile, I identified Facebook profiles of neighborhood associations and, using the contact information available on the site, I localized them physically and tracked down their presidents. The same logic can be applied to political-campaign offices, sports (mainly soccer) clubs, neighborhood committees and councils, and soup kitchens.

Establishing Contact with Informants

The second advantage of Facebook derives partly from the first one. Identifying who the principal actors are is a first step for contacting them. Again, in low-information contexts, Facebook offers advantages in locating otherwise inaccessible people and bypassing possible gatekeepers (Atkinson and Flint Reference Atkinson and Flint2001). Moreover, if one limitation of SSM is possible bias in the samples, Facebook offers a particularly useful tool for diversifying the interviewees (i.e., planting multiple seeds). This typically is done without knowing the people of interest in advance or without them being recommended by a third trusted person. Thus, even if the rates of successful contacting are lower, Facebook provides greater opportunities to diversify the sample of interviewed people.

Once actors of interest are identified, contact can be established in one of two ways. First, the person can be contacted directly via Facebook chat. In this case, text phrasing and the researcher’s self-presentation are crucial. Researchers should succinctly express why they are contacting the informant and the topic of their research project. Most important, researchers need to clearly state how they found the person in question—for example, whether they saw the name as a group administrator, supporter, participant in an online discussion, or as an activist. Moreover, in many cases, Facebook is the only way a researcher can look up and contact people mentioned in other interviews or whose name has appeared in a news story, blog, or Facebook group. When using virtual contacting, researchers must be prepared that they will be subject to some type of “digital vetting” (Lennox Esselment and Marland Reference Marland2019).

Second, researchers can contact actors of interest indirectly by attending an activity or event where they know that a possible informant will be. Thus, Facebook can identify people and find information on their activities so that researchers may be able to contact them during events such as meetings, marches, and sports tournaments. For example, in Los Olivos (Lima), I attended a campaign meeting previously announced on Facebook and was able to speak to the candidate’s campaign manager to arrange a meeting with the candidate herself. Whereas it is never certain that a potential interviewee will show up, it also is more difficult for the actor to evade the researcher.Footnote ⁷

In this context, preliminary fieldwork is highly advisable and typically helpful. It allows a researcher to establish new contacts and get to know “people who know people.” Becoming acquainted with as many local people as possible is crucial for further networking. Depending on the context, these people include students at a university or another institution that the researcher is affiliated with during fieldwork, professors and other experts, the nongovernmental sector, and members of local social organizations. In my experience, most of these people know someone of interest, live in a certain district or come from a certain city, or are linked to other actors. If the personal contact with these people has been limited, a researcher can obtain more information from a Facebook search.

During my fieldwork in Paraguay, I asked people who I barely knew for contacts on politicians and local leaders in districts where they lived or were from because Facebook profiles often provide this information. In other cases, I asked them to help me establish contacts—for example, with local journalists in another Paraguayan city after learning that they were friends on Facebook. Although the precise form of networking depends on the research topic, these contacts can be helpful in identifying and contacting potentially important informants.

All of these possibilities enable the planting of multiple seeds, thereby raising the number of interviewees, and also allow for obtaining access to potential and, in some cases, previously unknown informants. In turn, this can contribute to diminishing sample bias and narrowing the network of interviewees only to people with certain social characteristics. More important, it also can help overcome the problem of gatekeepers (Atkinson and Flint Reference Atkinson and Flint2001). During fieldwork, a researcher may not be able to contact some local politicians directly through formal channels due to the line of lower-ranked bureaucrats or administrative obstacles. However, attending a politician’s activity or event mentioned on Facebook increases the probability of direct contact or getting in touch with a close adviser and establishing communication.

Triangulation of Information and Asking for Additional Contacts

Identifying and contacting possible interviewees are the first two steps. However, in many cases, when conducting an interview, researchers cannot be sure whether an interviewee is telling the truth, lying, or hiding something. Indeed, there is no “obligation of a subject to be objective and to tell us the truth” (Berry Reference Berry2002, 680). Checking Facebook and collecting background information can improve the quality of questions that researchers ask or can enable inquiries regarding issues they were previously unaware of from secondary sources (e.g., newspapers). This is especially the case with questions about sensitive and socially undesirable issues or unknown topics that a researcher has no other way to garner information about because there is no available secondary information on the subject or the answers in other interviews vary greatly. Thus, the information collected from Facebook corroborates the responses or can be used to confront an interviewee directly about issues not originally contemplated. During my field research, I was able to check or compare the quality and veracity of answers on various topics—for example, how much a campaign for a given office cost, how many voters a broker could mobilize, how much one vote costs, and how much a place on a voting ballot is worth. This helped me to appear “knowledgeable,” confront interviewees with alternative numbers or facts, pose “presuming” questions,Footnote ⁸ and assess the reaction to information circulating among neighbors on Facebook.

In a similar vein, searching on Facebook can inform a researcher about where interviewees stand in the local context. Particularly in polarized contexts, people take a position and those who express themselves publicly typically are either critical or defensive of the local incumbent. Thus, having background knowledge can help to assess the veracity of the interviewees’ responses. It also allows a researcher to ask them directly and assess their reaction when considering them as either for or against relative to a local social or political leader. For example, in two municipalities in Lima (Peru), I was able to ask a local social leader about her relationship with the mayor. She publicly supported another candidate but had appeared previously on Facebook in photographs at an event with the mayor. Confronting her with this information allowed me to obtain information about why she had supported him and why they had split up. In this way, the information available on Facebook helps researchers verify and weigh incomplete, manipulated, erroneous, or false information received from interviewees about their position and participation in local power dynamics.

Finally, in many cases, researchers ask interviewees for additional contacts and names of important actors with whom to speak. In fact, this is one of the defining traits of SSM. Researchers typically do not know these people. However, by looking up informants on Facebook before the interview takes place, researchers can better know their network of people related to the topic of interest. Searching on Facebook also reveals with whom interviewees have participated in social or political meetings and therefore with whom they have a relationship (and possible access). The resulting background knowledge about an interviewee enables the researcher to ask for certain names and contact information and to check the veracity of the response (e.g., if the interviewee denies knowing the person). After an interview with a local political leader in Lima, for example, I asked him for an important social leader’s contact information (that I did not previously have and whose name did not come up in our conversation). I could do this because I had seen a photograph on Facebook in which both were participating in a neighborhood meeting and both were named.