communication. If yes, how does it affect parent-child communication? Furthermore, based on my coding process, the emotional support and encouragement provided by parents can regularly appear as a theme of communication, thus it might play a significant role in family maintenance. Thought-provoking questions regarding this issue can be: What counts as emotional support in a transnational setting? How is emotional closeness embodied via mediating technologies? Additionally, the emotional effects of video function in family communication occurred to be a noteworthy topic. Emotional overwhelm may result in the avoidance of some uses of new technologies, but then do emotional technologies always facilitate our life and communication? Finally, a particularly interesting issue – the pressure to conform within the family was portrayed. Fear of disappointing the parents might result in favouring them, for instance contacting them via video calls, even if students do not like it. It raises the question of whether families want to sustain the appearance of a perfect family within the family? If yes, why is this so important?
In further research, I would concentrate more on the transfer of emotional support and intimacy through tech-mediated communication because preliminary thematic analysis demonstrated its importance in maintaining families across borders.
Conclusion
In this report, I introduced a methodological reflection and preliminary analysis of my research project conducted on how students, who moved to the UK to study at LSE, keep contact with their families and how these contacting habits help sustain ‘familyhood’. I argued that the following methodological points of my research were appropriate: application of interviewing and sampling for range, the help of insider position in the recruitment process, and using an open-coding in data organization. In addition, I showed how I constructed the interview guide, and how the interviews went – what were the strength and limitations, and how I improve them. Based on preliminary analysis I highlighted some emerging topics, including generational differences, situational impacts, emotional support and encouragement that can be areas of interest in further research.
Using a qualitative research method for answering the research question is suitable
