draw samples from. Three (3) of these Facebook groups were created by the focal node and he is a member of the other fifteen (15) groups. Table 4.1 shows the Facebook groups used for this study and the number of his friends included in each group (friends can be members of more than one group). 4.1 Network node discovery via Facebook group affiliations NUMBER FACEBOOK GROUP NAME ACCESS THEME NUMBER OF FRIENDS WHO ARE MEMBERS 1 Good Food Community CLOSED Agriculture & Food 112 2 Philippine Permaculture Association (PPA) PUBLIC Permaculture 58 3 The Beige Table Club (created by the researcher) CLOSED Agriculture & Food 52 4 UPOU OA Alumni SECRET Agriculture 39 5 Manila Vegans CLOSED Food 38 6 Save the Coconut Movement CLOSED Agriculture 38 7 Cabiokid Foundation PUBLIC Permaculture 37 8 Chiliheads Philippines CLOSED Agriculture & Food 36 9 Pinoyvegs CLOSED Food 29 10 100,000 Natural Farmers by 2016 CLOSED Agriculture 27 11 Spread Organic Agriculture Philippines (SOAP) CLOSED Agriculture 26 12 LB CSA (created by researcher) CLOSED Agriculture & Food 22 13 Home Gardening CLOSED Agriculture 16 14 Permaculture Philippines PUBLIC Permaculture 15 15 Home Farmers Club CLOSED Agriculture 14 16 Cabiokid Permaculture Batch 2014 (created by researcher) CLOSED Permaculture 14 17 Nu Wave UPLB SECRET Agriculture 14 18 YPARD (Young Professionals for Agricultural Development) Philippines CLOSED Agriculture 8 Two hundred eighty six out of 1,267 friends (22.57%) were identified as members of the eighteen Facebook groups selected for the (with 69 friends
made, though not all respondents’ names appeared on the list. This simply meant that they didn’t “like” any of the researcher’s posts within the given timeframe. After the number of “likes” of each respondent was determined, the range of number of “likes” was categorized and assigned corresponding numerical scores. Table 4.3 shows the scoring criteria. 4.3 Number of Facebook “likes” were given an equivalent score Number of Likes (nL) Min-Max per Month Score 0 0 0 1 to 10 0.025 – 0.250 3 11 to 20 0.270 – 0.500 5 21 to 30 0.525 – 0.750 7 31 to 40 0.775 – 1.000 9 41 and above 1.000 and 10 All respondents were given an equivalent nL score. Number of Comments (nC) Determined Using Programming Language R Aside from “likes,” Facebook also offers a function where users can “comment” or leave a text-based message on a specific Facebook post. The “comments thread” (the series of comments made on a post) can be an online forum for users to elaborate on a posted topic. More than just passively “liking” posts, users can interact more and exchange ideas and opinions with the poster and other users. “Commenting” is an active response to a post. The methodology assumes that by posting a comment, the user (the respondent) is engaging the poster (the researcher) in a conversation. The same process to identify the number of “likes”
was used to determine the number of comments from each respondent. A key difference though is that two lists were generated by R: 1) the total number of comments a user has made; and 2) the total number of status updates a user has commented on. For the purposes of the study, the latter list was chosen because this will be more representative of the diversity of topics commented on at different times. A slightly higher total score of fifteen (15) was given to the nC score due to its more interactive nature compared to the passive nature of “liking” a post. Table 4.4 Number of Facebook comments was given an equivalent score. Number of Comments Min-Max Comments per Score 0 0 0 1 to 7 0.025 – 0.175 3 8 to 14 0.200 – 0.350 6 15 to 21 0.375 – 0.525 9 22 to 28 0.550 – 0.700 12 29 and above 0.725 and above 15 Permaculture Awareness (PA) and Effective Awareness (EA) scores The component of the Social Score is Permaculture Awareness (PA). It is a metric developed specifically for this study to determine if the sum of Facebook-based online interactions (SD, nL, and nC) with the researcher is sufficient to assume if the respondent have become indeed aware of permaculture. PA is computed as follows, PA = SD + nL + nC
d. Sociogram and Computed Metrics The sociogram was constructed according to actual Facebook friendships (how respondents met each in real life and not based on the % LS score) with the researcher as the focal node in the network. Actual friendships denote whether a network node formed a dyadic or a triadic relationship. The dyads illustrate that each network node is connected via the focal node while the triads illustrate that vertices 9, 6, 5, and 4 are connected via more than one network node. 5.4 Dyadic and Triadic Relationships Respondent Vertex ID (node) Dyad (edge) Triad (edge) Researcher 1 1 – 4 – 9 1 – 5 – 6 1 – 6 – 8 GI01 9 1 – 9 1 – 4 – 9 MS02 6 1 – 6 1 – 5 – 6 1 – 6 – 8 KL03 5 1 – 5 1 – 5 – 6 TM04 11 1 – 11 PS05 3 1 – 3 LMD6 8 1 – 8 1 – 6 – 8 DC07 7 1 – 7 CG08 10 1 – 10 DR09 2 1 – 2 EF10 4 1 – 4 1 – 4 – 9 TOTAL 11 nodes 10 edges 3 edges The Meerkat-generated sociogram illustrated an egocentric network with 11 (or vertices in Meerkat’s language) and 13 edges (undirected graph) that includes the researcher as the focal node.