Engaging Teenagers in Online Ethnographic Participatory Design

Abstract: The aim of this master’s thesis is to explore the implications of using online ethnographic participatory design in studying communication with teenagers in the context of Carbon Dioxide Theatre, a climate action research project. By developing multiple methods, tools and activities, the implications are understood throughout the teenagers’ engagement in collaborating and co-creating using online media. The findings are then organized based on the teenagers activity from three perspectives, by following the medium, the story and the feeling. The medium shows how social media platforms such as Snapchat and Facebook Messenger can be used in order to establish a valuable collaboration with the teenagers, the story presents how the teenagers are expressing their views, thoughts and dilemmas regarding the climate action topic, co-creating one Instagram account while the feeling offers emotions raised during the process. Ultimately, inspired from the study process, the paper suggests a design method for online ethnographic participatory design data collection, consisting of a set of cards and maps that can be utilized as a guiding tool in organizing and understanding the empirical data within an exploratory research context.