Data Coding Project Memo

TO: Dr. Brian Ray

FROM: Kristina M. Johnson
DATE: February 21, 2021
SUBJECT: Data Coding Project

For this assignment, I chose to code 200 comments on a YouTube video uploaded by
Bailey Sarian. The video (“Love, Lies & Lust - What Really Happened With Jodi Arias?”) is
a part of her “Murder, Mystery & Makeup” series, in which she discusses true crime
stories of interest to her while simultaneously putting on makeup for the camera.

Why did you select this kind of text?

I chose my text out of pure curiosity. I had noticed a recent upswing in publicity for this
particular YouTuber via recommendations on other social media sites, and I wanted to
investigate it. I was already a fan of true crime commentary as a genre, but I had seen a
growing trend in young female YouTubers joining the genre—particularly attractive young
women, often pairing their commentary with something of this type (i.e. makeup
application). I wanted to find out what the cause is for this suddenly developing trend.

What are your data collection parameters (i.e., all Yelp reviews of sushi restaurants in
Arkansas for the calendar year of 2017)?
I kept my data collection parameters fairly simple: I chose to code the most recent 200
comments on one Bailey Sarian video of my choice, which turned out to be a
commentary on the murder of Travis Alexander (allegedly by his ex-girlfriend, Jodi Arias)
in June of 2008.

What are you hoping to learn from coding this data?

From this data, I hoped to learn about the attitudes and feelings of Bailey Sarian’s typical
viewers so as to gauge the driving force behind their viewership. I wanted to know what
exactly has fueled Sarian’s recent channel growth, as well as the overall growth of true
crime commentary as presented by young adult women online.

How will it be useful for other writers, teachers, or researchers?

In particular, the topic of true crime commentary may not be especially helpful to other
writers, teachers, or researchers (unless that is their area of expertise). However, I think
this research project was very informative in regard to the current rhetorical environment
of a YouTube comments section, which can be of significant import to these groups. It
offered much insight into the language and media-specific dialogue that takes place in
such an environment, and I think that can help anyone who might be interested in the
genre of web-based discourse in general.
Which coding methods from Saldana most closely fit the ones you used?
I believe that Saldana’s “Descriptive” and “In Vivo” coding methods were the closest to
the ones I used for this project. Over all, I primarily spent my time describing my
interpretations of each individual comment, often pairing these descriptions with
verbatim references to offer evidence for said interpretations.

What patterns did you look for in your first cycle of coding?
For my first cycle of coding, I looked primarily for commenters’ attitudes toward the
Bailey Sarian video in question and to her YouTube channel as a whole. I looked for
positive versus negative comments about her and about the video content, but I also left
myself open to notice any unexpected patterns that might arise. As I had mentioned in
my project proposal, I came to this research with certain assumptions, but I wanted to
ensure that I did not focus so closely on these assumptions that I missed interesting
patterns that might contradict or otherwise differ from them.

What patterns did you "stumble upon"?

As the only patterns I was particularly “looking for” were positive versus negative
comments about the video and its creator, there were several more nuanced patterns
that I had not necessarily expected to see. For example, a large portion of the comments
shared a negative view of the alleged murderer Jodi Arias, who was the topic of the
video. Only one or two of the comments I reviewed were sympathetic toward Arias, but
the total number of comments about her far outweighed the number of comments about
the YouTuber herself (which, in hindsight, I likely should have expected).

Furthermore, while there were a large number of comments speaking positively about
Bailey Sarian, there were several that did this in a very specific manner. One of the most
common patterns I saw was that of quoting certain things Sarian had said or done in the
video, coupled with emojis or other slang expressions showing laughter or amusement. I
knew that quoting was a common practice among YouTube commenters, but I didn’t think
about the implications of that type of discourse until this research project.

Include a list of terms you coded for in your first round.

In order of prevalence, my top five Descriptive codes (with some sub-codes) for this
project were as follows:

Positive toward creator

Negative toward defendant
- Accusing
- Name-calling
- Mocking
- Disbelieving/suspicious
- Condemning
Neutral comment
Quoting creator
Request/recommendation to creator

In order of prevalence, my final list of In Vivo code categories for this project (each with
one In Vivo code example) was as follows:

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Best Version
- “Giving us information better than a news”
Makeup
- “Also your makeup is always so fire!!!!”
“Tea”/Gossip
- “Like she’s telling all the tea, and I love it.”
Appearance
- “Just Gorgeous.”
Storytelling
- “...she tells them in a way that makes it feel like I’m hearing about them for the first time.”
Informative
- “your great because you give more information”
Research/Effort
- “incredible research bby I love your vids <3”

What categories or themes do you see emerging, and why do they matter?
The primary theme I see emerging from this research is an overwhelming appreciation
for the individual personality of this YouTuber, as well as for the style of her delivery in
storytelling. It seems that the majority of commenters within my corpus enjoy Bailey
Sarian’s humorous approach to true crime commentary, but more importantly, her
dedication to doing detailed research in order to deliver all of the relevant details to her
viewerbase. I think this is important because it tells us what exactly these viewers are
looking for in a true crime commentary of any kind, and that is detailed, easily digestible
information. Multiple commenters claimed that part of what they like about Sarian’s
videos is that her version of the story offers so much more than one might get from a
typical news source or documentary. I think this is an essential answer to my initial
research question.

Provide some tentative results (i.e., 17 complaints about slow service in 77 reviews).
Based on the research conducted for this project, I find that 44 (22%) of the 200 YouTube
comments I reviewed from Bailey Sarian’s video were directly and unambiguously
positive toward her in some way. Furthermore, I find that the majority of these positive
commenters based their appreciation on the amount of information that Sarian provides
in comparison to other sources.

What did you find that you weren't expecting?

One unexpected thing from this research was actually something I didn’t find: there was
a surprising lack of “trolling” comments on this video. YouTube and other
comment-enabled forums are often known for being “toxic,” but I saw none of that in my
data. While I only scraped a very small fraction of the total number of comments, none of
the ones I reviewed seemed inflammatory. Rather, all of them—including those that were
essentially neutral—appeared to be from genuine viewers who had an interest in the
story being told and/or in merely supporting Sarian’s channel.

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What changes would you make for a second cycle of coding? What patterns would
you go back and look for? What would you do differently? Would you collect a
different type of text, a larger sample, a smaller one?
Ultimately, I was quite pleased with the way this project turned out. However, I would
make a few changes if I had a chance to do it again. For one, I would like to have
collected a larger sample. Because of Bailey Sarian’s popularity on YouTube, her video
had over 14,000 comments in total. I feel that while the number of comments
recommended for this type of project was very appropriate, it somewhat limited my
findings. In essence, I think I may have chosen a topic that deserved a larger project than
what I was able to give it at this time.

Additionally, I think I would have been a bit more “to the book” with my In Vivo coding. As
I looked over my final codes, I realized that I was using fairly long quotations, and that
isn’t necessarily the “correct” way to use In Vivo coding. I think I would have done a more
precise job on that, if given the opportunity.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this first attempt at data coding, and I am looking forward to the
opportunity to practice it further. It has opened me up to a new world of research that I
was not previously aware of, and I am grateful for that.