Analyzing Online Videos: a Complement to Field Studies in Remote Locations

The paper presents a complementary method, called online video study, to conducting field studies in remote locations, by using available videos on YouTube. There are two driving factors for the online video study. Firstly, there are some occasions where conducting field studies are difficult, for example, due to the remoteness of the location where the research subject is located. Secondly, there is a growing interest among researchers to use available data on the internet as their research data source. To give a context, the study specifically investigates how operators of forest harvesters work in their natural settings. The online video study was started by collecting suitable videos on YouTube using certain criteria. We found 26 videos that meet our criteria, which also provide diverse samples of forest harvesters, operators, and working situations. We used five prior field studies, which investigated forest harvesters-related issues, to evaluate the feasibility of our approach. The results of the online video study method are promising, since we are able to find answers for research questions that we have predefined. The paper does not only contribute to the understanding of how operators of forest harvesters work in natural settings, but also the feasibility of conducting the online video study, which can be utilized when the research subject is located in remote locations.