Hello lovely people from Postcrossing. I was browsing the internet looking for some information from a postcard I received (long story) when I came across what looks like a philology paper about postcrossing and how writing a postcard is a different form of comunication.
The article is open so I will live the link to the online publisher.
READ IT HERE.
It is from some years ago, I have no idea if it has already been mentioned. I haven’t found it in the forum but I don’t know if it’s on the blog (I can browse the blog by post).
This is an actual research article people, this is huge!
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An interesting article; published in 2020. Before my arrival at Postcrossing.
I’ll bet the results of the study would vary considerably today because it was published in the early weeks of the pandemic. A lot has happened on this planet since then and I suspect this impacts the content and tone of messages. A comparative analysis (spring 2022) could be interesting.
From the Problem Statement of the article: “The text analyzed for the paper comes from 550 texts of postcards, the owners of which are students and teachers of the Orenburg State University (Orenburg, Russia).”
I am intrigued that the Postcrossing postcards were received by a number of Postcrossers - students and faculty - located at one particular university. Some questions come to mind:
- If the postcard recipients joined Postcrossing so the researchers could analyze Postcrossing text, was there a notice issued to Postcrossers that their cards would be subject to analysis in an academic research project? Of course, this would defeat the research purpose because the writers would write with an intended audience in mind. Still, informed consent comes to mind.
- Did the students and faculty at the university join Postcrossing so the researchers could analyze the text of postcards received? If so, what happened with their membership? Did they remain because they enjoyed participating as Postcrossers? Or, did they lapse, meaning cards might have expired, because they joined because of an academic requirement rather than out of personal interest - which might sustain a new member through the long wait for the first 20 or 100 cards?
- Are the researchers Postcrossing members? If so, what other research are they doing with their received cards? This research could be interesting to all members of the Postcrossing community. Additionally, should Postcrossers be informed that their cards are the subject of research?
Despite some questions, the article is interesting and would be worthwhile to distill into everyday lexicon for the Postcrossing audience; say, in a blog here.
Perhaps the authors of the article - particularly, if they are Postcrossers - would be willing to do so?
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I believe they got the postcards from a school that had a Postcrossing account directed to their students.
It doesn’t explain it a lot, but I imagine they didn’t want to explain in all detail how PC works on the paper. They do mention this “The corpus of the current research consists of 550 texts of postcards, the owners of which are students and teachers of the Orenburg State University (Orenburg, Russia).” That’s why I think the school had one or more accounts for it, maybe?
I did some research but nobody with their names seems to live near Orenburg on PC (there are some results if you Search on PC, but they don’t really match more than just the name).
Good questions, indeed. I believe that they partially didn’t over explain the accounts and how they got the postcards in deep and all the details so they didn’t have to explain the PC dynamics in a paper.
1 Like
I hadn’t spotted this one yet, but it’s not the first one.
We covered at least another one long time ago (wow, 10 years!) on the blog:
Throughout the years there’s been a few others (ranging from academic papers to master thesis) with varying degrees of focus on Postcrossing specifically.
I don’t keep track of all of them, but Google Scholar seems to show a few.
5 Likes
Thanks for sharing. Most interesting!!