Shabana, it really depends on what questions you are seeking to answer.  Your research questions will determine your methodology.  Sorry, I cannot give you a more definitive answer.

I would seek reference from Herbert Mead and other authors of the symbolic interactionist school.

One approach here is to interview the couples either together as a dyad or in two separate individual interviews. Here is a recent review of this literature:

C. Reczek. (2014). Conducting a Multi Family Member Interview Study. Family Process, Vol. 53, No. 2, pp. 318-335.

@Shabana

For some assistance, I have compiled a brief bibliography to assist you with your research. See below.

Yours, David

Article Identity, values and method: Taking interview research serio...

Article Producing Cultural Sociology: An Interview with Richard A. Peterson

Conference Paper Towards Performative Pirouettes? Reconsidering the Interrela...

Article Interactionism, Social Organization, and Social Processes: L...

Article Socrates, Skinner, and Aristotle: Three Ways of Thinking Abo...

Article Comment on Stephen Vaisey’s “Socrates, Skinner, and Aristotl...

Article Interactionism's Place

Article Demarginalizing Symbolic Interactionism: A Comment on "Inter...

Article From Mead to a Structural Symbolic Interactionism and Beyond

Article Introducing Dyadic Interviews as a Method for Collecting Qua...

In case your units of analysis are private SMS-s, chats, letters or mails, data content analysis will be the most appropriate research method. It can be qualitative but also coded and quantified.

Diary research methodology is certainly a good option. It makes it able to have a clear picture on how people from the same households interact with each other.

Let me know if you need more information.

I want to agree with Richard. It is true the method will depend on the questions you want to ask. Secondly it also depends on what you are looking for. Lastly your study participants-who are you targeting-these will definitely order your methodology.

If you are analyzing dialogue from the Internet, the following two essays will provide guidance.  You can download PDFs of them here at researchgate.net. 

Webb, L. M., & Wang, Y. W. (2013). Techniques for sampling on-line data sets. In W. C. Hu & N. Kaabouch, Eds., Big data management, technologies, and applications (p. 95-114). Hershey, PA: IGI Global Publishers [ ISBN13: 9781466646995, ISBN10: 1466646993, EISBN13: 9781466647008; see http://www.igi-global.com/book/big-data-management-technologies-applications/77404].

 Webb, L. M., & Wang, Y. X. (2013). Techniques for analyzing blogs and micro-blogs. In N. Sappleton, Ed., Advancing research methods with new technologies (p. 183-204). Hershey, PA: IGI Global Publishers [ISBN13: 9781466639188, ISBN10: 1466639180].

Thanks all

Interview and focus group to measure interpersonal communication and blogs, comments and posts for online communication ( it could be a content analysis) would seem appropriate for this study. But you should conceptualize and operationalzie "awareness" first.

I may have misunderstood your original question because I thought you were working with couples. If the people you are interviewing are not related to each other, you might consider a technique that my coauthors and I have been developing, called dyadic interviews. We know that they work well in face to face settings and over the phone, plus we have done some work with bringing pairs of people together in online chat rooms.

Here is a link for downloading our paper:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255706718_Introducing_Dyadic_Interviews_as_a_Method_for_Collecting_Qualitative_Data

Article Introducing Dyadic Interviews as a Method for Collecting Qua...

It seems to me that in any study where one is "comparing" or showing "relationship" a quantitative approach would be applicable. When designing your survey specific question must be asked based on your research questions and hypotheses. Keep in mind that you have to identify your independent variable and dependent variable. If you are unable to do so then you may very well have to take a mixed method approach using interviews to get a better understanding of your problem. 

I think that as you attempt to “compare” one type of communication with another you have to consider the language that is used in both. Is the language used in interpersonal communication the same as that which is used in online communication? There is usually a difference in writing and in speaking face to face. According to Patton (2002) a qualitative study with a semiotic approach – a relationship between “linguistics  and social science" – would work well with your inquiry. Semiotics will give you a framework, according to Patton (2002, p. 113) “for analyzing talk" (face to face interpersonal communication) "and text" (online communication). It would also provide a foundation for understanding the reluctance of the women to openly discuss issues that are unique to their gender.

Since we are making a comparison between two modes against the backdrop of awareness, I think survey will be most appropriate. This obviously tilts towards focus group discussions with the women with a view to finding out their predominant source of information(awareness). Data generated from the FGD can be analyzed qualitatively using the Constant Comparative Technique(CCT) as fine tuned by Guber and Strauss(2002). Anything outside survey will most certainly generate the wrong data.

This is purely a cultural issue. If you are  conducting your study in  specific domain you may consider different methodology depending upon factors such as background ( both religion , and subculture), education level, target population, interviewee and interviewer etc.  

Regards

Rafique

Dear Shabana ,

these are relevant publications:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Susan_Herring3/publication/37609678_Gender_and_Power_in_Online_Communication/links/53e3fae20cf21cc29fc76e57.pdf

http://nms.sagepub.com/content/6/2/219.short

Article Gender and Power in Online Communication