Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net

Whether or not one believes the hyperbolic claims about the Internet being the biggest thing since the invention of the wheel, the Internet is a medium with great consequences for social and economic life. Doing Internet Research is written to help people discern in what ways it has commanded the public imagination, and the methodological issues that arise when one tries to study and understand the social processes occurring within the Internet. Each contributor to the volume offers original responses in the search for, and critique of, methods with which to study the Internet and the social, political, economic, artistic, communicative phenomena occurring within and around it. This book provides encouragement for readers getting started with Internet research and also provides perspective on this new and ubiquitous communication medium.

Table of Contents:
Introduction - James T Costigan Forests, Trees and Internet Research Studying the Net - Steve Jones Intricacies and Issues Complementary Explorative Data Analysis - Fay Sudweeks and Simeon J Simoff The Reconciliation of Quantitative and Qualitative Principles Recontextualizing `Cyberspace′ - Lori Kendall Methodological Considerations for On-line Research Studying On-line Social Networks - Laura Garton, Caroline Haythornthwaite and Barry Wellman Cybertalk and the Method of Instances - Norman K Denzin Configuring as a Mode of Rhetorical Analysis - James J Sosnoski From Paper-and-Pencil to Screen-and-Keyboard - Diane F Witmer, Robert W Colman and Sandra Lee Katzman Toward a Methodology for Survey Research on the Internet Measuring Internet Audiences - Margaret McLaughlin et al Patrons of an On-line Art Museum Analyzing the Web - Ananda Mitra and Elisia Cohen Directions and Challenges There is a There There - Jan Fernback Notes toward a Definition of Cybercommunity Researching and Creating Community Networks - Teresa M Harrison and Timothy Stephen Beyond Netiquette - Barbara F Sharf The Ethics of Doing Naturalistic Discourse Research on the Internet Thinking the Internet - Jonathan Sterne Cultural Studies versus the Millennium

About the Author :
Steve Jones is UIC Distinguished Professor of Communication and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Chicago, USA and Adjunct Research Professor in the Institute for Communications Research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA. He is editor of New Media & Society and co-editor of Mobile Media & Communication. His research interests encompass popular music studies, music technology, sound studies, internet studies, media history, virtual reality, human-machine communication, social robotics and human augmentics. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Centers for Disease Control and the Tides Foundation.