Virtual Research Methods: (Sage Benchmarks in Social Research Methods)

About the Book

The new social contexts formed via the Internet, and the new forms of data made available by the increasing use of diverse forms of computer mediated communication, have challenged researchers to develop approaches which do them justice. At the same time, there has been concern that established principles should be preserved, and that the connection between virtual research methods and more conventional research approaches should not be rejected out of hand. Despite a number of handbooks and textbooks published in recent years there is still a dearth of authoritative works which offer comprehensive coverage of the virtual research methods available to social researchers. In particular, there is none which thoroughly explores the full range of virtual research methods and their antecedents, and which explores the methodological and epistemological ramifications of their development. This multivolume reference collection fills this gap.

The collection covers perspectives on the Internet as a social space; research models for the Internet and the skills, techniques and approaches needed to conduct research in a virtual environment; innovations in the research process and reflections on these innovations; and the ethical considerations to take into account when doing research on the Internet.

Table of Contents:
VOLUME ONE PART ONE: PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNET AS SOCIAL SPACE Reducing Social Context Cues - Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler Electronic Mail in Organizational Communication The Emergence of Online Community - Nancy Baym Virtual Communities as Communities - Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia Net Surfers Don′t Ride Alone Constructing Identity Online - Kaveri Subrahmanyam and David Šmahel Identity Exploration and Self-Presentation Grooming, Gossip, Facebook and MySpace - ZeynepTufekci Privacy, Trust and Self-Disclosure - Adam Joinson et al Globalization, Networking, Urbanization - Manuel Castells Reflections on the Spatial Dynamics of the Information Age Minding the Digital Gap - Eszter Hargittai Why Understanding Digital Inequality Fizz in the Field - Steve Jones Toward a Basis for an Emergent Internet Studies PART TWO: RESEARCH SITES AND RESEARCH MODELS FOR THE INTERNET Conclusions - Daniel Miller and Don Internet as Culture and Cultural Artefact - Christine Hine From Culture to Connection - Allison Cavanagh Internet Community Studies A Typology of Ethnographic Scales for Virtual Worlds - Tom Boellstorff Love at First Sight? Visual Images and Virtual Encounters with Bodies - Nicole Constable The Field Site as a Network - Jenna Burrell A Strategy for Locating Ethnographic Research The Ethnography of New Media Worlds? Following the Case of Global Poker - John Farnsworth and Terry Austrin Localizing the Internet beyond Communities and Networks - John Postill Websites as Visual and Multimodal Cultural Expressions - Luc Pauwels Opportunities and Issues of Online Hybrid Media Research VOLUME TWO PART ONE : SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES 1: MODES OF ETHNOGRAPHIC ENGAGEMENT Ethnographic Approaches to the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication - Angela Cora Garcia et al Digital Ethnography - Dhiraj Murthy An Examination of the Use of New Technologies for Social Research Life in Virtual Worlds (American Behavioral Scientist 43(3): 436-449 [SAGE]) - T.L.Taylor ′Piling on Layers of Understanding′ - Vanessa Dirksen, Ard Huizing and Bas Smit The Use of Connective Ethnography for the Study of (Online) Work Practices Mixed Methods for Mixed Reality - David Feldon and Yasmin Kafai Understanding Users′ Avatar Activities in Virtual Worlds Co-Construction and Field Creation - Maximilian Forte Website Development as both an Instrument and Relationship in Action Research Towards Ethnography of Television on the Internet - Christine Hine A Mobile Strategy for Exploring Mundane Interpretive Activities Inside the ′Pro-Ana′ Community - Sarah Brotsky and David Giles A Covert Online Participant Observation PART TWO: SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES 2: REASEARCH RELATIONSHIPS Qualitative Interviewing in Internet Studies - Michelle Kazmer and Bo Xie Playing with the Media, Playing with the Method Reflecting on the Experience of Interviewing Online - Mark Davis et al Perspectives from the Internet and HIV Study in London E-Mail Interviewing in Qualitative Research - Lokman Meho A Methodological Discussion Credibility, Authenticity and Voice - Nalita James and Hugh Busher Dilemmas in Online Interviewing Online with the E-Mums - Clare Madge and Henrietta O′Connor Exploring the Internet as a Medium for Research In the Flesh or Online? Exploring Qualitative Research Methodologies - Wendy Seymour Online Dating and Mating - Danielle Couch and Pranee Liamputtong The Use of the Internet to Meet Sexual Partners Online Focus Groups as a Tool to Collect Data in Hard-to-Include Populations - Kiek Tates et al Examples from Paediatric Oncology Doing Synchronous Online Focus Groups with Young People - Fiona Fox, Marianne Morris and Nichola Rumsey Methodological Reflections Researching Online Populations - Kate Stewart and Matthew Williams The Use of Online Focus Groups for Social Research A Daily Web Diary of the Sexual Experiences of Men Who Have Sex with Men - Keith Horvath, Blair Beadnell and Anne Bowen Comparisons with a Retrospective Recall Survey Virtual Fieldwork Using Access Grid - Nigel Fielding VOLUME THREE PART ONE: SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES 3: CORPUS-BASED APROACHES TO FOUND DATA The YouTube Indian - Maria Kopacz and Bessie Lee Lawton Portrayals of Native Americans on a Viral Video Site ′Am I Normal?′ Teenagers, Sexual Health and the Internet - Kevin Harvey et al Interviews and Internet Forums - Clive Seale et al A Comparison of Two Sources of Qualitative Data ′Entering the Blogosphere′ - Nicholas Hookway Some Strategies for Using Blogs in Social Research Content Analysis of the World Wide Web - Christopher Weare and Wan-Ying Lin Opportunities and Challenges Time to Get Wired - Gerlinde Mautner Using Web-Based Corpora in Critical Discourse Analysis Website History and the Website as an Object of Study - Niels Br gger PART TWO: SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES 4: NETWORK ANALYSIS Bibliometrics to Webometrics - Mike Thelwall Tunes That Bind? - Nancy Baym and Andrew Ledbetter Sociology of Hyperlink Networks of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Twitter - Chien-Leng Hsu and Han Woo Park A Case Study of South Korea Landscaping Climate Change - Richard Rogers and Noortje Marres A Mapping Technique for Understanding Science and Technology Debates on the World Wide Web Online Collective Identity - Robert Ackland and Mathieu O′Neil The Case of the Environmental Movement PART THREE: SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES 5: EXPERIMENTS, SURVEYS AND SAMPLING Conducting Internet Research with the Transgender Population - Michael Miner et al Reaching Broad Samples and Collecting Valid Data Surveying the Experience of Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer - Elizabeth Reed, Peter Simmonds and Jessica Corner Comparing Face-to-Face and Online Recruitment The Influence of the Design of Web Survey Questionnaires on the Quality of Responses - Stéphane Ganassali Using Questionnaire Design to Fight Non-Response Bias in Web Surveys - Paula Vicente and Elizabeth Reis Comparing Response Rates from Web and Mail Surveys - Tse-Hua Shih and Xitao Fan A Meta-Analysis Virtual Experiments - Ulf-Dietrich Reips A Psychological Laboratory on the Internet True Experimental Data Collection on the Internet - Ulf-Dietrich Reips and John Krantz VOLUME FOUR PART ONE: INNOVATIONS IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS Scholarly Communication 2.0 - Diego Ponte and Judith Simon Exploring Researchers′ Opinions on Web 2.0 for Scientific Knowledge Creation, Evaluation and Dissemination Using Web 2.0 Tools for Qualitative Analysis - Silvana di Gregorio An Exploration Scholarly Blogging - Alexander Halavais Moving toward the Visible College Field Notes in Public - Nina Wakeford and Kris Cohen Using Blogs for Research E-Sciences as Research Technologies - Ralph Schroeder Reconfiguring Disciplines, Globalizing Knowledge PART TWO: ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research on Internet Communities - Gunther Eysenbach and James Till Ethics of Internet Research - Elizabeth Bassett and Kate O′Riordan Contesting the Human Subjects Research Model Researching Personal Information on the Public Web - David Wilkinson and Mike Thelwall Methods and Ethics ′But the Data Is Already Public′ - Michael Zimmer On the Ethics of Research in Facebook ′Go away′ - James Hudson and Amy Bruckman Participant Objections to Being Studied and the Ethics of Chatroom Research Ethic as Method, Method as Ethic - Annette Markham A Case for Reflexivity in Qualitative ICT Research PART THREE: REFLECTIONS ON INNOVATION How the Internet Is Changing the Implementation of Traditional Research Methods, People′s Daily Lives and the Way in Which Developmental Scientists Conduct Research - Jaap Denissen, Linus Neumann and Maarten van Zalk The Challenge of Changing Audiences or, What Is the Audience Researcher to Do in the Age of the Internet - Sonia Livingstone New Avenues for Sociological Inquiry - Laura Robinson and Jeremy Schulz Evolving Forms of Ethnographic Practice The Growth of Internet Research Methods and the Reluctant Sociologist - Dan Farrell and James Petersen Mediating Ethnography - Anne Beaulieu Objectivity and the Making of Ethnographies of the Internet Presidential Address - Don Dillman Navigating the Rapids of Change Some Observations on Survey Methodology in the Early 21st Century Internet Research - Richard Rogers The Question of Method: A Keynote Address from the ′YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States′ Conference Mobile Methods and the Empirical - Monika B scher and John Urry

About the Author :
Christine Hine is a reader in sociology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. Her main research centres on the sociology of science and technology with a particular interest in the role played by new technologies in the knowledge production process. She also has a major interest in the development of ethnography in technical settings, and in “virtual methods” (the use of the Internet for social research). In particular, she has developed mobile and connective approaches to ethnography which combine online and offline social contexts. She is the author of Virtual Ethnography (SAGE Publications, 2000), Systematics as Cyberscience (MIT, 2008), Understanding Qualitative Research: The Internet (Oxford, 2012), and Ethnography for the Internet (Bloomsbury, 2015) and the editor of Virtual Methods (Berg, 2005), New Infrastructures for Knowledge Production (Information Science Publishing, 2006), and Virtual Research Methods (SAGE Publications, 2012).