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Schedule/Readings

There are two books required for the course:

Burnett, R. and Marshall, P. D. (2003) Web Theory: An Introduction, Routledge, New York. (WT) This book is available at the University Bookstore.

Hine, Christine (Ed), (2005) Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet, Berg (VM).

The rest of the assigned readings are in two categories. 1) Articles and book chapters that are methodological in focus should be read closely. A complete set is in a reader available at Ram copy center on/after March 24 (4144 University Way, 632-6630). URLs for these are also provided below where available in case you prefer to read online. 2) Other readings (preceded by a B for browse) have been assigned because they provide examples of the use of particular methods; read just the methods sections of these texts (unless, of course, you’re interested in the rest). Most of these “B” texts are available online, (URLs are provided below), those not online are included in the reader. You may find it helpful to print the pages of each B reading that pertain to methods in order to read them carefully, but it is not necessary to print the full text of each of these articles.

Other Resources
This is an advanced methods course, and I assume that students already have a general understanding of research design and familiarity with at least a couple methods of data collection and analysis. If you want more of a foundation in research design, Constructing Social Research by Charles Ragin, Pine Forge Press, 1994, is excellent.

A copy of the Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of IT, Sonia Livingstone & Leah A Lievrouw (Eds.) Sage, 2003 is available for library use only, at Suzzallo Reference. This volume is a great source for ideas and examples of various kinds of Internet-related research design.

There are too many facets of the Internet and variants of this Internet-related methods to cover in one course. See the Resources section of the course Web site for links to online sources. Susan Herring's syllabus for a course called 'Content Analysis on the Web' provides a terrific list of publications relevant to many of the methods we will discuss in this course (see http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/web.syll.04.html).

3/26: Intros & Overview of course
History of Internet studies and review of research design principles & quantitative/qualitative/comparative approaches.

Read:
• WT Intro & Chs 1-3 (the info in these intro chapters is really basic and will be review for many of you; they will give us a common conceptual and technical vocubulary)
• Jones, Steve, "Studying the Net: Intricacies and Issues," from Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, Ed. by Steve Jones, Sage, 1999, pp. 1-27.
• Agre, Philip, “Internet Research: For and Against,” in Mia Consalvo, Nancy Baym, Jeremy Hunsinger, Klaus Bruhn Jensen, John Logie, Monica Murero, and Leslie Regan Shade, eds, Internet Research Annual, Volume 1: Selected Papers from the Association of Internet Researchers Conferences 2000-2002, New York: Peter Lang, 2004. http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/research.html

Read:
• Ragin, “The Process of Social Research,” from Constructing Social Research, Ch. 3 http://depts.washington.edu/methods/readings/Ragin_Chapter3.pdf
• Hine, Christine VM Ch. 1 “Virtual Methods and the sociology of cyber-social-scientific knowledge, and VM “Part One: Research Relationships and Online Relationships”.
• Joinson, Adam, VM Ch. 2 “Internet behaviour and the design of virtual methods”.
• Wouters, Paul, and Beaulieu, Anne, 2007, “Critical Accountability: Dilemmas for Interventionist Studies of e-Science,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(2). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue2/wouters.html

4/4: Levels & Units of Analysis
Research question (ungraded) exercise (email to instructor prior to class & bring copies to class for everyone):
(a) Write a brief (one or two sentence) statement, in the form of a question or questions, addressing a topic on which you would be interested in developing a research proposal; specify the motivating goals for this research.
(b) Write a brief (one or two sentence) statement outlining your expectations or hypothesis for this research project
(c) Write a brief (two or three sentence) statement outlining a potential strategy for conducting this research.

Read:
• December, John, "Units of Analysis for Internet Communication," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V.1, N.4, March, 1996. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/december.html
• Steven M. Schneider & Kirsten A. Foot, "The Web as an Object of Study", New Media and Society, V. 6, N.1, 114-122, 2004. Available through UW Libraries’ E-Journals collection: http://lib.washington.edu.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/types/ejournals/
• Sudweeks, Fay, and Simeon Simoff, "Complementary Explorative Data Analysis: The Reconciliation of Quantitative and Qualitative Principles," from Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, Ed. by Steve Jones, Sage, 1999, pp. 29-56.
• Beaulieu, Anne, “Combining Approaches for the Study of Networks on the Internet,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 8(4), July 2003, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue4/intro.html

Week 3 Quantitative/Qualitative/Comparative Approaches & Internet Research Ethics

4/9: Quantitative/Qualitative/Comparative Approaches in Internet Research
(Today’s discussion will draw heavily on Charles Ragin’s Constructing Social Research, Pine Forge Press, 1994. This book is not required for the course, but highly recommended as a guide to research design.)

Read:
• Paccagnella, Luciano, "Getting the Seat of Your Pants Dirty: Strategies for Ethnographic Research on Virtual Communities," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V. 3, N. 1, June, 1997, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue1/paccagnella.html
• Baym, N. (2006) “Finding the Quality in Qualitative Internet Research,” in Critical Cyberculture Studies, David Silver and Adrienne Massanari, eds., New York University Press, NY. pp. 79-87.
• Boczkowski, Pablo, (2001) “Appendix B: Methodological Strategies,” Affording Flexibility: Transforming Information Practices in Online Newspapers, Unpublished Dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
• B: Foot, K. A., Warnick, B. and Schneider, S. M. (2005) “Web-Based Memorializing After September 11: Toward a Conceptual Framework,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/foot.html
• B: Rosen, D., Woelfel, J., Krikorian, D. and Barnett, G. A. (2003) 'Procedures for Analyses of Online Communities', Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 8 (4). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue4/rosen.html
• B: Schneider, Steven M., Abstract, and Chapters 5 & 6 "Measuring the Public Sphere," and "Analyzing the talk.abortion Newsgroup," from Expanding the Public Sphere through Computer-Mediated Communication: Political Discussion about Abortion in a Usenet Newsgroup, unpublished dissertation, MIT 1997, http://www.sunyit.edu/~steve/main.pdf.

4/11: Internet Research Ethics & Legalities
Internet Research 7.0 review of recent research (ungraded exercise)
(email to instructor prior to class & bring copies to class for everyone):
(a.) Review the abstracts of papers presented at the Internet Research 7.0 conference at http://www.aoir.org/?q=node/848. Each author/title link resolves to an abstract.
(b.) Select 4-5 abstracts from this list of conference papers on a topic that interests you, (e.g. online community), and write a brief review of the different ways that each author approaches/frames the topic in his/her abstract. For example, one author/abstract might focus on the spatial dimensions of online community, another on the experience of online community, a third on interfaces for online community, etc. (2 pages max)

Read:
• American Association for the Advancement of Science, ‘Ethical and Legal Aspects of Human Subjects Research in Cyberspace’ http://www.aaas.org/spp/sfrl/projects/intres/main.htm (online only)
• Azar, Beth, “Online experiments: ethically fair or foul?” APA Monitor, 31(4), April 2000, http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr00/fairorfoul.html (online only)
• Ess, Charles, & the Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Committee, (2002), Ethical decision-making and Internet research: Recommendations from the AoIR ethics working committee, Approved by AoIR members, November 27, 2002. http://www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf
• Bruckman, A. (2002) 'Ethical Guidelines for Research Online', http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/ethics/.
• Forte, M. C. (2003) “Co-Construction and Field Creation: Website Development as both an Instrument and Relationship in Action Research,” In Virtual Research Ethics: Issues and Controversies (Ed. by E. Buchanan) Idea Publishing Group, Hershey, PA, pp. 222-248.
• B: Scan the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and these explanatory/commentary essays & sites: Templeton, Brad, "A Brief Intro to Copyright," & "10 Big Myths about Copyright Explained"; the "Web" section of The Copyright Site; and the "Digestible Law" blog produced by Perkins Coie LLP (which includes an archive of Internet case law).
Browse/scan the sites/resources on Internet research ethics listed in Resources section of course Web site.

Read:
• Kivits, Joëlle VM Ch. 3 “Online interviewing and the research relationship”
• Markham, Annette, "The Shifting Project, the Shifting Self," from Life Online, Altamira Press, 1998, pp. 61-84.
• Stromer-Galley, J., “Depth Interviews for the Study of Motives and Perceptions of Internet Use,” presented at International Communication Association, San Diego, May 23-26, 2003.
• Orgad, Shani, VM Ch. 4, “From online to offline and back: Moving from online to offline relationships with research informants.”
• B: McMillan, Sally J., "Defining Interactivity: A Qualitative Identification of Key Dimensions," New Media and Society, V.2, N.2, 2000, pp. 157-179 (available through UW E-journals).

Read:
• Mann, C. and Stewart, F., Ch. 5, “Online Focus Groups,” from Internet Communication and Qualitative Research, Sage, 2000, pp. 99-125.
• Kitzinger, J. and Barbour, R. S. (1999), “Introduction: The Challenge and Promise of Focus Groups,” In Developing Focus Group Research: Politics Theory and Practice(Eds, Barbour, R. S. and Kitzinger, J.) Sage, pp. 1-20.
• B: Price, Vincent and Cappella, Joseph N., “Online Deliberation and its Influence: The Electronic Dialogue Project in Campaign 2000,” presented to the annual meetings of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Montreal, Canada, May, 2001. (On E-Reserves)
• B: Schneider, Sid (et al) "Evaluating a Federal Health-Related Web Site: A Multimethod Perspective on Medicare.gov," from The Internet and Health Communication, Ed. by Ron Rice & James Katz, Sage, 2001, pp. 167-188.
• B: Stromer-Galley, J. and Foot, K. A. (2002) 'Citizen perceptions of online interactivity and implications for political campaign communication', Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 8 (1). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue1/stromerandfoot.html

Read:
• Smith, Christine, "Casting the Net: Surveying an Internet Population," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V. 3, N. 1, June, 1997; http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue1/smith.html.
• Yun, Gi Woong and Craig Trumbo, "Comparative Response to a Survey Executed by Post, E-mail and Web Form," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V.6, N.1, September, 2000, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol6/issue1/yun.html.
• Witte, James, and Phil Howard, "The Future of Polling: Relational Inference and the Development of Internet Survey Instruments," In Navigating Public Opinion: Polls, Policy and the Future of American Democracy (Eds, Manza, J., Lomax Cook, F. and Page, B.) Oxford, New York. http://faculty.washington.edu/pnhoward/publishing/articles/polling.pdf
• Joseph A. Konstan, B. R. Simon Rosser, Michael W. Ross, Jeffrey Stanton, & Weston M. Edwards, “The Story of Subject Naught:
A Cautionary but Optimistic Tale of Internet Survey Research” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(2), 2005 http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/konstan.html.
• B: Parks, Malcolm & Kory Floyd, "Making Friends in Cyberspace," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V.1, N. 4, March, 1996, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/parks.html

Experiment participation exercise
• Prior to class, please participate in at least two of the four online experiments designed by the Political Communication Lab at Stanford, http://pcl.stanford.edu/participate/, and in at least 3 of the internet-based experiment sites linked from this page: http://methods.fullerton.edu/chapter4.html (Cozby, Paul C., "Studying Behavior," Methods in Behavioral Research, 7th Edition). In most experiments you will be asked to view or read material and then record your responses. Some experiments automatically assign participants to conditions; others ask you to provide a number such as the day of the month you were born; this number in turn determines the condition in which you will participate. Be prepared to discuss the following questions for the 3 experiments you select: 1) What variables are being studied? 2) How are the variables operationally defined? 3) How are subjects recruited and assigned to a different conditions?

Read:
• Iyengar, Shanto, "Experimental Designs for Political Communication Research: From Shopping Malls to the Internet," presented at the Workshop in Experimental Methods, Department of Government, Harvard University, May 5-6, 2000, http://pcl.stanford.edu/common/docs/research/iyengar/2002/expdes2002.pdf
• Abstracts from any 3 of the Internet-oriented experiments conducted by the Media Effects Research Lab at Penn State. From this link: http://www.psu.edu/dept/medialab/researchpage/research.htm
Click on “Older Studies” then select any 3 abstracts from experiments aimed at understanding the effects of some facet(s) of Internet use/digital media (note that not all abstracts in this list focus on the Internet or other digital media). Print the 3 abstracts you select, and bring them to class.

Week 6 Participant Observation/Ethnography
4/30: Participant Observation/Ethnography: Online Only
Analysis of method:
Demo: WebArchivist Annotator

Read:
• Hine, Christine, "Virtual Ethnography," paper presented at Internet Research and Information for Social Scientists Conference, March 1998. http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/archive/iriss/papers/paper16.htm
• Hakken, David, "Doing Ethnography in Cyberspace," from Cyborgs@Cyberspace?, Routledge, 1999.
• Rutter, Jason & Smith, Gregory W.H., VM Ch. 6, Ethnographic presence in a nebulous setting.
• B: Bury, R., (2005), “Ethnography on (the) Line,” from Cyberspaces of their own: An ethnographic investigation of fandom and femininities, Peter Lang Publishing.
• B: Guimarães, Mario J.L.., VM Ch. 10, “Doing anthropology in cyberspace: fieldwork boundaries and social environments.”

5/2: Participant Observation/Ethnography: Online & Offline
Analysis of method:
• Mackay, Hugh, VM Ch. 9 “New connections, familiar settings: issues in the ethnographic study of new media use at home.”
• Sanders, Teela, VM Ch. 5. “Researching the online sex work community.”
• Howard, Phil, "Network Ethnography and Hypermedia Organization: New Organizations, New Media, New Myths," New Media and Society, 4(4), pp. 550-574. http://faculty.washington.edu/pnhoward/publishing/articles/networkethnography.pdf

Read:
• Garton, Laura (et al), "Studying Online Social Networks," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V. 3, N. 1, June, 1997, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue1/garton.html
• Park, H.W., Thelwall, M. VM Ch.12. “The network approach to web hyperlink research and its utility for science communication.”
• Forte, Maximilian, VM Ch. 7. “Centring the links: understanding cybernetic patterns of co-production, circulation and consumption.”
• B: Adamic, L. and Glance, N., “The political blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. election: Divided they blog,” http://www.blogpulse.com/papers/2005/AdamicGlanceBlogWWW.pdf.
• B: Rogers, R. and Marres, N. (2000) 'Landscaping Climate Change: A Mapping Technique for Understanding Science & Technology Debates on the World Wide Web', Public Understanding of Science, 9 (2): 141-163. Available through UW E-Journals or http://www.govcom.org/publications/full_list/ROGERS_Marres_pus.pdf
• B: Foot, K. A., Schneider, S. M., Dougherty, M., Xenos, M. and Larsen, E. (2003) 'Analyzing linking practices: Candidate sites in the 2002 U.S. electoral Web sphere', Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 8 (4). http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol8/issue4/foot.html

5/9 Structure/Sphere analyses
Analysis of method:
Demo: Touchgraph & VKS-DOD Interface

Read:
• Schneider, S. & Foot, K., VM Ch. 14 “Web sphere analysis: An approach to studying online action.”
• Jackson, Michelle, "Assessing the Structure of the Communication on the World Wide Web," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V. 3, N. 1, June, 1997, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue1/jackson.html
• Beaulieu, A. VM Ch. 13. “Linking knowledge: ethnographic methods for the study of data sharing infrastructures.”
• B: Foot, K. & Schneider, S. “Online Structure for Civic Engagement in the September 11 Web Sphere,” Electronic Journal of Communication, Vol. 14, N. 3 & 4, 2004, http://faculty.washington.edu/kfoot/Publications/040228.Post911-EJOC-final.pdf

Read:
• Crowston, Kevin, and Marie Williams, "Reproduced and Emergent Genres of Communication on the World Wide Web," The Information Society, Vol 16, no. 3, in UW E-Journal collection
• McMillan, S. J. (2000). The microscope and the moving target: The challenge of applying content analysis to the World Wide Web. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 77(1), 80-98. http://web.utk.edu/~sjmcmill/Research/research.htm
• Van Selm, Martine & Jankowski, Nick, “Content Analysis of Internet-Based Documents,” from in Jankowski & Van Selm, Researching New Media: An Advanced Level Textbook, Sage (forthcoming).
• Fagerjord, Anders, "Issues of Sequence in Converging Media: Studying World Wide Web Documentaries," presented at COSIGN (Computational Semiotics for Games and New Media) 2001, (CWI, Amsterdam, 10th-12th September 2001), http://www.cosignconference.org/cosign2001/papers/Fagerj.pdf.
• Stromer-Galley, J. & Baker, A. B. (2006). Joy and sorrow of interactivity on the campaign trail: Blogs in the primary campaign of Howard Dean. In A. P. Williams & J. C. Tedesco (Eds.), The internet election: Perspectives on the Web in campaign 2004 (pp. 111-131). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• B: Mitra, Ananda, "Characteristics of the WWW Text: Tracing Discursive Strategies," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V.5, N. 1, September, 1999, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol5/issue1/mitra.html
• B: Honeycutt, Courtenay. Hazing as a process of boundary maintenance in an online community. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(2), 2005. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/honeycutt.html <This article is a good example of ‘computer-mediated discourse analysis’ (Herring 2004)>

Read:
• WT Ch. 5, “The Look of the Web.”
• Burton, Mary and Joseph Walther, "The Value of Web Log Data in Use-Based Design and Testing," Journal of Computer-Based Communication, V.6, N.3, April, 2001, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol6/issue3/burton.html.
• Foot, K. & Schneider, S., Appendix, Web Campaigning, MIT Press, 2006. Pre-publication version in reader; post-publication version available in the Web Campaigning Digital Supplement, http://mitpress.mit.edu/webcampaigning. Click on Methods, then sections A01-A07.
• B: Rice, Ron (et al), "A Comparative Features Analysis of Publicly Accessible Commercial and Government Health Database Web Sites," from The Internet and Health Communication, Ed. by Ron Rice & James Katz, Sage, 2001, pp. 213-231
• B: Ho, James, "A Global Study of Commercial Web Sites," Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, V. 3, N. 1, June, 1997, http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol3/issue1/ho.html.

5/21: Mapping & Spatiality and Methodological Reflection
• Dodge, M. VM Ch. 8 The role of maps in virtual research methods
• Rogers, R. “Mapping Webspace with the Issue Crawler,” unpublished manuscript, http://govcom.org/publications/full_list/issuecrawler_1oct06_final.pdf, also explore http://govcom.org
• Jankowski, N. and van Selm, M., VM Ch.14. Epilogue: Methodological Concerns and Innovations in Internet Research
• Jones, S. “Conclusion: Contexting the Network,” Ch. 20 in P. Howard and S. Jones, Eds, Society Online: The Internet in Context, pp. 325-333.
• B: Herring, S. C., Kouper, I., Paolillo, J. C., Scheidt, L. A., Tyworth, M., Welsch, P., Wright, E., and Yu, N. (2005). Conversations in the blogosphere: An analysis "from the bottom up." Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-38). Los Alamitos: IEEE Press. http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/blogconv.pdf
• B: Krikorian, D. H. et al. (2000). Isn't that spatial? Distance and communication in a 2-D virtual environment. JCMC 5(4). http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol5/ issue4/krikorian.html

5/23: Workshop on studying online issue networks with Rachel Gibson, details to come.

5/30: Posters of proposed research displayed in Digital Media Working Group Poster Session, details to come.