-internet-based technologies change the research scenario
-capacities of the internet shape a user’s perceptions/interactions
-self, other, and social structiures are constituted through interaction in tech mediated environments(248)
-tensions and complications that arise in the qualitative study of Internet-mediated contexts
-chapter focuses on textuality(text-based computer mediated discourse/interactions)
-chapter addresses key epistemological and methodological questions facing ethnographers researching in social spaces constituted through new communication technologies.
-chapter focuses on problems/challenges of CMC(computer mediated communication)
Shifting Trends in Qualitative ResearchOver the past decade of Internet Studies
-Qualitative study of ICT(information and communication technologies) has shifted:
First- from polarized to more descriptive to more theoretically grounded, comparative, or theory-building studies.
-Early 1990s- heavily influenced by pop culture descriptions of forms of interaction. Cyberspace- ellusize/intriguing definition of online experience.
-the new ideas about virtuality influenced the tone of research
-technology was thought to free the constraints of hierarchy, social stereotypes, embodiment, and death
-simultaneously, research was influenced by new coverage, movies, and pop culture accounts
-published accounts came to have more traditional characteristics of social research
-scholars explaining the approach/methods more carefully
-targets of research continue to follow shifts in technological development
-various social interaction practices/social structures received empirical attention over the past decade
-multiple anthologies offered accounts of cyberculture
-few resources existed during the 1990s to guide qualitative researchers.
-comprehensive treatment of research methods appreared in 2000(Mann and Stewart-principals and practices for conducting qualitative inquiry using the internet as a tool of research)
-conceptualization of computer-mediated communication has shifted from sweeping universalized encapsulations to more specific, context-based definitions.
-a move from exaggerated to mundane accounts(254)- minimize the impact of new communication technologies on identity, subjectivity, and social practices/structures
-ethnographic inquiry shifting from the study of online-only environments and virtual identity to the intersection of computer-mediated communication with everyday life.
-increased attention to the multiple uses/definitions of internet
-increased attention to how online and offline intersect(254)
-political analyses of computer-mediated communication- research in developing countries and role of the researchers in internet studies.
-interview study would be a more appropriate term for many studies labeled ethnography(255).
-the ethnographer’s notion of cultural boundary must be reconsidered given this capacity of the Internet
-access is not universal
-boundaries may be flexible, seemingly arbitrary, and discursively constructed but remain within the larger political/economic structures
-online participants co-construct the spaces of investigation
-in technologically mediated environments both the production and consumption of communication can be global, non-sequential, fragmented, disembodied, and decentered
-boundaries not determined by location but by interaction
-social constructions are less connected to physical properties.
-researchers are more obviously participative
-computer-mediated communication contexts- contexts are constructed interactively, comprised of disembodied participants
-CMC separates a person’s being into component parts which promotes highly focused and divided attention on the content, the producer, the carrier, and the meaning of discursive activity in context.
-the researcher determines a priori what constitutes data in the first place, making this decision point a crucial reflection point(265)
-an array of interpretive tools are used to make sense of texts
-participants can be judged in multiple ways by the form of their text-interpretations is founded in the text but simultaneously not limited to the text
-researchers can misinterpret/misrepresent a participant’s deliberate presentation of self(ie: use of nonstandard grammatical conventions) (267)
-the body of the participant is notably absent
-social scientist persits in seeking the authentic by privileging the concept of the body(268)
-perception always involves embodiment which ca’t be set aside in the context of studying life online(268)
-marked absence of the researcher’s own embodiment in many studies of text-based cultural contexts
- the online persona may be much more fluid/changeable than we imagine
-it is difficult even in qualitative research to peel back one’s own complicated layers of interpretation
-any method decision is an ethics decision
-computer-mediated environments’ dilemma of research reporting because it is so clear that text can be the primary/sole means of producing/negotiating self, other, body, and culture( 272)
-highly disjunctive online conversations get reproduced as tidy exchanges of messages- a six month conversation can appear as a single paragraph- deliberate fragmentation of ideas can be spliced into linear logic.
-importance of serving as an advocate for participants will allow for research design to be more ethically grounded/reflective anv have more integrity
-researchers often take more than they can give(274)
Ethical challenges for Internet researchers:
-some users perceive publicly accessible discourse sites as private
-users writing style is readily identifiable in online community so ao pseudonym does not guarantee anonymity
-online discussion sites can be highly transient
-anonymity hard to gurantee because of search engines capable of finding statements used in research reports.
-age is difficult to verify
-vulnerable persons difficult to identify
-informed consent of actual participant is difficult to attain in writing
-ethically sensitive approaches are complicated
-Internet-based technologies for communication are still new and changing the way people live their professional/personal lives
-essential to reflect on the ethical frames influencing our studies and the political possibilities of our research(279)
