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.

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.