Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method

This collection of dialogues is the only textbook of its kind. Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method takes students into the minds of top internet researchers as they discuss how they have worked through critical challenges as they research online social environments. Editors Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym illustrate that good research choices are not random but are deliberate, studied, and internally consistent. Rather than providing single "how to" answers, this book presents distinctive and divergent viewpoints on how to think about and conduct qualitative internet studies.

Key Features and Benefits  

• Presents each chapter in the form of a question in order to provoke explicit consideration of key issues
• Illustrates choices made within larger disciplinary contexts to help students blend approaches, think broadly, and conduct internet research with the benefit of multiplicity
• Offers a range of perspectives in each chapter to vividly demonstrate that there are many ways to answer methodological challenges well
• Includes contributors from multiple disciplines and across the globe
• Provides a highly reflexive writing style that allows readers to see processes that are rarely visible in finished research reports

Intended Audience  
This edited volume is an excellent supplementary text for a variety of advanced undergraduate and graduate courses such as Internet Research, Research Methods, Qualitative Research Methods, and Computer-Mediated Communication in the departments of communication, media studies, sociology, and anthropology. It will assist new scholars as well as seasoned practitioners in this arena make informed choices in how they conduct inquiry.

Annette N. Markham is a senior research fellow in the Center for Information Policy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, researching the connection between method and ethics and conducting research of decision making processes in institutional review boards. She is also a senior development specialist for the State of Wisconsin, working with subject matter experts in the corrections system to design ethically-grounded online training. Her primary research focuses on ethical practices in qualitative internet research and sensemaking in technologically-mediated spaces. Her book Life online: Researching real experience in virtual space (1998, Alta Mira) has been regarded as a foundational sociological study of Internet experience. Other writing related to method can be found in Sage Handbook for Qualitative Research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, 3^rd Edition); Qualitative Research: Theory, Method, and Practice (Silverman, 2004, Sage); and such journals as Qualitative Inquiry, The Information Society, and the Journal of Information Ethics. Annette received her Ph. D. from Purdue University.

Nancy Baym is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas. She has written many widely-cited articles about online fan community and social aspects of online interaction and is the author of the book Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom, and Online Community (Sage Press, Inc.). She is a co-founder and Past-President of the Association of Internet Researchers. She is an award-winning teacher whose courses address the use of new communication technologies in creating identities, relationships and communities, interpersonal communication, and qualitative research methods. She serves on the editorial boards of the premiere journals in the field, including New Media & Society, The Journal of Communication, The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and The Information Society. Her blog about fan activity on the internet can be found at http://www.onlinefandom.com