Virtual Research Methods

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).

• VOLUME ONE PART ONE: PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNET AS SOCIAL SPACEReducing Social Context Cues - Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler Electronic Mail in Organizational CommunicationThe 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-PresentationGrooming, 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 INTERNETConclusions - 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 ResearchThe 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 ResearchVOLUME TWO PART ONE : SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES 1: MODES OF ETHNOGRAPHIC ENGAGEMENTEthnographic 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 PracticesMixed Methods for Mixed Reality - David Feldon and Yasmin Kafai Understanding Users′ Avatar Activities in Virtual WorldsCo-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 ObservationPART TWO: SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES 2: REASEARCH RELATIONSHIPSQualitative 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 alPerspectives from the Internet and HIV Study in LondonE-Mail Interviewing in Qualitative Research - Lokman Meho A Methodological DiscussionCredibility, 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 ResearchIn 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 alExamples 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 SurveyVirtual Fieldwork Using Access Grid - Nigel Fielding VOLUME THREEPART 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 alA 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 ChallengesTime 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 ANALYSISBibliometrics to Webometrics - Mike Thelwall Tunes That Bind? - Nancy Baym and Andrew LedbetterSociology of Hyperlink Networks of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Twitter - Chien-Leng Hsu and Han Woo Park A Case Study of South KoreaLandscaping 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 MovementPART THREE: SKILLS, TECHNIQUES AND APPROACHES 5: EXPERIMENTS, SURVEYS AND SAMPLINGConducting Internet Research with the Transgender Population - Michael Miner et alReaching 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-AnalysisVirtual Experiments - Ulf-Dietrich Reips A Psychological Laboratory on the InternetTrue Experimental Data Collection on the Internet - Ulf-Dietrich Reips and John Krantz VOLUME FOURPART ONE: INNOVATIONS IN THE RESEARCH PROCESSScholarly Communication 2.0 - Diego Ponte and Judith Simon Exploring Researchers′ Opinions on Web 2.0 for Scientific Knowledge Creation, Evaluation and DisseminationUsing Web 2.0 Tools for Qualitative Analysis - Silvana di Gregorio An ExplorationScholarly 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 KnowledgePART 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 ModelResearching 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 ResearchPART 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 PracticeThe 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 InternetPresidential Address - Don Dillman Navigating the Rapids of ChangeSome Observations on Survey Methodology in the Early 21st CenturyInternet 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