[Air-l] comparative internet research

[Sandra Braman]

Folks:  A few months ago a number of members from around
the world began to discuss the possibility of collaborating
in comparative research projects.  (To subscribe to the
listserv for this conversation, write listproc at uwm.edu and
put the following in the text of the message:
subscribe compar-l first name last name )

Three individuals have stepped forward to provide leadership
for this effort; look for notice of a meeting among those
in Maastricht for those who are interested in taking part
in a collaborative comparative project.  You may want 
to let your interest be known ahead of time.  The
"committee":

Leslie Shade -- shade at aix1.uottawa.ca
Radhika Gajjala -- radhika at cyberdiva.org
Katherine Sarikakis -- k.sarikakis at coventry.ac.uk

The text below is a resend of the summary of several
months ago of  the interests expressed by those who would
like to take part in such a project.

Sandra Braman

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As context for these comments, the goal as I personally imagine 
it is developing a team or teams engaged in research on a 
carefully defined common research problem with a methodology 
also carefully worked out collaboratively among members of the 
team to meet the highest standards for comparative research.  
The particular problems of comparative research methodology 
are addressed in courses at very few universities.  Much that 
flies under the name of comparative research is in fact simply 
compilations of studies from different places that do not offer 
genuinely comparative data or insights.  These teams will
hopefully not fall into that category but, rather -- as is the case
with other aoir efforts involving standards for internet-based
research methods and the ethics of internet research -- 
provide a model for rigorous comparative internet research.

Individuals who have so far responded have expressed interest
in a very wide range of potential research topics, most defined
in the most abstract of terms, and with a preference for positions
along the entire spectrum of methodological possibilities.  Out
of all that has been mentioned, however, there do appear to be
a few clusters of interest appearing, each of which would require
different methodological approaches.  

For those of you with whom I've been in communication, please 
read these as what may be translations of the ideas you've 
expressed into terms that I felt were common across the 
many individuals involved.  And remember that this is just
a very tentative first step to defining a common ground, with
the expectation of many additional steps in full mutual
conversation to determine where we might actually wind up.

(1)  The internet and community development.

(2)  The internet and social movements.

(3)   The rhetoric of internet policy.

It could be imagined that the first two of these might be
addressed through a combination of survey research, focus
groups, and ethnographic work, and would require individuals
able to carry out such work on the ground in different
countries around the world.  The third would rely upon 
some variety of discourse/content/rhetorical analysis of
government documents, and could be carried out by 
individuals working from anywhere in the world.  

A number of additional ideas came forward but none has 
so far yet been mentioned by more than one person, and several 
are already receiving a fair amount of attention in the
economics literature and elsewhere.  It is my own bias that
aoir members may want to devote their energies to addressing
lacunae in the literature as their "highest use," but of course
this also is up to the members of the group and I mention
this only to stimulate further discussion.