[Air-l] web science, or AoIR by any other name

[Christian Fuchs]

Ulf-Dietrich Reips schrieb:
> Just to add another term: Internet science ("iScience").
> Please check out the book "Dimensions of Internet 
> Science" 
> (http://www.psychologie.unizh.ch/sowi/reips/dis/) 
> and the iScience server at 
> http://psych-iscience.unizh.ch/
>
> As it says on the book site: "Internet Science is 
> a new and exciting interdisciplinary field. Its 
> purpose is the conduct of empirical studies which 
> examine the Internet as both an instrument for, 
> and an object of, scientific investigation."
> The instrument aspect and the empirical focus, in 
> particular, seem to distinguish the definition 
> from those for "Internet research" and "web 
> science".
>
> Best wishes --u
>
>
>   
i think that the introduction of terms such as web science or internet 
science doesn't do much good for defining what research "internet 
researchers" are actually doing.

web science seems to be more technologically-oriented, internet science 
is purely empirically and excludes theory, whereas internet research 
also seems to include social theory besides empirical research.
social informatics argues that it is empirically oriented, but might 
need some theory. then there are other terms such as information society 
studies/research, new media research, internet and society, informatics 
and society, etc.

this is getting weird - so many names, no clear definitions, everybody 
seems to use these terms as s/he likes. maybe there should be one 
overall name for the whole research field, and the names that are used 
should clearly describe what exactly this research means (e.g. it is 
strange to speak of "internet science" as purely empirical research 
because this in not obvious in the first place).

i would argue in favour of a very broad definition and one overall term 
- which one would be suitable?

i dislike terms like internet research, new media research, internet 
studies etc because they have a technical bias and can be interpreted in 
a techno-deterministic way. i hence more prefer terms like "information 
society research" or "icts & society". once one overall terms is found, 
subterms for specific forms of research could be defined and specific 
categories found that describe what is being done.

also trying to exclude social theory (like the notion of "inernet 
science" as introduced in the book of reips/bosnjak) by strictly 
focusing on empirical research doesn't do much good and looks to me like 
a renewal of the old positivism dispute of sociology 
(adorno/horkheimer/habermas vs  popper/könig etc).  for  me  "internet 
research" to a certain degree lacks  the dimension of social theory and 
critical social theory, so to simply exclude theory doesn't do much good 
and rather seems to want to turn "information society research" into a 
positivistic science.

christian



-- 

_____________________________

Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs

Assistant Professor for Internet and Society

ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research

in Information and Communication Technologies & Society

http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at

University of Salzburg

Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18

5020 Salzburg

Austria

christian.fuchs at sbg.ac.at

Phone +43 662 8044 4823

Fax   +43 662 6389 4800

Information-Society-Technology:

http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at

http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at/fuchs/

Managing Editor of tripleC - peer reviewed open access

online journal for the foundations of information science:

http://triplec.uti.at

Forthcoming BOOK:

Fuchs, Christian (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the 
Information Age. New York: Routledge.