[Air-L] Help with digital ethnography & early Internet history

[Alexis De Coning]

Hi AIR folks,

Long-time follower, first-time emailer! I'm a PhD candidate in Media
Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. I study the men's rights
movement, using interviews, ethnography, archival research, and textual
analysis. I'm currently looking at both pre-digital and digital materials,
and trying to unpack how the movement "came online" around the 1990s. I'm
reaching out to elicit some advice, recommendations, and help with a few
challenges I'm encountering:

1. Can anyone recommend good sources on early Internet history,
particularly with regards to gender? I'm especially interested in how and
when "regular" people started to adopt Internet technologies. I've found
some interesting evidence in print materials from the early 1990s that show
men's rights activists transitioning to online spaces, but I'd like to
historicize and contextualize what I'm seeing.

2. I'd like to start doing some "digital ethnography" via Twitter. My
university's IRB liaison suggested I build a simple webpage where I can
explain my research, have my consent form, etc. and link to it in my
Twitter profile/tweets to meet IRB's standards for consent with human
subjects. However, given the population I study, I'm concerned about
personal safety, doxxing, harassment, etc. I don't want to be paranoid, but
I also don't want to be naive about putting my personal information into
the digital sphere via an easily-hackable webpage. Any advice or
recommendations on digital security or how to go about digital ethnography
with "difficult" populations be most appreciated.

Thanks and best regards,
Lexi de Coning