Original scientific paper

The methods of researching the internet as a new media

Anči Leburić
Maja Sladić ; Department of sociology, University of Zadar

Abstract

The departure point of the article is the presupposition of the internet as the subject of study of a scientific-research project and as a significant social phenomenon. The social role of this new media is quite controversial. Because of this the article discusses the possibilities of investigating the internet as a contemporary media phenomenon. Since in professional publications at the beginning of the third millennium, one finds frequent discussions about the defects of the internet and the dangers it has brought, the authors elaborate these within the context of the relationship between the categories of the virtual and the cyber as against the meta-medial. Namely, the multi-media network of the internet has developed into a global, planetary network whose influence is both impossible to empirically fathom and of utmost importance within the social setting. Since the internet has become the basis of the phenomenon of virtual reality, research into this apparent reality have become necessary but also especially interesting. Considering the fact that the internet transforms the spatial and temporal relations between phenomena and people, its research demands an appropriate methodology and methodological approaches. The article suggests methodological combinations of qualitative and quantitative methods, techniques and procedures. It presents potential research matrixes of data and methods which can be applied in researching the internet. The authors conclude how the addition of the elements of one methodology to another contributes to the refinement and profiling of research, while the integration of research methods harmonizes and supplements the shortcomings of individual methods. However, in real empirical research, the qualitative and the quantitative are still strictly separated, so that, truth to say, the aim of this paper was not only to warn but to affirm more clearly such methodological commitments. This particularly applies to the development of sociological methodology as well as other relevant methodologies within the social sciences and the humanities. At the end, the authors conclude that the perspectives of the internet as a subject of research are fruitful but complex and unpredictable.

Keywords

researching the internet; researching virtuality; computer communication; qualitative-quantitative methodological approaches; new media

Hrčak ID:

190042

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/190042

Publication date:

1.1.2004.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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