Steven M. Schneider

The Web as an Object of Study

INTRODUCTION Over the last decade, as email, the world wide web and various digital technologies have emerged, scholars of new media have employed a variety of methodological strategies to explore the social, political and cultural phenomena associated with the growth of these applications. Several recently-published edited volumes highlight the range of methods employed in research regarding social dimensions of internet technologies (Gauntlett, 2000; Howard and Jones, 2003; Jones, 1999; Mann and Stewart, 2000). These collections, along with recent issues of scholarly journals, demonstrate that traditional methods of social research, such as ethnography (e.g. Hakken, 1999; Hine, 2000; Markham, 1998), textual analysis (e.g. Crowston and Williams, 2000; Mitra, 1999; Mitra and Cohen, 1999), focus groups (e.g. Price and Capella, 2001, Stromer-Galley and Foot, 2002), surveys (e.g. Parks and Floyd, 1996; Schmidt, 1997; Smith, 1997; Yun and Trumbo, 2000) and experiments (e.g. Iyengar, 2002) have been adapted for use online in order to investigate both online and offline phenomena. In addition, some scholars have found it useful to employ internet applications as bases for studies of purely offline phenomena (e.g. Witte et al., 2000). However, our focus is on the development of methods for studying the social dimensions of the internet itself, and in particular, the web. As the web has emerged as a distinct media form in the past 10 years, it has been viewed increasingly as an object of study by social researchers. The ongoing evolution of the web poses challenges for scholars as they seek to develop methodological approaches that permit robust examination of web new media & society

Online Action in Campaign 2000: An Exploratory Analysis of the U.S. Political Web Sphere

This study examines the nature of political action on and between election-oriented Web sites during the 2000 election season in the United States, based on Web materials and interviews with political Web producers. Our analysis focuses on 3 facets of online action: coproduction, carnival, and mobilization. We suggest these portend an evolution of political Communication, and we point to ways in which the 2000 political Web re-shaped the U.S. electoral process. Through this article we seek to contribute to the emerging literatures on Web studies in general and on the role of the Internet in electoral politics.

Analyzing Linking Practices: Candidate Sites in the 2002 US Electoral Web Sphere

This article offers preliminary insights and a possible empirical model for managing the conceptual, methodological, and technological challenges entailed in developmental analysis of link-mediated relations. We offer a “mid-range” approach to making sense of linking practices, midway between close rhetorical/ethnographic analysis of links and large-scale link mapping. We suggest that systematic human coding and interpretation of linked-to producer types affords a more concrete and specific basis for hypothesizing about linking strategies than machine mapping, while providing a more robust attempt to generalize across the universe of candidate Web sites than ethnographic analysis. To illustrate this two-pronged approach to link analysis, we examine the linking practices exhibited on Web sites produced by U.S. Congressional candidates during the 2002 campaign season, focusing on the extent and development of links from candidate Web sites to other types of political Web sites during the three months prior to the November, 2002 election.

Creating a Democratic Public Sphere Through Political Discussion A Case Study of Abortion Conversation on the Internet

Computer-mediated discussion is an increasingly popular method of engaging in political talk with other citizens. This article presents a case study of a Usenet newsgroup focused on abortion, and discusses the creation of a public sphere by the conversants. The notion of the public sphere is discussed, and measures allowing an assessment of its democratic character are proposed. A formula for estimating entropy is developed and applied to data obtained from the case study of an ongoing discussion. A high level of inequality in participation among conversants is noted, with very few of the discussants responsible for an extraordinarily high proportion of the content. This inequality, though tempered by analysis of the newsgroup on a day-to-day basis, calls into question the democratic character of the public sphere represented by this conversation.

ONLINE STRUCTURE FOR POLITICAL ACTION: EXPLORING PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN WEB SITES FROM THE 2000 AMERICAN ELECTION

Abstract From the perspective of a citizen-Web user, what forms of political action might the presidential campaign sites in 2000 have catalysed? This article explores the online structure — conceptualised as an electronic space within which an individual is given an opportunity to act — for political action engendered by presidential campaign Web sites in the 2000 U.S. election. The Web sites of the thirteen presidential campaigns that were active in the 2000 American election are surveyed and analysed. We find that the online structure facilitated both online and offline political action, and illustrate several dimensions of this phenomenon.

Web-Based Memorializing after September 11: toward a Conceptual Framework

Web-based memorializing is an emerging set of social practices mediated by computer networks, through which digital objects, structures, and spaces of commemoration are produced. Based on in-depth analysis of eight Web sites produced to memorialize victims of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, we demonstrate that Web-based memorializing bears a diverse array of characteristics, only some of which are consistent with offline memorializing. Our analysis suggests that although Web sites produced by institutions or organizations may differ somewhat in form and content from those produced by individuals, public and private modes of memorializing observed offline are interpenetrated on the Web. Finally, we identify communal functions served and contributions to public memory made via Web-based memorializing, and propose a conceptual framework for use in future studies of Web-based memorializing practices.

Promise and Practice of Open Access to E-Science

Open access is a key issue in the development of the information society. It may also shape the extent to which the generation of new scientific and scholarly research itself can be tuned to the future needs of developed and developing countries. Much of the promise of e-science is based on an implicit notion that open access will accelerate scientific and technological development and will increase the number of people and institutions that can tap into these shared resources. However, this begs the question of what open access actually signifies: access to what for whom? This chapter will take up this key question and look into what open access to e-science and e-research will mean, and how novel regimes of open access may affect the dynamics of knowledge creation and dissemination at the international level.