Institute for New Media Studies - University of Minnesota

Session 1: Ethnographic research

AN OVERVIEW OF ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH ON NEW MEDIA
Moderator: Chris Paterson
Department of Media Studies
University of San Francisco
This brief overview evangelizes about the method and hopes to lend some coherence to the set of new and established research practices laying claim to the title of “new media ethnography”.

ONLINE NEWSPAPERS AND THE LABYRINTHS OF ACCESS
Edgardo Pablo Garcia
Communication and Media Research Institute
University of Westminster
An analysis of the news production process and cultural aspects of online journalists taking into account both the bonds between online and print newsrooms, and the place of online newsrooms in the general structure of news media organizations.

STUDYING THE DAY-TO-DAY MEANING OF EMAIL THROUGH A HYBRID THINK-ALOUD PROTOCOL/IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW RESEARCH METHOD
Lori Kendall
Department of Sociology
Purchase College
Discussion of the issues in using ethnographic / qualitative research methods in a study of the effects of email on people’s relationships.

ETHNOGRAPHY, THE INTERNET AND YOUTH CULTURE: SOME STRATEGIES FOR EXAMINING SOCIAL RESISTANCE AND ‘ONLINE-OFFLINE’ RELATIONSHIPS
Brian Wilson
School of Human Kinetics
University of British Columbia
The goal of this paper is to offer methodological reflections from my experiences conducting an ethnographic study of online and offline cultural life in a youth subculture; and describe (and outline the rationale for) the methodology for a recently-designed study of online and offline cultural life for members of youth-driven social movement groups.

Session 2: Content and Discourse Analysis

CONTENT ANALYSIS FOR NEW MEDIA: RETHINKING THE PARADIGM
Moderator: Susan C. Herring
School of Information Science
Indiana University, Bloomington
With the advent of new media Content Analysis is increasingly being applied by scholars in a wider range of disciplines, to a broader range of phenomena, and in a broader range of ways. These applications have benefited our understandings of new media, and expanded Content Analysis as a methodological paradigm. At the same time, the application of traditional methods to new phenomena raises challenges that must be acknowledged and met, if standards of rigor and interpretability are to be maintained.

B. William Silcock
Arizona State University
Discussion of the issues that arose when researching a project on determining whether there were differences in how the early weeks of the war were framed visually among four types of media: daily newspapers, weekly news magazines, television news, and Internet news sites.

EVALUATION OF THERE4ME – SOME METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES
Julia Waldman and Angele Storey
School of Social Sciences
University of Southampton
Discussion of the methodological challenges faced in an evaluation of an innovative online service for young people, how these challenges were addressed, and the data collection methods that were adopted.

Session 3: Historical Research

WHY STUDY THE HISTORY OF INTERNET?
Patrice Flichy
Université de Marne la Vallée
This paper considers three questions : How do the multiple choices made at the birth of a technology decisively mark its future development? What image does a technology give of itself when it leaves the experimental phase and encounters the public at large? At what speed is the technology diffused in the public at large?

THE DEATH OF SERENDIPITY:
THE VANISHING SPECIES OF DIGITAL RESEARCH DATA
Don Brazeal
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Minnesota
Discussion of the issues of historical record of research and data in a world of 1s and 0s and constantly changing storage media and formats

Room A

Ethnography

ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODOLOGY FOR A SOCIOLOGY OF BRAZILIAN HACKERS: METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS
Ariel Gomide Foina
Universidad de Salamanca, Spain

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS - SOME METHODOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL THOUGHTS
Roel Puijk
Lillehammer University, Norway

NEW TAONGA, NEW KAUPAPA
NEW RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES TO MAP MAORI CREATIVITY IN NEW MEDIA
Maree A Mills
University of Waikato, New Zealand

POKING OUR NOSES INTO THE PRODUCTION PROCESS
BENEFITS AND RISKS OF RESEARCHERS’ INVOLVEMENT IN NEW MEDIA PROJECTS
Enric Castelló and David Domingo
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain

SENSES AND WEB SITES : PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE ANALYSIS OF THE SENSORY PLEASURES
Jacques Ibanez Bueno
Université de Savoir, France

THE IMPACT OF INTERACTIVITY ON TELEVISION STUDIES
Tove A. Rasmussen
Aalborg University, Denmark

THREE METHODOLOGICAL VIEWS ON ONLINE JOURNALISM DOCUMENTATION
Maria Rubio Lacoba
Universidad Pontifícia de Salamanca, Spain

NEWS PRODUCTION ON THE NET: METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Rosa Franquet
Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain

USING MULTIPLE RESEARCH METHODS: A COST EFFECTIVE APPROACH
Fred Volk, Adam Stiska, Malgorzata Rymsza-Pawlowska, Kathryn Cornelius
Georgetown University, USA
Kristina Nink
Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies

NEW LOGICS FOR OLD MEDIA: THE CHALLENGES OF INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN TELEVISION ADVERTISING
Jordi Farré and Josep Fernández Cavia
Rovira i Virgili University, Spain

EXPLORING SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ONLINE INTERACTIONS WITHIN A
SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE-BUILDING COMMUNITY
Patrick Fullick
University of Southampton, UK

MODELLING USER’S METAPHORIC INTERACTION WITH AND CONCEPTUALISATION OF THE INTERNET
Amy Hogan
University Of Bath, UK

INFOTRENDS DATABASE
Jose Pereira, Manuel Gago, Xose Lopez, et al
University of Santiago de Compostela

RESEARCH DOCUMENTATION IN NEW FORMATS
Peter Kofoed
Department of Communication
Aalborg University, Denmark

OVERVIEW OF ETHICS / RESEARCH QUALITY PANEL PAPERS
Moderator: Bruce Henderson
University of Colorado
Moderator Henderson discusses the key points of the panel papers on ethics and research quality.

VIRTUAL ETHNOGRAPHY IN A STATE OF WAR: THE RESEARCH ON INTERNET USAGE IN SERBIA DURING THE NATO BOMBING
Smiljana Antonijevic
Department of Rhetoric
University of Minnesota
The research presented in this paper was focused on online activities in Serbia during the NATO bombing and it was aimed at identifying characteristics of Internet usage in a state of war. This essay focuses on epistemological and ethical challenges brought up by the research. These challenges developed out of the researcher’s threefold role in the study – researcher, an Internet user, and a war participant simultaneously. Such a complex role launched different dilemmas in each phase of the study production, from the initial user webservation to the analysis and interpretation of the results, and finally to the phase of presenting the findings.

WEB SURVEYS AND SCHOOL-BASED RESEARCH:
THE ETHICS OF ON-LINE DATA COLLECTION IN SCHOOLS.
Martyn Denscombe
Dept of Public Policy
De Montfort University
This paper considers the PSI (Perception of Social Issues) project’s use of web surveys and a school-based approach to data collection. It is argued that school-based web surveys can overcome some – though not all - of the difficult ethical problems faced by other forms of Internet research with young people. Practical ways of addressing some of the new ethical issues are described.

ONE METHOD FITS ALL?
STUDYING A SCIENTIFIC EMAILING LIST COMBINING DIFFERENT DATA AND METHODS
Eleftheria Vasileiadou & Peter van den Besselaar
Social Sciences Department, NIWI, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, and Amsterdam School of Communication Research, ASCOR, University of Amsterdam
In this paper the researchers discuss the findings of a study in which they tried to answer the same research question using three different datasets, and four different methods (two of them with respect to the same data). A comparison of the outcomes of the analyses, and discussion of the methodological implications for new media research is included. The methodological question the researchers try to answer in this paper is the following: How reliable are results that are based on one type of data especially for new media?

Session 6: Quantitative Research

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH PANEL: INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS
Moderator: Vincenc Melendez
Idescat, Barcelona
Moderator Melendez provides an overview of the issues raised in use of quantitative research and points to findings in the panel papers.

SURVEY VS. REAL-TIME MEASUREMENT OF MOBILE PHONE USE
Akiba A. Cohen
Department of Communication
Tel Aviv University
This paper attempts to address some of main problems associated with survey research in this context (a study of mobile phone use) and to highlight two technology based methods that could be used to alleviate some of these problems.

DOES USER EXPERIENCE AFFECT THE RELATIONSHIP OF CONTROL AVAILABILITY AND CONTROL PERCEPTION?
Brian G. Southwell
George Anghelcev
Itai Himelboim
Julie Jones
Mira Lee
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Minnesota
Rather than investigating “new media” simply as a separate phenomenon, a more useful approach toward the advent of new communication technology is to investigate the impact of specific media attributes on human experience with mediated content and to assess the degree to which various media possess such attributes. This paper discusses the methods used to assess the effect of perception of user control over media content.

USING INTERNET MODES FOR A SELF-ADMINISTERED ECONOMIC ELITE AUDIENCE SURVEY
Anna Stangl
Ifo Institute for Economic Research
The study is based on a panel of independent economic experts surveyed quarterly in 2002 and 2003 in the context of an international business tendency survey. As participants were offered the opportunity to choose the survey mode (paper-and-pencil, Web or e-mail), respondents’ preferences became an interesting issue, as they closely relate to aspects of mode effects on data quality. The results of the longitudinal analysis demonstrate that response rates to Internet based questionnaires, given the choice of survey mode, are approaching the response rates to traditional paper-and-pencil techniques. The analysis of the stability of mode preferences discloses that the majority of participants switch between modes, i.e. respondents may decide spontaneously which mode is the most convenient and appropriate in their respective situation.

Click here to review the "Call for Papers" official document (pdf).

The call for papers for the Symposium is open to any researcher interested in writing a paper on the research method/s used for an actual research project on new media he/she is conducting or has conducted. These papers will focus on the methodology used rather than the outcome of the research. The papers will discuss in depth the methodology, how they came to decide to use that method, challenges faced in the application of the method, and questions they have about effective use of the method. Papers should be 5 to 7 pages long.

20 lines abstracts along with a brief research curriculum can be sent before April 30, 2004 through this webform [link: http://www.inms.umn.edu/convenings/newresearch/application.htm]. Notification of acceptance is due by May 15th. Full papers, 5 to 7 pages long, will be delivered before June 15th 2004, once they have been accepted.

Approaches from any discipline are welcomed, and diversity will be a criteria in the selection. Communication, socio-technical, psychological, cultural, linguistic, anthropological, sociological and gender studies are examples of possible areas of new media research suitable to be selected.

Each of the panels will have a chair person who will select the most insightful papers and will write up a summary of the research status, concerns and challenges of that methodological area. Papers will not be strictly presented at the sessions, which will be focused on discussion.

Papers submitted but not assigned to a panel will be able to be presented in a poster session if the paper’s writer chooses.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Click here to review the "Call for Participation" official document (pdf).

Participation is open to any researcher interested in being part of the discussion, submission of a paper is not necessary. In the interest of creating a dynamic discussion atmosphere, the total number of participants will be limited to 50. Participation applications can be sent before June 15th 2004 through this webform [link: http://www.inms.umn.edu/convenings/newresearch_2004/application.htm].

The work language of the Symposium will be English.