New Media/Internet Research Topics of the Association of Internet Researchers

Abstract

Address correspondence to Ronald E. Rice, Arthur N. Rupe Professor, Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020, USA. E-mail: rrice@comm.ucsb.edu; web site: http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/rice flash.htm in membership, paper submission, and conference activities. In an attempt to characterize the concerns of these Internet researchers at this juncture in the development of the association, this article first provides some research context by summarizing prior relevant reviews of new media and Internet research, and the use over time of the term Internet in academic publications and online newsgroups. After describing the sample texts-the session titles and paper titles and abstracts from the 2003 and 2004 AoIR conferences-and the semantic network method, it then analyzes the primary issues and concept clusters of concern to this set of Internet researchers. Note that this study is not a review of Internet research theories or results (of which by now there are many). Rather, it attempts to indicate the current research agenda, at the word and concept cluster level, of one primary interdisciplinary group of Internet researchers, as a way to help identify the state of the field.

‘New media’ research publication trends and outlets in communication, 1990-2006

“…Regarding the third research question (RQ3), the results indicate that of the new mediarelated keywords that were searched in the article titles, researchers clearly favor five terms -computer, digital, internet, online, and web -that account for 80 percent of the sampled articles (Table 1), a finding consistent, in part, with Rice (2005). We posit two reasons that may explain the dominance of these terms.…”

“…Importantly, Kim and Weaver, who used Wimmer and Dominick's (2000) four-stage developmental model of communication to frame their study, noted that the progression from one stage to the next was not linear; rather, 'research is often conducted simultaneously on all four phases', which were defined as 1) issues for the internet itself, 2) uses and users of the internet, 3) effects of the internet, and 4) how can the internet be improved (2002: 532)? Rice (2005) conducted a review of new media and internet research topics among members of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) and used network analysis to identify research interests and concepts based on session titles, paper titles, and abstracts from 2003 and 2004 AoIR conferences. The most frequently used terms in the abstracts included internet, online, community, social, technology, and research.…”

Uncovering social semantics from textual traces: A theory‐driven approach and evidence from public statements ofU.S.Members ofCongress

“…More recently semantic network analysis has been applied to the observation of natural discourse (e.g., Doerfel & Connaughton, ; Rice, ; Yuan, Feng, & Danowski, ). In these natural contexts the assumption remains, however, that when authors create texts they are trying to clearly indicate meaningful relationships between words, that is, that their communication behavior is a “conduit” of their thoughts (Rogers & Kincaid, ).…”

A Preliminary Inquiry into the Methodologies Employed in Research on ICTs and Society: Prologue (“An Alternate View of Knowledge Negotiation”)

“…With the exception of Rice, these scholars appear to represent the critical, cultural, and interpretive theory turn that dominates the fields of communication (and culture) and science and technology studies. Rice (2005) asserts but does not demonstrate that the topics represent the interdisciplinary nature of Internet studies; however, his study is more about applying a statistical technique than about providing deeper insights about what is called in this journal special issue devoted to "Internet Studies." Kim and Weaver are located in a journalism school, but Weaver can easily be categorized as a political and mass communication scholar and Kim a new media technology and mass communication scholar; neither of them appears to represent the "cultural turn" in communication studies.…”

“…Their assessment leads me, as I will explain, to a different way of conceptualizing how to proceed with my study. Rice's (2005) analysis in the same issue of The Information Society examines recent trends in new media and Internet research. He first searches five major indexing and abstracting databases (EBSCO Business Source Premier, library and information science, SocioFile (sociology), ComAbstracts, and Medline) for the period 1985 through 2003 for the word "Internet" in either the title or abstract to examine the growth in publications (p. 286).…”