318 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 52, NO.
3, SEPTEMBER 2009
Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym, Editors
Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method
Book Review
—Reviewed by
SCOTT A. MOGULL
Index Terms—Internet, qualitative research, research methods.
The editors Markham and Baym developed
Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method as a
text in which scholars discuss some of the issues
associated with conducting qualitative research
via the internet. The editors address six broad
questions, one per chapter. An initial response from
one experienced researcher is typically followed by
responses from two other researchers who address
the first response as well as providing their own
insights into the question. The six questions reflect
the challenges facing any qualitative investigation,
such as defining the scope of research. However,
throughout the text, scholars maintain a focus on
the unique context of online environments.
The text is not a how-to guide for conducting online
qualitative research, but rather, as described in
the title, a set of “conversations about method.”
This book would be a useful addition to a graduate
course on qualitative internet research. The text
not only creates a conversation internally by
posing each question to an experienced researcher
and then creating dialogue through subsequent
responses to the answer by other researchers,
but also, I imagine, by stimulating a reader’s
own research design questions. These questions
and the candid responses are likely to generate
productive class discussion and even lead students
to articulate the challenges they face in their own
research.
Those seeking a formulaic approach to research
design may struggle with the fact that explicit
answers are not provided. Rather, the text
necessitates that readers determine their own
approach, using the experience of others as a guide.
Manuscript received February 02, 2009; revised April 30, 2009.
Current version published August 21, 2009.
The reviewer is with the Department of English, Texas
Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-3091 USA (email:
mogull@alumni.washington.edu).
IEEE 10.1109/TPC.2009.2025302
Book publisher: Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2009,
217 pp. with index.
0361-1434/$26.00 © 2009 IEEE
In some cases, the author-researcher includes a
summary of useful tips, but, in other cases, the
reader is sensitized to specific qualitative research
challenges through a narrative of a scholar’s own
experience. I believe the book is best suited for
graduate courses in which group discussions can
develop around the individual research challenges
of the students. Certainly the recommended
readings, which include actual qualitative internet
research studies, would be a useful complement
to the discussions.
In the first chapter, Hine provides the first
response to the question “How can qualitative
internet researchers define the boundaries of
their projects?” She says that the ethnographic
approach in a hypertext environment must be
clearly specified by the research question. The
key issue is that a researcher must determine
what is considered to be an adequate response
to the research question—clearly defining the
method and subject—and must make judgments
about the appropriate boundaries. The research
question must remain clear because ethnographic
research can inherently take many different paths.
The boundaries of a project evolve and adapt
through the investigation—as Kendall notes in her
response to Hine. Kendall expands on three kinds
of boundaries: (1) spatial (where, who, and what);
(2) temporal (amount of time spent and issues of
beginning and ending research); and (3) relational
(between researchers and the study subjects). Also
in response, Boyd answers the classic question of a
qualitative researcher: How do I know when to stop
collecting data? The answer Boyd offers is, “When
you stop learning new things without expanding
the scope of your question” [p. 26]. As emphasized
by Boyd, ethnography research is not prescriptive;
it requires an active and continuous relationship
between the research question and the emerging
data.
In the second chapter, Orgad provides the first
response to the question “How can researchers
make sense of the issues involved in collecting and
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 52, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2009
interpreting online and offline data?” Online data is
defined as any artifact (such as text, images, sound,
video, or chat) gathered from online sources. Offline
data is gathered from exploring how users integrate
the internet into their lives. This data emerges from
users’ own accounts through interviews, onsite
observations, or diaries. Two key questions are
explored in determining the relationship between
the online and offline: (1) Is offline data needed
to understand online phenomena? (2) How do
the data collection methods, online or offline,
impact the data, and how can data from these
two sources be compared? Bakardjieva provides
the first response to Orgad’s essay and notes that
to select a collection method (online, offline, or a
mix between the two), the core issue is to define
the research object and formulate a question.
Researchers should determine what data are
necessary for studying the research object, which
will illuminate the sources of data. Bakardjieva
predicts that in the future, “Online and offline data
will routinely be collected and used for what they
are—complementary records of events unfolding
within the same social world and not as specimens
from two different planets” [pp. 59–60]. Gajjala
also identifies the merging between being online
and offline—that these are not different states or
“binary articulation.” Data from online and offline
sources actually interweave. Researchers must take
a multilayered approach in which the online world
is contextualized in the lives of users.
In Chapter 3, Sveningsson Elm addresses the
question “How do various notions of privacy
influence decisions in qualitative internet
research?” The notion of privacy, as Sveningsson
Elm notes, is that “All individuals should have the
right to decide for themselves what and how much
others get to know about them” [p. 69]. Ethical
guidelines dictate that researchers must protect the
privacy of research subjects and should also seek
informed consent from participants. Guidelines for
ethical research of new technologies typically lag
behind well-established safeguards. For example,
informed consent forms may not be practical
or possible in some online environments. The
Association of Internet Researchers advises that
collecting research data without informed consent
may be acceptable if the environment is public and
the material is not sensitive. Yet, Sveningsson Elm
describes the complexities because distinguishing
public from private environments is not easy,
as semiprivate online environments may require
membership and registration (such as social
networking sites), and those that are more exclusive
319
may require membership to the organization that
created and maintains the online environment
(such as corporate intranets). Furthermore,
researchers must consider how public or
private users perceive their contributions. She
recommends that researchers ensure “subjects are
not harmed, humiliated, or offended” by having
their contributions analyzed by researchers [p. 85].
Buchanan provides an important addition to
Sveningsson Elm’s discussion by articulating
the goals for an institutional review board (IRB).
Buchanan cites the IRB Guidebook definition of
privacy as “control over the extent, timing, and
circumstances of sharing oneself (physically,
behaviorally, or intellectually) with others” [p.
89]. While some argue that individuals may have
more control over what they present, when, and
how in an online environment, Buchanan notes
that various pieces of information from different
sites can be compiled in ways unintended, thus
creating a “data persona” of an individual. In her
response, Stern reminds researchers that the
decision to obtain informed consent is centered on
the concept of treating “individuals as autonomous
agents who should decide for themselves if they
wish their personal information and interactions to
be studied” [p. 95]. From experience, Stern notes
that individuals typically expected their “online
communications to be private when they were kept
hidden from the people they knew in their everyday
lives, regardless of who else encountered them” [p.
96]. Stern provides practical advice that is useful
for many technical communication researchers:
Ask participants whether their online postings can
be studied.
In Chapter 4, Kendall explores the question “How
do issues of gender and sexuality influence the
structures and processes of qualitative internet
research?” Kendall attempts to sensitize the
reader to issues of power, gender, and sexuality by
describing some of her own feelings as a researcher
in online forums as well as identifying issues, such
as attraction or sexism, in others. This response
emphasized the researcher’s own feelings, mainly
concerning sexuality, as an issue that may bias
interpretation. When reading this first response,
I desired a fuller discussion of the issues. Later,
however, Campbell directly addresses these,
suggesting that qualitative researchers can hardly
avoid discussions of sexuality when so much of the
internet is used for its expression. Furthermore, as
a more thorough approach to the issue, Campbell
states that the researcher’s own perspectives not
only shape the questions being explored, but can
320 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 52, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2009
bias a researcher to be sensitive to certain forms of
expression and be oblivious or dismayed by others.
Sunden adds to the discussion by noting that
issues of gender and sexuality extend beyond the
ethnographic research topic itself to the role of the
researcher in an academic department setting.
In Chapter 5, Markham responds to the question
“How can qualitative researchers produce work that
is meaningful across time, space, and culture?”
Through a discussion of her firsthand experience
teaching in the US Virgin Islands, Markham
describes how researcher theories of new media
are situated in an invisible infrastructure of
privilege. The nature of qualitative research is local
experience, yet the global character of inquiry can
be addressed retrospectively through reflexive
situating. The most useful section of this solid
chapter (and possibly the book) is Markham’s
“lessons” or summaries of important concepts to
qualitative researchers attempting to globalize their
research, as well as a series of questions designed
to uncover researchers’ own bias to the research
question and data analysis. Echoing Markham,
Lally and Srinivasan discuss their personal
research experiences in different settings.
In the final chapter, Markham and Baym address
the question “What constitutes quality in qualitative
internet research?” They argue that “The problems
of qualitative internet research are fundamentally
questions of qualitative methodology, yet
methodologists and theorists disagree about the
possibility, let alone specifics, of standards” [pp.
177–178]. Baym proposes that quality must be
historically grounded, focused, practical in design,
and persuasive and provide resonant interpretive
frames that identify the core concepts and connect
the research to the bigger picture of research.
Markham emphasizes careful research design,
stating, “Paradoxically this process is less about
finding the answers than asking good questions”
[p. 196].
On the whole, the book would be a useful addition
to a qualitative research methods course in which
students are likely to conduct research that
employs the internet. At the list price of US$33
for the paperback edition, this book would be a
reasonable companion to other texts. Certainly
not every possible question is addressed in the
book, and some readers may desire a more direct
description of methods. However, professors may
like the rarely available “behind the scenes” look
into qualitative research design as well as the
resulting in-class discussion of research methods
that the book would likely stimulate. I recommend
the book as a good supplemental text to a course
in qualitative research methods—emphasizing that
the text is, as stated, a “conversation about method”
and that readers must actively interpret, adapt, and
apply the information to their own investigations.