The Archival Quality of the Online Context

What is the quality of the online context? Its persistence is of interest to me because of its value and its cause for concern.

"Thanks to the hardware and software, we have the artifactual textual traces of interaction created instantaneously, at the moment of utterance. For scholars with an interest in discourse analysis, literary criticism, rhetorical studies, textual analysis, and the like, the Internet is a research setting par excellence, practically irresistible in its availability." (Jones, 1999, p.13)

According to Jones, the Internet is an ideal place to conduct research because of its archival quality. His enthusiasm is obvious for qualitative research conducted online. What better tool medium for scholars to study the complexity of cultures across multiple places (Kozinets, 2010)?

The Internet records and archives, in textual, publicly available, accessible, and easy to copy form, the social interactions of its many participants (Kozinets, 2010). Blogs, microblogs, newsgroups, and social networking interactions are digitally captured and preserved for many years. Google and other Internet search engines make it so easy to find what you are looking for. The Wayback Machine (i.e., Internet Archive) archives the social interactions for many years in the future. This provides ample time for researchers to conduct a Netnography.

Newhagen and Rafaeli (1997) said,

"Communications on the Net leaves tracks to an extent unmatched by that in any other context - the content is easily observable, recorded, and copied. Participant demography behaviors of consumption, choice, attention, reaction, learning, and so forth, are widely captured and logged." (Newhagen and Rafaeli, 1996)

On the other hand, Marcus asserted that proposed multi-location ethnographies are a way to illuminate trans-local connections (Marcus 1995). Buraway et al. took an innovative approach to ethnography by allowing the subjects of the study to define how, when, and where the inquiry was to take place (Buraway et al., 2000, p. 4). The result is an ethnography that strives "to study others in their place and time." Nicola Green tackled uncertainty in tracking objects, persons, and narratives in her multi-sited ethnographic work on virtual worlds (1999).

There is a distinctively persistent nature about online communication. It is a treasure trove for the researcher. However, what about user's privacy concerns? In the interests of the public good, are we researchers we overstepping out bounds? In doing so, might we harm some individuals by invading their privacy?

Buraway, M. et al. (2000). Global ethnography: Forces, connections, and imaginations in a postmodern world. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Green, N. (1999). Disrupting the field: Virtual reality technologies and "multi-sited ethnographic methods. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(5), 409-421.

Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: Sage Publications.

Jones, S. (1999). Studying the Net: Intricacies and Issues, In S. Jones, (ed.), Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues in Methods for Examining the Net. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. pp. 10-35.

Kozinets, R.V. (2010). Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage. Los Angeles, CA, London.

Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/ of the world system: The emergence of multi-site ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology. 24, 95-117.

Markham, A. (1998). Life online: Researching real experience in virtual space. Walnut Creek, Ca: Altira Mira Press.

Markham, A. N. & Baym, N. K. (2009). Internet inquiry. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Newhagen, J. E. and S. Rafaeli, (1996). Why communication researchers should study the Internet: a Dialogue on-line, Journal of the Computer-Mediated Communication, 1(4), available online at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/