Internet Studies: Historical Review and Analysis of the Knowledge Production
EDN: YMCUPZ
Abstract
This article problematizes Internet Studies as a sub-discipline in social research. Internet Studies is an interdisciplinary research field encompassing both academic and non-academic research focusing on the internet and societal issues. The key institutions where Internet Studies develop tend to either be university-based or independent. The article focuses on these organizations and aims to reconstruct their history and areas of research as well as the type of knowledge they produce. The first part of the article is more descriptive and historical, explicating howlnternet Studies developed. The author suggests a classification of three key periods of Internet Studies development: the emergence, institutionalization and development of sub-fields, e.g. data science, digital research of different objects such as death, childhood, humanities, arts, and online-research. The key finding of this analysis is that in the internet studies there are no strict boundaries between the theoretical and empirical object. The researchers consider themselves to be co-producers of the internet. The second part of the article problematizes this type of knowledge that is constructed in internet studies, and this part is mostly based on interviews with researchers. The author brings out an idea, that internet studies does not have strict epistemological borders and strong theoretical or methodological limitations; it therefore cannot justifiably be called scientific. As such, the meaning of knowledge becomes problematic. To address this problem, the term "research knowledge” is introduced. This type of knowledge is not scientific, it does not pretend to be disciplinary and is the same inside and outside the organization and in its products. In conclusion, the findings of this research aim to contribute to the development of Internet Studies as a sub-discipline - a sub-discipline which does not aim to study an entity but a transformation of social life due to the internet.
About the Author
Polina V. Kolozaridi
NRU “Higher School of Economics”
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
PhD in sociology, internet researcher
References
1. Abramov R.N., Bruckmeier K., Gavrilov K.A., Deviatko I.F., Zotov A.A., Katernyi I.V., Sapov V.V. (2015) Obydennoe i nauchnoe znanie ob obshchestve: vzaimovliianiia i rekonfiguratsii.
2. Aouragh M., Alexander A. (2011) The Arab spring| the Egyptian experience: Sense and nonsense of the internet revolution. International Journal of communication, 5, 15.
3. Arkhipova A.S., Radchenko D.A., Titkov A.S., Kozlova I.V., Iugai E.F., Belianin S.V., Gavrilova M.V (2018) “Peresborka mitinga”: internet v proteste i protest v internete. Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniia: ekonomicheskie i sotsial’nye peremeny, 1 (143).
4. Bacci M. (2017) Credibility, expertise and the challenges of science Communication 2.0. Public Understanding of Science 26(8): 890–893.
5. Baron N.S. (2005) Who wants to be a discipline? The Information Society, 21(4): 269-271.
6. Bastow S., Dunleavy P., Tinkler J. (2014) The impact of the social sciences: how academics and their research make a difference. Sage.
7. Berners-Lee T., Hall W., Hendler J.A., O’Hara K., Shadbolt N., Weitzner D.J. (2006) A framework for web science. Foundations and Trends® in Web Science, 1(1): 1-130.
8. Boyd D., Crawford K. (2012) Critical questions for big data: Provocations for a cultural, technological, and scholarly phenomenon. Information, communication & society, 15(5): 662-679.
9. Cook S.D., Brown J.S. (1999) Bridging epistemologies: The generative dance between
10. organizational knowledge and organizational knowing. Organization science, 10(4): 381-400.
11. Dutton W. (2013) Internet studies: The foundations of a transformative field. The Oxford handbook of internet studies. Oxford University Press.
12. Epstein D., Katzenbach C., Musiani F. (2016) Doing internet governance: practices, controversies, infrastructures, and institutions. Internet Policy Review.
13. Ess C., Consalvo M. (2011) Introduction: What is “Internet Studies”? The handbook of
14. internet studies: 1-8.
15. Flichy P. (2007) The internet imaginaire. MIT press.
16. Graeber D. (2016) Utopiia pravil: o tekhnologiiakh, gluposti i tainom obaianii biurokratii. M.: Ad Marginem Press.
17. Jasanoff, S. (Ed.) (2004) States of knowledge: the co-production of science and the social order.
18. Routledge.
19. Kakoli M. (2017) Is there a gap between the scientific and non-scientific community? Available at: https://www.editage.com/insights/is-there-a-gap-between-the-scientificand-non-scientific-community
20. Kolozaridi P.V. (2015) Utopiia i ideologiia v issledovaniiakh Interneta. Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniia: ekonomicheskie i sotsial’nye peremeny, 5 (129).
21. Lavis J.N., Robertson D., Woodside J.M., McLeod C.B., Abelson J. (2003) How can research organizations more effectively transfer research knowledge to decision makers? The Milbank Quarterly, 81(2): 221-248.
22. Lievrouw L.A. (1990) Communication and the social representation of scientific knowledge. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 7(1): 1-10.
23. Lievrouw L.A., Livingstone S. (Eds.) (2002) Handbook of new media: Social shaping and consequences of ICTs. Sage.
24. Livingstone S. (2005) Critical debates in internet studies: reflections on an emerging field. London: LSE Research Online. Available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/1011
25. Lyotard J.F. (1998) Sostoianie postmoderna. M.: Institut eksperimental’noi sotsiologii.
26. Mansell R. (2012) Imagining the Internet: Communication, innovation, and governance. Oxford University Press.
27. Markham A.N. (2005) Disciplining the future: A critical organizational analysis of Internet studies. The Information Society, 21(4): 257-267.
28. Marwick A.E., Boyd D. (2011) I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New media & society, 13(1): 114-133.
29. McLuhan M. (2004) Galaktika Gutenberga. Sotvorenie cheloveka pechatnoi kul’tury. Kiev.: Nika-Tsentr, El’ga.
30. Morozov E. (2012). The net delusion: The dark side of Internet freedom. PublicAffairs.
31. Norman D.A. (1999) Affordance, conventions, and design. Interactions, 6(3): 38-43.
32. Peng T.Q., Zhu J.J.H., Zhang L., Zhong Z.J. (2011) Mapping the Landscape of Internet Research: Text Mining of Social Science Journal Articles 2000–2009. Joint Working Paper of the Faculty of Humanities and Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, and the Web Mining Lab, Department of Media & Communication, City University of Hong Kong.
33. Pooly J. (2018) The Post-Program Era: The Rise of Internet & Society Centers—and a New Interdiscipline. Culture Digitally. Available at: http://culturedigitally.org/2018/03/the-post-program-era-the-rise-of-internet-society-centers-and-a-new-interdiscipline/
34. Rykov Iu., Nagornyi O. (2017) Oblast’ internet-issledovanii v sotsial’nykh naukakh. Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie [Russian Sociological Review], 16(3).
35. Smith A.N., Fischer E., Yongjian C. (2012) How does brand-related user-generated content differ across YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter? Journal of interactive marketing, 26(2): 102-113.
36. Suchman L.A. (1987) Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge university press.
37. Vostal F. (2016) Accelerating academia: the changing structure of academic time. Springer.
38. Wellman B. (2004) The three ages of internet studies: ten, five and zero years ago. New media & society, 6(1): 123-129.
39. Wellman B. (2011) Studying the Internet through the Ages. The handbook of internet
40. studies Consalvo and Ess (eds.): 17–23.
Review
For citations:
Kolozaridi P.V. Internet Studies: Historical Review and Analysis of the Knowledge Production. Sociology of Power. 2018;30(3):69-92. (In Russ.) EDN: YMCUPZ
Views:
32
Email this article 