Barry and colleagues, a belated but hearty thanks for this - with your permission, will take this on board as I update and expand on the lecture that lead to my first effort at a definition, with all due recognition and grateful acknowledgment, of course. And ditto on the hi to the ICA folk, etc. again, many thanks, - charles On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 8:48 PM, Barry Wellman <wellman@chass.utoronto.ca> wrote:
This is what Charles Ess wrote:
Drawing on disciplines throughout the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, Internet Studies explores Internet-facilitated human (and machine) communication with characteristic (but not exclusive) focus on how identity, agency, relationship, community, and power interact with the affordances of Internet-based communication technologies, often with a careful view towards larger ethical, social, political, cultural, economic, legal, and other human contexts. Internet Studies further includes meta-theoretical development and refinement of various research methodologies; specific attention to the ethical challenges and possible resolutions to these challenges that arise in the course of such research; and the histories of the Internet, including web history as a domain in its own right.
Without commenting much on its validity (first glance seems pretty good), I would like to rewrite in shorter sentences and some simplifying
Internet Studies describes and analyzes internet-facilitated human and machine communication with a characteristic (but not exclusive) focus on the affordances of internet-based communication and information technologies. It draws on disciplines throughout the social sciences, humanities, and the natural sciences. Internet Studies often takes a careful view of ethical, social, historical, political, cultural, economic, legal and other human contexts, and it also includes germane theoretical and methodological developments.
That's a straight rewrite, but I wonder why "Internet" when Mobile and Things are becoming important. Should it be rewritten as Digital Media Studies?
Just my .02 for the day
and hi to the ICA folks. Wish I could be there.
Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ FRSC INSNA Founder University of Toronto http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman twitter: @barrywellman NETWORKED:The New Social Operating System. Lee Rainie & Barry Wellman MIT Press http://amzn.to/zXZg39 Print $14 Kindle $9 _______________________________________________________________________