Ulf-Dietrich Reips schrieb:
Just to add another term: Internet science ("iScience"). Please check out the book "Dimensions of Internet Science" (http://www.psychologie.unizh.ch/sowi/reips/dis/) and the iScience server at http://psych-iscience.unizh.ch/
As it says on the book site: "Internet Science is a new and exciting interdisciplinary field. Its purpose is the conduct of empirical studies which examine the Internet as both an instrument for, and an object of, scientific investigation." The instrument aspect and the empirical focus, in particular, seem to distinguish the definition from those for "Internet research" and "web science".
Best wishes --u
i think that the introduction of terms such as web science or internet science doesn't do much good for defining what research "internet researchers" are actually doing. web science seems to be more technologically-oriented, internet science is purely empirically and excludes theory, whereas internet research also seems to include social theory besides empirical research. social informatics argues that it is empirically oriented, but might need some theory. then there are other terms such as information society studies/research, new media research, internet and society, informatics and society, etc. this is getting weird - so many names, no clear definitions, everybody seems to use these terms as s/he likes. maybe there should be one overall name for the whole research field, and the names that are used should clearly describe what exactly this research means (e.g. it is strange to speak of "internet science" as purely empirical research because this in not obvious in the first place). i would argue in favour of a very broad definition and one overall term - which one would be suitable? i dislike terms like internet research, new media research, internet studies etc because they have a technical bias and can be interpreted in a techno-deterministic way. i hence more prefer terms like "information society research" or "icts & society". once one overall terms is found, subterms for specific forms of research could be defined and specific categories found that describe what is being done. also trying to exclude social theory (like the notion of "inernet science" as introduced in the book of reips/bosnjak) by strictly focusing on empirical research doesn't do much good and looks to me like a renewal of the old positivism dispute of sociology (adorno/horkheimer/habermas vs popper/könig etc). for me "internet research" to a certain degree lacks the dimension of social theory and critical social theory, so to simply exclude theory doesn't do much good and rather seems to want to turn "information society research" into a positivistic science. christian -- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs Assistant Professor for Internet and Society ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at/fuchs/ Managing Editor of tripleC - peer reviewed open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at Forthcoming BOOK: Fuchs, Christian (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge.