Just my two cents: Did Newton's work achieve disciplinary status inside the discipline of pre-Newtonian Mechanics? but even more so: Did Einstein's work achieve disciplinary status inside the discipline of pre-relativistic Physics? Did Einstein get a job in the discipline, let alone build a career? While (self-)recognition of disciplines is a social/epistemic communities driven self-categorization exercise (thus potentially exclusionary against non-mainstream participants), it is of course more than that. I think an important answer to the original operational definition(s) question can be informed not just by asking only (1) what disciplines are, but also asking as well (2) what disciplines DO... For (1), pragmatism suggests disciplines _are_ if they are available as categories in the Chronicle for example;-) That may be much lesser of an answer than the question intended/expected, but it certainly leads to a measurable construct... if a much simplicist one. For (2), I think the structure of inter-relationships with other bodies of knowledge (and the communities behind them), whether those are disciplinary organized or not, and the overall facilitating/constraining dual nature of these relationships should matter. I have more about these relationships somewhere. Suffice it to say: disciplines (and people/administrators/knowledgeables in/representing them!) should be flexible enough to allow and even promote non-mainstream approaches, instead of blocking them. It is from these non-mainstream approaches that disciplines themselves develop further, whether such developments shall occur at inter- or cross-disciplinary borders, and mainstream later inherits back from such evolutions or not. Beyond Internet Studies itself, there are ongoing debates for years about the disciplinary nature of public policy, or public administration and many more such "hybrids". Are these debates relevant? I shall hope not in terms of those communities' ability to effectively produce usable knowledge. Unfortunately, much too often they are relevant in terms of an individual scholar's ability to raise research money, get tenured etc., or a department's ability to navigate/survive University budget cuts etc. The problem occurs when the latter starts to impact the former, and thus to drive good scholars away from doing good work simply because that good work is not mainstream enough... And this is where [established] disciplines fail in what they do (inadvertently or not putting constraints on their very development). My strong hope is that Internet Studies (IS) shall not fall into this trap and the epistemic community defining IS now and in the future won't let "mother" disciplines allow this to happen... Thank you for your patience...;-) BTW, since it is my first post since Maastricht/my joining: it was one of the greatest experience I ever had, and boy, am I glad I finally found such a lovely group of people. I'm only hoping to be able to get to know the group and each of its members better in the future. -- Adrian S. Petrescu Phone: (734) 487 3160 (o) "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy" (Sir Ernest Benn)