Lecture

BHS2110 & BHS3110 Researching behaviour; principles and practice

Week 8: E-research

What will I be talking about today• Who am I• A bit of Internet history• Why use the Internet as an object or method

of research?• The Internet as an object of study• The Internet as a method• My research

– Jedi– Virtual Worlds

A bit of internet history

Why Research the Internet?

• Ubiquity

Household Computer or Internet AccessProportion of all households – 1998 to 2007-2008

http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/mf/8146.0

Using Websites as Objects of Analysis

Dis/Advantages of Using Websites as Objects of Analysis

Pros

• Ubiquity• Quality of information

(maybe comprehensive and latest)

• No travel required, you can do it from home or uni

• Wide reach - facilitates global studies

• Few physical limitations

Cons• Difficulty finding

appropriate sources• Quality of information (may

be sparse and/or old)

http://www.medianewstime.com/?m=200807

http://monash.edu.au/

Websites are moving targets

Wayback machine - http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Other Internet objects that can be analysed

• Email - personal and/or group correspondence• Listservs, discussion groups – focus on

particular topic or area of interest• Blogs - gauge ‘temperature’ of objects, people,

issues• Wikis – comprehensive information about a

subject• Facebook• YouTube

http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html

http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html

http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html

http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html

Zeitgeist Explained  

zeit·geist | Pronunciation: 'tsIt-"gIst, 'zIt | Function: noun | Etymology: German, from Zeit (time) + Geist

(spirit) | Date: 1884 | Meaning: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.

"Zeitgeist" means "the spirit of the times", and Google reveals this spirit through the aggregation of millions of search queries we receive every day. We have several

tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. These tools are available for you

to play with, explore, and learn from. Use them for everything from business research to trivia answers.

Google Zeitgeist - http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2008/#top

The Internet as a Method of Data

Collection

The above cartoon by Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20) http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html

Dis/Advantages of using internet based research methods

Dis/Advantages of using internet based research methods

Advantages

• More economical in terms of time and money

• They can reach large numbers of people very easily

• No travel required, you can do it from home or uni

• Few physical limitations• Data can be collected and

collated very quickly• May be no need for

transcription

Disadvantages

• Internet access is not universal• Recruiting participants may be

challenging• Loss of personal touch; inability

to pick up visual or auditory clues (can usually be overcome)

• Confidentiality/privacy• Validity of participants - are

they who/what they say they are (gender, race, etc)

Internet Ethnography

Online Focus Groups

Online Personal Interviews

Online Surveys

Many Online Tools

https://digitalresearchtools.pbworks.com/

My Research

From Jesus Christ to Jedi Knight: the role of ‘social

software’ in the emergence of new religious movements

The research examines in parallel, the inception, development and growth of social

software, and Jediism - a new religious movement which developed from an

evolution of the religious themes in the popular Star Wars series of films.

Hadden and Cowan (2000) suggest the study of religion and technology can be approached two ways: • studying religion as it exists on the WWW • using the WWW to study religion (p.12).

Hadden, J. K. & Cowan, D. E. (2000) The promised land or electronic chaos? Toward understanding religion on the internet. Religion on the Internet: research prospects and promises. Greenwich, Conn. ; London, JAI.

The Vatican was one of the first religious organisations to ‘go online’; launching their

website in 1995.

Continuing with John Paul IIs vision, the Vatican is conducting a search for a patron

saint for the Internet and computers; a leading candidate is “7th Century Archbishop Isidore of Seville, author of the Etymologiae, which some

have called the world's first Christian encyclopaedia”

Murphy, V. (2005) Saving souls in cyberspace (Electronic Article) viewed 5 November 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4416419.stm

The heroes of the films, the Jedi, are described as a noble order of protectors unified by their belief and

observance of the Force, the Jedi hearken back to a more civilized, classical time in galactic history. Their

order is ancient; spanning over a thousand generations (www.starwars.com, 2006).

‘May the Force Be with You’, a quote from the original Star Wars film that was released in 1977, was recently judged eighth in the most recognisable movie quotes of the past

100 years by the American Film Institute (AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, 2006). So recognisable was the quote that in 1999 a buyer paid US$6.7mill on eBay for the

Internet domain name (Karbo, 1999).

Jedi Religion WebsitesThe Jediism Way - http://www.thejediismway.org/Temple of the Jedi Order - http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/Jedi Creed - http://www.jedicreed.org/University of Jedi Arts - http://www.freewebs.com/uja/

“On December 25, 2005 we received our charter as a Texas non-profit religious and educational corporation and donations to us are US income tax deductible as we are an international online church and interfaith initiative in the process of building local communities. We are tax exempt under the provisions of 501(c)3[po]”.

http://templeofthejediorder.org/

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist2005/movies.html

http://www.frappr.com/jedigatheringsgroupmap/map

An Exploration of the Concept of Emotional

Connection to an Avatar

Current Research

• What are virtual worlds?• What is Second Life?• What are avatars?• Why research avatars?

How will I research?

Phenomenology• The discipline of phenomenology may be defined

initially as the study of structures of experience, or consciousness. Literally, phenomenology is the study of “phenomena”: appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience. Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view.

What will I research?

• SL Profiles• SLED List• Flickr• YouTube• Blogs

Questions?