Losing (and finding) my religion

Over the past few weeks I have been in search of a methodology – or more correctly my methodology. I have found the search to be a spiritual journey – both an external investigation of theories and a personal introspection of my values and beliefs.  That sounds a bit melodramatic – but it is a pretty accurate description of how it feels.  I was in a bit of  a panic a while back (no surprises there) about how to analyse the conversations and behaviours in blogging communities (lets just assume for a mo that I can actually identify blog communities).  Most blogging research uses either SNA (social network analysis) of the nodes and links or content analysis of surveys and interviews.

I spent a bit of time coming to terms w SNA, content analysis and even discourse analysis – in the end realising that none of those felt right.  I keep coming back to the feeling that to understand the motivations and behaviours of members of a blog community, I need to be as true as possible to their (our) world.  As I struggle w how to remain true to this environment while objectively researching it – I thought of a term that Aussie director Baz Luhrmann uses “real artificiality”.

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and now blog research often suffers from an inferiority complex.  With no face-to-face (FTF) interaction, it is often seen as a poor imitation of real life (RL).  But blog communities are not an imitation (artificial reality) of RL.  They are in fact real artificialities, that is completely constructed realities in their own right which allow members/inhabitants to have a natural experience of that reality (not RL).

So I have returned to ethnography as my methodology/philosophy (although I am still trying to understand ethonomethodology).  As part of that, trying to stay true to my overarching philosophy as I find the tools/techniques/methods for analysing and making sense of what I have observed – I try to approach it as a blog community member.  One of the ways that this paradigm shift changes my methods is that instead of fixating on categorising, ordering, and grouping text – I am trying to tag the conversation threads, themes, and topics in order to view the behaviours through blogging eyes.

Well that is where I am at the mo.  I could probably write on and on about this – I think I am feeling a bit euphoric about completing the first draft of my lit review (yuck – glad that is behind me) and having my laptop Xena back.

Bibliography for blog-based research

I just joined the Association of Internet Researchers wiki and have been reading through some of the member blogs.  There is a London School of Economics postgrad research blog that has been very interesting and informative.  In particular they posted a bibliography of blogging references which has motivated me to do the same.  This is an abridge bibliography of books and articles I have read (ok – some I just skimmed) on blogging, CMC, and ethnographic research in order to do my own blog-based research in Knowledge Management.

Asllani, A., Ettkin, L. P., & Ashvini, S. (2008). Sharing knowledge with conversational technologies: web logs versus discussion boards. International Journal of Information Technology & Management, 7(2), 217-230.

Bell, A., Crothers, C., Goodwin, I., Kripalani, K., Sherman, K., & Smith, P. (2007). World Internet Project: The Internet in New Zealand 2007 Final Report. Auckland: Institute of Culture Discourse & Communication (ICDC).

Bell, D. (2001). An introduction to cybercultures. London; New York: Routledge.

Bjerke, B. (2007). Face-to-face Research: Interviews, Conversations and Dialogs. In B. Gustavsson (Ed.), The principles of knowledge creation: Research methods in the social sciences (pp. 225-242). Cheltenham, U.K.; Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar.

Blanchard, A. (2004). Blogs as Virtual Communities: Identifying a Sense of Community in the Julie/Julia Project. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogs_as_virtual.html

Boden, D., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1991). Structure-in-Action: An Introduction. In D. Boden & D. H. Zimmerman (Eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (pp. 3-21). Berkeley University of California Press.

Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis: Elements of the sociology of corporate life. Aldershot: Heinemann Educational Books.

Chopin, K. (2008). Finding communities: alternative viewpoints through weblogs and tagging. Journal of Documentation, 64(4), 552.

Cox, J. L., Martinez, E. R., & Quinlan, K. B. (2008). Blogs and the corporation: managing the risk, reaping the benefits. Journal of Business Strategy, 29(3).

Dearstyne, B. W. (2007). Blogs, Mashups, & Wikis Oh, My! Information Management Journal, 41(4), 24-33.

Dingwall, R. (1997). Accounts, Interviews and Observations. In G. Miller & R. Dingwall (Eds.), Context and method in qualitative research (pp. 51-65). London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Fielding, N., Lee, R. M., & Blank, G. (2008). The SAGE handbook of online research methods. Los Angeles; London: SAGE.

Fontana, A. (2003). Postmodern trends in interviewing. In J. F. Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Postmodern interviewing (pp. 51-65). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.

Garfinkel, H. (1996). Ethnomethodology’s Program. Social Psychology Quarterly, 59(1), 5.

Garsten, C. (2007). Ethnography. In B. Gustavsson (Ed.), The principles of knowledge creation : research methods in the social sciences (pp. 147-165). Cheltenham, U.K.; Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar.

Goetz Boué, C. (2008). Don’t say web 2.0, say intranet 2.0. KM Review, 11(1), 14-17.

Guadagno, R. E., Okdie, B. M., & Eno, C. A. (2008). Who blogs? Personality predictors of blogging. [Article]. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5), 1993-2004.

Gummesson, E. (2000). Qualitative methods in management research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Gurak, L. J., & Antonijevic, S. (2008). The Psychology of Blogging: You, Me, and Everyone in Between. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(1), 60-68.

Gurak, L. J., Antonijevic, S., Johnson, L., Ratliff, C., & Reyman, J. (2004). Introduction: Weblogs, Rhetoric, Community, and Culture. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/introduction.html

Herring, S. C., Kouper, I., Scheidt, L. A., & Wright, E. L. (2004). Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/women_and_children_pf.html

Herring, S. C., & Paolillo, J. C. (2006). Gender and genre variation in weblogs. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(4), 439-459.

Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2008). Handbook of emergent methods. New York; London: Guilford Press.

Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: SAGE.

Hine, C. (2005). Virtual methods: Issues in social research on the Internet. Oxford; New York: Berg.

Hsu, C.-L., & Lin, J. C.-C. (2008). Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation. Information & Management, 45(1), 65-74.

Huang, L.-S., Chou, Y.-J., & Lin, C.-H. (2008). The Influence of Reading Motives on the Responses after Reading Blogs. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(3), 351-355.

Ip, R. K. F., & Wagner, C. (2008). Weblogging: A study of social computing and its impact on organizations. [Article]. Decision Support Systems, 45(2), 242-250.

Jaekyung, K., Sang-Heui, L., & Min Suk, S. (2008). Current usage of organisational blogs in the public sector. International Journal of Information Technology & Management, 7(2), 201-216.

Johns, M. D., Chen, S. L., & Hall, G. J. (2004). Online social research: Methods, issues & ethics. New York: Peter Lang.

Jung, T., Youn, H., & McClung, S. (2007). Motivations and Self-Presentation Strategies on Korean-Based “Cyworld” Weblog Format Personal Homepages. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(1), 24-31.

Kaiser, S., Müller-Seitz, G., Pereira Lopes, M., & Pina E Cunha, M. (2007). Weblog-Technology as a Trigger to Elicit Passion for Knowledge. Organization, 14(3), 391-412.

Kazmer, M. M., & Xie, B. (2008). QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING IN INTERNET STUDIES: Playing with the media, playing with the method. Information, Communication & Society, 11(2), 257 – 278.

Keen, A. (2007). The cult of the amateur : how today’s internet is killing our culture (1st ed.). New York: Doubleday.

Kline, D., & Burstein, D. (2005). Blog! how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture. New York: CDS Books.

Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: an introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Lai, L. S. L., & Turban, E. (2008). Groups Formation and Operations in the Web 2.0 Environment and Social Networks. Group Decision & Negotiation, 17(5), 387-402.

Lee, D.-H., Im, S., & Taylor, C. R. (2008). Voluntary self-disclosure of information on the Internet: A multimethod study of the motivations and consequences of disclosing information on blogs. Psychology and Marketing, 25(7), 692-710.

Lee-Ellen, M. (1995). Spoof, Spam, Lurk, and Lag: the Aesthetics of Text-based Virtual Realities. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 1(2), 0-0.

Lenhart, A., & Fox, S. (2006). Bloggers: A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Mann, C., & Stewart, F. (2000). Internet communication and qualitative research: a handbook for researching online. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Mann, C., & Stewart, F. (2003). Internet Interviewing. In J. F. Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Postmodern interviewing (pp. 81-105). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Markham, A. N. (1998). Life online: Researching real experience in virtual space. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Miller, D., & Slater, D. (2000). The Internet : an ethnographic approach. Oxford; New York: Berg.

Miller, G. (1997). Introduction: Context and method in qualitative research. In G. Miller & R. Dingwall (Eds.), Context and method in qualitative research (pp. 1-11). London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Nardi, B. A., Schiano, D. J., Gumbrecht, M., & Swartz, L. (2004). Why We Blog. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 41-46.

Ödman, P.-J. (2007). Hermeneutics in Research Practices. In B. Gustavsson (Ed.), The principles of knowledge creation : research methods in the social sciences (pp. 113-130). Cheltenham, U.K.; Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar.

Ojala, M. (2005). Blogging: For knowledge sharing, management and dissemination. Business Information Review, 22(4), 269-276.

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Payne, J. (2008). Using wikis and blogs to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing. Strategic HR Review, 7(3), 5-12.

Rasmussen, T. (2000). Social theory and communication technology. Aldershot Ashgate.

Riva, G. (2002). The Sociocognitive Psychology of Computer-Mediated Communication: The Present and Future of Technology-Based Interactions. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 5(6), 581-598.

Rodzvilla, J. (2002). We’ve got blog: how weblogs are changing our culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing.

Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Stefanone, M. A., & Jang, C.-Y. (2007). Writing for Friends and Family: The Interpersonal Nature of Blogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 123-140.

Swain, D. E. (2007). Can blogging be used to improve medication error collection as part of health informatics knowledge management? In S. Hawamdeh (Ed.), Creating collaborative advantage through knowledge and innovation (Vol. 5, pp. 301-313). Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific.

Tidwell, L. C., & Walther, J. B. (2002). Computer-Mediated Communication Effects on Disclosure, Impressions, and Interpersonal Evaluations: Getting to Know One Another a Bit at a Time. Human Communication Research, 28(3), 317-348.

Trammell, K. D., & Keshelashvili, A. (2005). EXAMINING THE NEW INFLUENCERS: A SELF-PRESENTATION STUDY OF A-LIST BLOGS. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(4), 968-982.

Tremayne, M. (2007). Blogging, citizenship, and the future of media. New York; London Routledge.

Ward, R. (2006). Blogs and wikis: A personal journey. Business Information Review, 23(4), 235-240.

Wei, C. (2004). Formation of Norms in a Blog Community. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/formation_of_norms_pf.html

Wyld, D. C. (2008). Management 2.0: a primer on blogging for executives. Management Research News, 31(6), 448-483.

Xarchos, C., & Charland, M. B. (2008). Innovapost uses Web 2.0 tools to engage its employees. Strategic HR Review, 7(3), 13-18.

Zhang, W., & Watts, S. (2008). Online communities as communities of practice: a case study. Journal of Knowledge Management, 12(4), 55.