I am taking a qualitative research class right now and will soon be thinking about research for my dissertation. My interests are primarily in digital environments. My last post discussed some of these ideas. I just feel that these are spaces really rich for analysis in how people choose to communicate. It's been a slow concept (research in digital environments) to reach a lot of people and it's a small field, but that too makes it such a great place for research. It's new and exciting and full of possibilities and it's nice to find a text devoted to that.
What I've liked best about it is that it is has provided me with a vocabulary to talk about these issues and to articulate what I mean when I talk about my research interests. Previously, when I've talked about my ideas, people have had questions (oddly, one question I seem to come upon all the time is, "What about the rhetoric?" I find this odd because I am in Rhetoric and Professional Communication program - isn't rhetoric implied in everything we do? Beside the fact - the internet is FULL of rhetoric - an amazing place for analysis). But after reading this, I feel as though I can better explain that what makes these spaces so interesting is the continuous shift, both culturally and technologically, in the internet, makes this kind of research so fascinating. It is never stable - there are new power relationships, ideologies, and new people entering these social spaces all the time. This creates new ways of communication constantly.
It's an exciting time!
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