Proposed Research Methods

Since I am doing the history of computer mediated communications, my research methods will be fairly traditional in the descriptive history. I will be reading a lot of journal articles and finding many books to pick information from. Im going to really focus on media Ecology and medium theory to help explain the past of virtual communities. The reason for this being that the medium that allows human interaction is vital in how people are allowed to interact and really structures the communities, especially early on in the internet. The hardware's (computer's) technological advancement really helped the development of the medium of the internet. My research will involve a lot of deep readings and trying to organize my research with new technology.

Another aspect of my research will be looking at anyone that has written about the history of the internet, virtual communities, case studies of specific virtual communities, or really anything relating to history of 'cyberspace'. I want to trace the idea of the 'virtual' through the past and see if our version of 'virtual reality' is similar to people of the past that only had cave paintings, minds eye, plays, etc. While going through these readings I really want to try and utilize tools such as evernote, diigo, and anything else I find in cyberspace that may be helpful. To help pick apart the readings and write my thoughts, highlight quotes, etc. I want to use as much computer technology as I can to conduct my research so I can explore how to adapt old ideas into new technology, while also trying to figure out my own method of organizing my research notes. I need to also pay attention to the other students in the class to keep myself in check in how my research will fit in with everyone else's research, it is a collaborative project, my fellow students can be a great source of information that I may have never been able to find on my own.

Along with the different tools that are out there to help people organize research, I want to dive into cyberspace and become a more active member of the virtual. To do this I plan on blogging, vlogging, and even joining one or more virtual communties, such as second life. I feel this would be beneficial when I conduct my research so that I have a better personal understanding and better insight into the virtual world. I can have real experience that would help me analyze the writings that I will be reading. Saturating myself in the virtual world will help get me in a mindset that will help me conduct research or bring new ideas that I should investigate.

To sum up, I will be doing a lot of traditional deep readings, but I want to utilize computer's to develop a method of digital research utilizing computer tools that are made to aid people doing research. While reading through peoples work I may find that I want talk to the author so I may have to do some interviews either face-to-face or through the medium of the internet in a skype interview. I also want to dive head first in becoming an active participant in a virtual community.