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Title:
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CONDUCTING ONLINE COMMUNITY RESEARCH |
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Author(s):
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Tuula Mittilä , Maria Mäntymäki |
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ISBN:
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972-98947-8-7 |
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Editors:
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Nitya Karmakar and Pedro Isaías |
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Year:
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2004 |
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Edition:
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Single |
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Keywords:
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Online communities, online research, qualitative research. |
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Type:
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Oral Presentation - 20 minutes |
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First Page:
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470 |
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Last Page:
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474 |
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Language:
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English |
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Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload 
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Paper Abstract:
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The Internet has tremendously increased communication possibilities among people by enabling them to stay in touch via networks with other people in many different ways. It also opens new possibilities for creating and belonging to online communities, which enable people to communicate regardless of their geographical location or time of the day. This development also offers both academic and practical researchers a possibility to electronically study communication and actors' behaviour in online communities. However, the computer-mediated research needs specific and carefully designed instruments that not only accommodate but exploit the features of the electronic environment to attract respondents. The Internet and online communities provide various data collecting methods including questionnaires, interviews, observational techniques and using experimental methodology (Hewson et al 2003). In addition to these traditional research methods, Internet offers new possibilities of acquiring data, both documentary and personal. The purpose of the paper at hand is to report an exploratory research case conducted in online communities. In two cases, we placed an open question in the discussion forum while in one case a questionnaire with the same question in addition to some background questions was linked to a company's newsletter. The advantages of collecting the data online compared to offline were adaptability, easiness and cost- and time-efficiency. The perceived disadvantages we could mention were the low response rate and the uneven quality of the answers. However, the method is still new and offers many possibilities in future. |
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