JCMC special issue

[Andrea Scharnhorst]

The actual JCMC special issue contains articles also relevant for webometrics.

Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 
Special issue:  Internet Networks: The Form and the Feel
http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol8/issue4/
Editors: Anne Beaulieu and Han Woo Park

* Anne Beaulieu: "Combining Approaches for the Study of 
                             Networks on the Internet" (Editor's Introduction)
* Iina Hellsten: "Focus on Metaphors: The Case of 'Frankenfood' on the Web"
* Devan Rosen, Joseph Woelfel, Dean Krikorian, George A. Barnett: 
                           "Procedures for Analyses of Online Communities"
* Kirsten A. Foot, Steven M. Schneider, Meghan Dougherty, 
                            Michael Xenos, Elena Larsen: "Analyzing Linking Practices: 
                           Candidate Sites in the 2002 US Electoral Web Sphere"
* Paul Wouters, Diana Gerbec: "Interactive Internet? 
                         Studying Mediated Interaction with Publicly 
                          Available Search Engines"
* Andrea Scharnhorst: "Complex Networks and the Web: 
                          Insights from Nonlinear Physics"
* Han Woo Park, Mike Thelwall: "Hyperlink Analyses of the 
                          World Wide Web: A Review"

JCMC is a free peer-reviewed academic on-line journal 
sponsored by the Annenberg School for Communication at 
the University of Southern California.

(from the editor's introduction)
Networks and the study of Internet phenomena are in many ways inseparable. 
Beyond the power of the metaphor, though, and the obvious kinship of 
certain approaches to the study of the Internet such as 'network analysis,' 
the relation between research methods and the constitution of networks as 
empirical objects must be articulated in correspondence with every research 
question. Two approaches seem to prevail in Internet scholarship so far: 
substantial analysis on a case-by-case basis on the one hand, and 
formal network analysis on the other. Networks have therefore been studied 
in terms of their substance, for example via the common cultures of individuals 
who socialize through the Internet. New forms of expression have also been 
identified. Another stream of research has addressed the more formal aspects 
of networks, often using automated tools that render these networks quantitatively. 
Given this distinction between formal and substantive approaches, 
Internet studies seem to be reproducing some of the distinctions between 
qualitative and quantitative styles that have been deplored across most 
social sciences, from psychology to communication. 



Dr. Andrea Scharnhorst
NERDI
Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI)
KNAW
Joan Muyskenweg 25

Postbus 95110
1090 HC Amsterdam 
The Netherlands
Tel: +20 4628 670
www.niwi.knaw.nl/nerdi
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