Ronald E. Rice
This study summarizes prior reviews of new media and Internet research, and
the growth of the term “Internet” in academic publications and online
newsgroups. It then uses semantic network analysis to summarize the interests
and concepts of an interdisciplinary group of Internet researchers, as represented
by session titles and paper titles and abstracts from the 2003 and 2004 Association
of Internet Researchers conferences. In both years, the most frequent words
appearing in the paper abstracts included Internet, online, community, social,
technology, and research. The 2003 papers emphasized topics such as the social
analysis/research of online/Internet communication, community and information,
with particular coverage of access, individuals, groups, digital media, culture;
role and process in e-organizations; and world development. The 2004 papers
emphasized topics such as access; news and social issues; the role of individuals
in communities; user-based studies; usage data; and blogs, women and search
policy, among others.