Research methods in Web studies

In the Annual Conference of the Israeli Forum for Internet and Technology Researcher that was recently held at the Bar-Ilan University, two experienced Internet researchers Prof. Richard Rogers and Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli, yes my advisor, talked about research methods in Web studies. In their presentation each addressed the topic from a different perspective, but put together the two formed an interesting two-dimensional approach to the subject. Rogers’ point of view was that the structure of the Internet as a medium drives the research approach. Rafaeli took a conceptual approach which claims that Internet research should be driven by a set of a few, universal fundamental constructs and the selection of tools should follow. A brief summary of their presentations follows:

Prof. Rogers described the Internet as a medium that exhibits new and previously nonexistent artifacts. These artifacts do not accommodate well to the traditional research methods however, they enable new and more organic techniques. Rogers listed the following artifacts and related research techniques that can be applied to them.  In the Digital Methods Initiative which he directs they have developed some tools that implement some of these techniques:

• Links with their 3 dominant approaches: Hyperlinks (following the path of web surfers), small worlds and path theory (observing the path and distance between actors) and associational sociology (looking at the position of the actors within the network from perspective of number and type of links)
• Websites - concentrating on users’ activity in a single web-site (heat maps of eye movements, analyzing web archives to identify changes in websites through time etc.)
• Engines - analyzing phenomena as reflected from the outcome of dominant (search) engines
• Spheres - bounded entities, with clear demarcation and center of gravity, and distinct characteristics which form on the web (e.g. the blogosphere)
• Webs – the layer of geographical and national characteristics which underlies the Internet universality, and can be extracted from geoIP
• Social networking sites – social and behavioral aspects that are evident in social networking sites

Prof. Rafaeli described the concepts that underlie the Internet, and are therefore fundamental to any Internet research. He claimed that the research methods to be used should be selected from the toolbox according to their suitability to the research, and an unobtrusive, multi-method approach should always be considered. In his talk Rafaeli addressed the following concepts, some of them already mentioned in a 1996 paper, others more recent:

• Multimedia / multi-sense
• Elasticity of synchronicity
• Absence of a center (packet Switching)
• Hyper-textuality
• Interactivity
• Fun
• Network structure
• Participation levels
• Value of information

This part of the conference closed with an interesting discussion that further highlighted the difference between the two approaches.

The Internet as a vehicle of empowerment

This is a story about a group of students from a low socio-economical background who turned their frustration and feelings of discrimination into an empowering experience. This is also a story of many individuals that care enough to spread out the message and help these kids to achieve their goal.

Last weekend, Yair Lapid ran a story in Yediot Achronot and ynet, a story which describes the frustration of his students in a Jaffa high-school, from not being able to afford an educational trip to Poland and the termination camps. This trip complements the studies of the holocaust events and is attended by many of their cohorts who come from a higher economical background. As their appeal for support to the Ministry of Education was ignored, they decided to bring their case to the public attention by issuing an Internet petition, with the goal of achieving 100,000 signatures.

I myself am not a great fan of these trips to Poland, however, I fully sympathize with the students that undertook an action to show that they can have an impact. I am closely following the number of signatures that at the time that these lines were written reached 73,796 and is still increasing by hundreds per hour. It is obvious that without the backing of a figure with such high public visibility as Yair Lapid, they would not have reached these numbers. Still I am always glad to see that the Internet plays a role in the empowerment of the weak members of our society.

I wish the students success in achieving their goal.

An update: three days later: 114,000 people signed the petition. Well done !!

Economic Tales by Ariel Rubinstein

Ariel Rubinstein is one of the important academic researches in the area of Game Theory, Econometrics and normative Decision Theory. In this book, Ariel claims that his deep understanding of the theoretical and normative models does not equip him with superior tools to deal with day-to-day economic related situations, and gives examples where real-world situations do not, cannot, or should not reflect the theoretical models. Ariel lays out his political and social views which are very remote from those that would have been expected from a normative economist. As far as I know this book has only appeared in Hebrew under the title אגדות הכלכלה. I assume that the reason for that is  that the views and tales that are presented in the book are very local to the Israeli history, culture and conditions, or as the Hebrew saying goes “זר לא יבין זאת”.

In my academic research I chose to take sides with the descriptive school of decision theory and behavioral finance, rather than the normative school to which Ariel belongs. I found it to better fit my views and beliefs of how things really work in real world. It was interesting for me to find out that one of the important representatives of the normative school agrees that our daily decisions, behavior and actions do not follow the mathematical models that underlie the normative theories. These models should be looked at as a beautiful creation of the intellectual mind that seeks perfection, but when the same human mind deals with earthly matters, it does not perform as perfectly as the models anticipate. In my view we are lucky that this is the case, otherwise life would have been very boring.

I grew up at the same period as Ariel and our paths crossed at university, so many of the stories in this book raise pleasant memories. This fact added to my enjoyment from the book however, the stories that are intertwined between the the ideas only serve as a background and contribute to the thesis that Ariel tries to communicate: in real life we don’t behave rationally and we should not.