RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET

The following research methods can also be carried out on the internet:

Survey: The Internet and e-mail make it faster and cheaper to conduct surveys. It costs significantly less to send e-mail surveys than to make phone calls or send postal mail surveys. Also, e-mail has a higher response rate than other survey methods. People are more likely to respond to online or e-mail surveys because they can finish them at their own time, unlike phone surveys, and e-mails are relatively painless to fill out and send back, unlike snail mail.

However, authenticity is a problem in online surveys. Because the researcher is not interacting face-to-face with the respondent, it is possible that details can be fabricated, or that the respondent fill out the survey form many times under different names.

Content Analysis: There is a lot of communication on the internet, which can be analyzed. Matter available on websites and discussion groups can be easily searched through search engines. The frequency of words can be easily counted with the help of applications such as MS Word.  The internet offers a wealth of matter, which can be analyzed in a quick and effective matter.

Online Ethnography: This refers to ethnography that is conducted in cyber-space.  Online cultures and communities which include chat rooms, message boards, present an opportunity for the researcher to blend into psyche of the common people, and understand their preferences. The advantages of online ethnography over actual ethnography is that interaction is often in textual form which can be automatically saved and archived.