This workshop provided a forum to consider these issues across a range of research topics, and to examine the central question as to whether there are features of the new technologies or the ways in which they are employed which occasion a new approach to methods and methodology. The workshop was attended by more than 40 participants, including researchers from Japan, US, Canada, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands and comprising established academic researchers, PhD students and a representative from Intel. We have to rethink our traditional categories of populations, informants and field sites. Online environments are thought to be significantly different, which provide an opportunity and topic for research methods. Reflexive and adaptive approaches to research are required.
Online environments are no different, and traditional methods apply.
Some small-scale tinkering may be needed, but that is all. Research in science and technology studies tends to raise problems with the first of these positions. It seems paradoxical to be studying contingent social processes around the technology whilst arguing for determined effects on research methods. At the same time, however, it appears that there might be more fun to be had than the third position seems to suggest. There is undoubtedly much from existing ways of research that should not be swept aside.