The Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods

My research interests are in criminology, socio-legal studies, social research methodology, and new technologies for social research. In criminology I have particular expertise in policing, having conducted studies of police training, police occupational culture, community and neighbourhood policing, equal opportunities in the police service, police corruption, and comparative research on international police systems. In socio-legal studies I have particular interests in the criminal courts and the experiences of lay people during the criminal trial process. My study of lay participants' experience of trials of cases of physical violence won the Socio-Legal Studies Association Hart Prize 2007 for the Best Socio-Legal Book. In social research methodology my primary expertise is in qualitative methods, particularly the practice and ethics of participant observation, the status of interview data, and software for the analysis of qualitative data, in which latter I co-direct the UK national centre for qualitative software. I also have substantial expertise in multiple-method research and methodological 'triangulation', secondary analysis of archival qualitative data, online research methods, and the application of grid and high performance computing to social research, where I have a particular interest in the use of Access Grid technology for 'virtual fieldwork'. My paper on the latter was shortlisted for the Sage Prize for Innovation and Excellence 2007. My research has been sponsored by, inter alia, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Fulbright Commission, the US Department of Defense, the Home Office, the UK Police Foundation, the US Police Foundation, Surrey Police Authority, Surrey Police, the Metropolitan Police, the Swiss Information and Documentation Service, the Deutsche Zentral Archiv, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Thales plc, Electricite de France, Volkswagen Stiftung, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Raymond M. Lee is Reader in Social Research Methods in the Department of Social Policy and Social Science, Royal Holloway University of London. His research interests include research methodology, the sociology of religion and the sociology of labour markets. His specific methodological interests include the problems and issues which surround research on 'sensitive' topics, and the impact of new technologies on the research process. His books on methodology include Doing Research on Sensitive Topics and Dangerous Fieldwork. In addition, he has edited Using Computers in Qualitative Research (with Nigel Fielding), Researching Sensitive Topics (with Claire Renzetti) and Information Technology for the Social Scientist. Grant Blank is Survey Research Fellow at Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford. He is a sociologist who studies the social and cultural impact of the Internet and other new communication media. He is also interested in cultural sociology, especially reviews and cultural evaluation.Grant began his career as an independent consultant based in Chicago Illinois specializing in research design, statistical analysis, and database design. He previously taught at American University in Washington DC. He completed his PhD on the sociology of reviews at the University of Chicago in 1999, and joined OII in 2010.

This handbook is the first to provide comprehensive, up-to-the-minute coverage of contemporary and developing Internet and online social research methods, spanning both quantitative and qualitative research applications.

Section I. The Internet as a research medium
Chapter 1: The Internet as a research medium: an editorial introduction to the Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods - Ray Lee, Nigel Fielding and Grant Blank
Section II. Designing Internet research
Chapter 2: The Ethics of Internet research - Rebecca Eynon, Jenny Fry and Ralph Schroeder
Chapter 3: Understanding and Managing Legal Issues in Internet Research - Andrew Charlesworth
Chapter 4: Research design and tools for Internet research - Claire Hewson and Dianna Laurent
Chapter 5: General approaches to data quality and Internet generated data - Karsten Boye Rasmussen
Section III. Data capture using the Internet
Chapter 6: Middleware for Distributed Data Management - Alvaro A.A. Fernandes
Chapter 7: Distilling Digital Traces: Computational social science approaches to studying the Internet - Ted Welser, Marc Smith, Danyel Fisher and Eric Gleave
Chapter 8: Analysing Social Networks via the Internet - Bernie Hogan
Chapter 9: Nonreactive Data Collection on the Internet - Dietmar Janetzko
Section IV. The Internet survey
Chapter 10: Overview: online surveys - Vasja Vehovar and Katja Lozar Manfreda
Chapter 11: Sampling methods for Web and E-mail Surveys - Ronald Fricker
Chapter 12: Internet survey design - Samuel Best and Brian Krueger
Chapter 13: Internet survey software tools - Lars Kaczmirek
Section V. Virtual ethnography
Chapter 14: Overview: Virtual ethnography: modes, varieties, affordances - Christine Hine
Chapter 15: Internet-based Interviewing - Henrietta O'Connor, Clare Madge, Robert Shaw, Jane Wellens
Chapter 16: Online focus groups - Ted Gaiser
Chapter 17: Fieldnotes in public: using blogs for research - Nina Wakeford and Kris Cohen
Chapter 18: Research Uses of Multi-user Virtual Environments - Ralph Schroeder and Jeremy Bailenson
Chapter 19: Distributed Video Analysis in Social Research - Jon Hindmarsh
Section VI. The Internet as an archival resource
Chapter 20: The Provision of Access to Quantitative Data for Secondary Analysis - Keith Cole, Louise Corti and Jo Wathan
Chapter 21: Secondary Qualitative Analysis using Internet Resources - Patrick Carmichael
Chapter 22: Finding and Investigating Geographical Data Online - David Martin, Samantha Cockings and Samuel Leung
Chapter 23: Data Mining, Statistical Data Analysis, or Advanced Analytics: Methodology, Implementation, and Applied Techniques - Bert Little and Michael Schucking
Chapter 24: Artificial Intelligence and the Internet - Ed Brent
Section VII. The future of social research on the Internet
Chapter 25: Longitudinal Statistical Modelling on the Grid - Rob Crouchley and Rob Allan
Chapter 26: Qualitative e-Social Scienceber-research - Nigel Fielding and Ray Lee
Chapter 27: New Cartographies of 'Knowing Capitalism' and the Changing Jurisdictions of Empirical Sociology - Michael Hardey and Roger Burrows
Chapter 28: The Internet and the Future of Social Science Research - Mike Fischer, Stephen Lyon and David Zeitlyn (Kent).
Chapter 29: Online Research Methods and Social Theory - Grant Blank
Section VIII.
Glossary of Key Terms.