This paper aims to contribute to current discussions about methods in anthropological (especially ethnographic) research on the cultures of the internet. It does so by considering how technology has been presented in turn as an epistemological boon and bane in methodological discourse around virtual or online ethnography, and cyberanthropology. It maps these discussions with regards to intellectual traditions and ambitions of ethnographic research and social science, and considers how these views of technology relate to modernist discourse about the value of technology for producing a particular kind of objective knowledge. For this article, I have examined a number of monographs and methodological texts in which the internet, as both a new setting and a new technology for doing ethnography, is shown to raise new issues for ethnographic work and for theorising anthropological approaches. In this material, questions of presence, field relations (including trust and confidentiality), and new possibilities for observation are especially prominently discussed. Anxieties about whether the internet can be a field at all are also expressed. In my analysis, I place these issues and dilemmas facing the researcher in the context of the intellectual tradition of ethnography as applied to technology. The main themes found to subtend these discussions of ethnography’s ‘way of knowing ’ are the notion of ‘field’, technology, intersubjectivity and capture. The paper ends with a reflec-

Network Action Research 2 Current literature stresses the significance of networks and network theory in both social as well as technical domains. Not only is the role of networked technologies (such as mobile phones and the internet) in everyday life being scrutinized, but network theory is re-shaping an understanding of how social change and community interaction occurs. In this paper, I build on these developments to propose Network Action Research as a methodological variant of the action research family. I propose that Network Action Research is a timely and appropriate research methodology to guide studies that involve people, place and technology and to meet the challenges that stem from the changing nature of community interaction and social formations in the light of the emerging Network Society. I outline how technology can be used to operationalise and support Network Action Research. Examples from the field are used to illustrate aspects of the methodology.

Introduction Within the developed world, the current generation is experiencing political, economic and cultural life through a set of communication technologies barely older then they are. This collection of research about society online is unique. Rather than trying to cover every possible topic relating to new communication technologies in society, we have organized a series of arguments about how these new technologies mediate the different spheres of our social lives. First of all, the collection is not exclusively devoted to a particular technology, or specifically the Internet, but to a range of technologies and technological possibilities labeled new media (Manovich, 2000). Obviously the label new media cannot last forever, but many observers use the term to describe a range of communication technologies very different from the media that were prominent a decade ago. Second, this collection does not mark the importance of new media in everyday life with indications that the te

Online community networks have been designed to supplement residential communities in an effort to revitalise and grow neighbourhoods, but they are challenged in times of networked individualism. Recent research has shown that (a) connectivity alone does not ensure community, and (b) new and weak communities do not benefit from community networks as much as already strong communities do. This paper proposes a model combining Participation, Animation and Design (PAD) to encourage residents to take social ownership of an online community network. The aim is to allow residents to conduct personalised networking and to create intrinsic motivation for residents to realise that their engagement in the community network is not additional work, but a way to improve their quality of life by establishing a community culture and community identity. The proposed model integrates systems design with community development and is currently being implemented and tested in an apartment complex comprising approximately 160 tenants in Brisbane, Australia.

Campaigns are complex exercises in the creation, transmission, and mutation of significant political symbols. However, there are important differences between political communication through new media and political communication through traditional media. Many scholars who study the political role of new media look for changes in voter sophistication, news consumption patterns, or habits of learning about politics, but they have found few discernable `media effects'. They have found few changes as these communication tools have diffused. I argue that the most interesting change in patterns of political communication is in the way political culture is produced, not in the way it is consumed. These interesting changes are best observed through systematic ethnography, so I present findings from two organizations devoted to digitizing the social contract. DataBank.com is a private data mining company that used to offer its services to wealthier campaigns, but can now sell data to the smallest nascent grassroots movements and individuals. Astroturf-Lobby.org is a political action committee that helps lobbyists seek legislative relief to grievances by helping these groups find and mobilize their sympathetic publics. I analyze the range of new media tools for producing political culture, and with this ethnographic evidence build two theories about the role of new media in advanced democracies -- a theory of thin citizenship and a theory about data shadows as a means of political representation. I.

Through the work of constructing a fieldsite, researchers define the objects and subjects of their research. This article explores a variety of strategies devised by researchers to map social research onto spatial terrain. Virtual networked field sites are among the recent approaches that are challenging conventional thinking about field-based research. The benefits and consequences of one particular configuration, the fieldsite as a network, that incorporates physical, virtual, and imagined spaces will be explored in detail through a case study. I will focus in particular on the logistical issues involved and practical steps to constructing such a field site. This article includes suggestions for ways of studying social phenomena that take place on a vast terrain from a stationary position. This article draws on theories about networks and ethnographies of networked virtual worlds to address issues of fieldsite selection in ethnographic research. Interest in ethnography- a complex of epistemological framings, methodological techniques, and writing practices- has spread into many domains and disciplines beyond its roots in cultural anthropology. It has been directed increasingly towards pragmatic outcomes beyond academic knowledge production ranging from political action and the development of social programs (Brydon-Miller, Greenwood et al. 2003; Madison 2005) to product design (Lewis, Mateas et al. 1996; Salvador, Bell et al. 1999). It is now firmly entrenched within a range of disciplines including sociology, media studies, education,

Recent transformations in communication and information exchange have created new opportunities for researchers in the humanities and social sciences. It is not self-evident, however, in what ways scholars can best use these possibilities while maintaining and further developing their specific roles in academia and society. This new KNAW programme, The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences, aims to support researchers in the humanities and social sciences in the Netherlands in the creation of new scholarly practices, termed here e-research, as well as in their reflection on e-research in relation to the development of their fields. A core feature of the Virtual Knowledge Studio is the integration of design and analysis in a close cooperation between social scientists, humanities researchers, information technology experts and information scientists. This integrated approach should provide insight in the way e-research can contribute to new research questions and methods in the humanities and social sciences.

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