In-line or Out of Control? A General Research Framework to Analyse Network-Based Discussion Groups

The Internet has caused tremendous processes of change during the last years which are just comparable to epochal changes like industrialisation. It begins to influence every part of modern society’s life whether it is the economy or the political system, art, religion or science. Multitudinous publications, articles and conferences are dealing with new media technologies mainly concentrating on issues concerning law and policy, Internet usage and perception of the Internet, and economic purposes like e-commerce or marketing (Kim and Weaver 2002). Within the social science, two ways of dealing with the Internet are observable: on the one hand researchers use the Internet as an alternative tool for data collection in the field of marketand opinion research. This line focuses on methodological implication e.g. by comparing onwith off-line response behaviour. On the other hand, social science research looks at the Internet and its communication processes as a genuine social phenomenon. This area covers the full range of Internet-based social spaces like personal websites, chat rooms, MOOs and MUDs or mailing lists. Furthermore, outside the scientific system one is able to note down an increased interest in using the existing or aborning possibilities to create social spaces for on-line consultation. Especially on-line forums seem to be implemented within different functional areas of society: in the economic sector for customer retention (so called “brand communities” e.g. Rothmaermel 2001) or in the political sector to realize ideas of deliberative democracy. The huge amount of users make on-line communities an important phenomenon both for scientific research as well as for business or political purposes (Preece 2001). But a successful institutionalisation seems to be difficult as countless reports on flame-wars or down-shuts show (for example Powazek 2002, Pfaffenberger 2003; Baker 2001).