Internet-related Research Trends 2001-2005
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Abstract
Importance of research about the Internet is growing, since the Internet is becoming more
prevalent. It is necessary to figure out what kind of research has been done to determine the
direction Internet-related research will pursue in the future. Thematic meta-analysis was done for
this study. Four aspects of the articles were analyzed: 1) research topics, 2) a development of
agenda, 3) method, and 4) theoretical application. This study contains two comparisons. The first
is a comparison between Internet-related articles from two time periods: 2001 – 2005 and 1996 –
2000. The second is between articles in major communication journals and Internet-related
journals. In addition, Wimmer and Dominick’s developmental model of research agenda, which
contains four phases of new medium’s agenda development, was adapted. The findings are that
an Internet-related research agenda has been developed and has passed Wimmer and Dominick’s
second phase and entered the third phase, that recent Internet-related research has more firm
methods compared with the previous five years, and that more Internet-related studies are using
theories, though not many existing theories were used for the articles, which possibly means that
new theories are needed to explain new communication tools or phenomena, and that articles in
major journals more frequently use quantitative methods than in Internet-related journals.