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E-research into Online Networks
Robert Ackland
Overview
The World Wide Web (WWW) has changed how humans interact; for some scholars, we now live in the "Age of the Network". As online populations grow and the quantity and quality of interactions improve with new technology, social scientists are developing new approaches for understanding the impact of online networks on social interaction and economic and political participation. The vastness and dynamic nature of the WWW poses research challenges relating to data storage, management and computation. E-Research technologies address these challenges, facilitating collaborative access by distributed researchers to methods and large-scale datasets. Via the ARC-funded Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks Project (http://voson.anu.edu.au), ADSRI is conducting pioneering empirical social science research into online networks and developing e-Research tools to facilitate this research.
Current Projects
- ".au Census Project" (Robert Ackland) - analysis of large-scale crawls of the .au domain, providing insights into Australian online life analogous to what is learned about the "offline world" via the Census. A data sharing agreement with the CSIRO Information Retrieval Project has been signed.
- Environmental activist networks (Robert Ackland, Mathieu O'Neil) - use of hyperlink and content analysis to study emerging issues such as the contestation of nanotechnology.
- Abortion debate (Robert Ackland, Ann Evans) - hyperlink and content analysis of opposing coalitions in the abortion debate.
- Migration (Robert Ackland, Edith Gray) - analysis of online information for prospective migrants to Australia.
- Political party networks (Robert Ackland, Rachel Gibson – University of Leicester) - investigating the web’s democratising potential for fringe parties.
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