Looking for Insight, Transformation, and Learning in Online Talk is a comprehensive guide to analyzing digital interaction in formal and informal online spaces. The book establishes a new research framework for addressing major challenges that have arisen as social exchanges, meaning-making, and knowledge-building increasingly take place in social media, discussion forums, and online communities. With a focus on methodological alignment to support valid and trustworthy knowledge claims, the authors present a series of design decisions to help researchers: frame their object of interest and unpack underlying assumptions understand key differences between researcher-influenced and pre-existing online talk ethically extract and organize data for analysis apply rigorous qualitative, quantitative, and computational methods to answer their research questions Written for scholars in education, business, communication, media studies, health sciences, political sciences, and beyond, this is a thorough approach to the research methods and concerns essential to the study of talk in online contexts.

Looking for Insight, Transformation, and Learning in Online Talk is a comprehensive guide to analyzing digital interaction in formal and informal online spaces. The book establishes a new research framework for addressing major challenges that have arisen as social exchanges, meaning-making, and knowledge-building increasingly take place in social media, discussion forums, and online communities. With a focus on methodological alignment to support valid and trustworthy knowledge claims, the authors present a series of design decisions to help researchers: frame their object of interest and unpack underlying assumptions understand key differences between researcher-influenced and pre-existing online talk ethically extract and organize data for analysis apply rigorous qualitative, quantitative, and computational methods to answer their research questions Written for scholars in education, business, communication, media studies, health sciences, political sciences, and beyond, this is a thorough approach to the research methods and concerns essential to the study of talk in online contexts.

While some qualitative methods texts touch upon online communities as a potential data source, show how to conduct interviews and focus groups online, or select recording devices and analysis software, no book to date has guided readers in the creation of a comprehensive digital workflow for their research. By working through each chapter in this book, readers will be able to generate a unique digital workflow for designing and implementing their research. The book provides a deep exploration of the relationship between theories of technology, substantive theories, and methodological theory, and shows how together these inform the development of a quality research design. The authors include vignettes-narratives written by qualitative researchers describing cutting-edge use of digital tools and spaces-and also give examples of published studies, which together provide practical illustration of the content. Woven throughout is explicit attention to ethical challenges that are likely to be faced by researchers when adopting digital tools. The book invites readers to engage in a critical appraisal of the role of technology in qualitative research through reflection, conversation, and engagement with the larger community of researchers.