New Data and Old Dilemmas: Changes and Continuities in Online Social Research

Abstract

The pace of change occasioned by the affordances of new technologies is accelerating. The last 5 years have seen developments following in the train of Web 2.0 applications that are remarkable even set against the pace of change since the advent of the Internet. Yet it is important to be realistic about the depth of change. While there is a widespread view that the prevailing trope of our contemporary times in the Western democracies is that of neoliberalism, that view also testifies to the enduring grip of long-established realities of political economy. This article assesses what has really changed, and what has not, in four domains: Collaborative and Online Working, Citizen Research & Opening Up Research, Analyzing Online Materials, and Merged Methods.