collection of data online. Online data can becollected quickly and inexpensively, often withrelatively little inconvenience to respondents -many of whom already "live" online and thusare being reached in an increasingly naturalisticenvironment.

Web-based survey research opens up a worldof quick and usually inexpensive sampling pos-sibilities. Discussion boards, listservs, and socialnetwork sites can all be used to recruit studyvolunteers that in the past may have been dif-ficult to locate. Members of NCA who receivee-rnails from the association's listserv, CRTNET,are probably not unfamiliar with such practices.NCA members often use the listserv to requesthelp from fellow members in finding survey par-ticipants belonging to special subpopularions.

Online discussion boards can be used for studyrecruitment in a similar fashion. For instance,posting survey volunteer requests to discussionboards or Facebook groups about television showshave given communication researchers access todifferent fan communities. In a study from ourresearch group, a survey designed for World ofWarcraft players was distributed by cluster sam-pling from every nth WoW server (each server rep-resenting different avatar communities). Onlinesampling of subpopulations is particularly usefulfor scholars studying communication practicesamong stigmatized groups (e.g. teenage mothers,drug users, or people suffering from mental ill-ness), working with online group moderators toearn the trust of group members.

Surveys posted as paid advertisements on so-cial network sites can also be targeted to specificgroups. For example, advertisements on Facebook

'~ND LO,WE HAVE CONTACT"

The Influence of Digital Communication Technologyon the Research Process

By Nicholas David Bowman and Elizabeth Cohen

"LO ..."This was the first digital message

transmitted through computing technology, whentwo nodes in the ARPANET - the U.S. Depart-ment of Defense's Advanced Research ProjectsAgency Network - attempted to send the textmessage "LOGIN" from a workstation at theUniversity of California-Los Angeles to anotherstation at Stanford University. After an hour orso of troubleshooting, the computer terminal atStanford registered the complete "LOGIN" mes-sage, and the world's first digital communicationtechnology was operational.

From its inception, a core function of digitalcommunication technologies has been to facilitatethe sharing of information -literally for the mod-ern-day Internet, for University-based researchscientists to share their data. ARPANET was aninitiative from the U.S. Department of Defenseto speed up scientific discovery in a day of SpaceRaces, Arms Races and other Cold War pressures,yet the goal of these technologies remains thesame today.

We suggest that modern digital communica-tion technologies have the potential to greatlyenhance the collection and distribution of sci-entific data. Moreover, as social scientists - andscholars of communication - we are particularlywell-positioned to make use of this new researchtool given the phenomenon we study: the creationand exchange of information from one another.

Given the immense popularity of digitalcommunication technology, one appar-ent use from a research standpoint is the

16 SPECTRA I MARCH 20 I 3

can be targeted precisely to demo-graphic and special interests groups- as broad as "males" and as specif-ic as "male fans of Elton John andYuengling Beer who have interest inMorgantown pubs." TI1eadvantage ofusing Facebook to target respondentsis that researchers potentially have ac-cess to the one of the largest and mostsocially rich online databases (currentestimates suggest that Facebook hasno less than 1.01 billion monthlyusers). Yet, a notable downside is thefinancial cost, as researchers must bidagainst companies with much deeperadvertising budgets potentially target-ing the same audiences. Moreover,advertisers pay per click rather thanper completed survey, which meansthat not every penny spent will resultin usable data.

Of course, researchers can foregothe financial risk by harnessing theconnective power of social networksites like Facebook and Twitter forsnowball sampling techniques. Re-searchers can post surveys using theirown accounts (or accounts specificallycreated for research groups, such asLouisiana State University's MediaEffects Lab, or @LSUMediaMEL onTwitter; http://twitteLcom/LSUMe-diaMEL) and use the different socialnetworks to distribute the surveys.Although such a technique might dolittle to overcome potential problemswith snowball sampling techniquessuch as community biases, usingsocial media-driven snowballingtechniques can drastically speed upthe distribution process. As well, themechanics of social networks maywork to expose the information toa more diverse set of social groups.Researchers using social snowballingtechniques can also request researchinvitations to be shared with specificcriteria by placing them in differentpages or groups, tagging them withunique information (e.g., using aTwitter hash tag #videogames to targetgarners), or merely stating participa-tion requirements in content posts.

Other web tools are being de-veloped to help researchers identifyvolunteers in specific subpopulations.For instance, ResearchMatch.org(https://www.researchmatch.org) isa National Institutes of Health-fund-ed website that matches researcherswith study volunteers. So far, over30,000 research volunteers belong tothis registry. Provided they first meetcertain requirements, researchers canaccess this pool for free and searchfor volunteers that have certain healthbackgrounds. Although this site isdesigned for health research, its de-velopment speaks to the potential forother communication-related pools tobe developed.

Web-based surveyresearch opens up aworld of quick andusually inexpensive

sampling possibilities.

Even when no specific subpopula-tions are of interest, discussion boardscan aid researchers in collecting quickdata among more general online pop-ulations. One study we were involvedwith posted invitations to participatein the study on 29 different YahooGroups pages. To increase diversity,groups were randomly selected fromeach of 14 main interest areas on theYahoo site (e.g., Entertainment &Arts, Science, Business and Finance)with links posted to no more thanthree user groups within each area.

Researchers who wish to conductan online experiment with a nation-ally representative population cansubmit a proposal to Time-SharingExperiments for the Social Sciences(TESS, www.tessexperiments.org).For those with successful proposals,TESS will conduct web-based exper-iments for free with their random,

probability-based subject pool free ofcharge.

Online survey services such as 50-cialSci (https://www.socialsci.com)and SurveyMonkey (https://www.surveymonkey.com) are develop-ing their own subject pools to helpresearchers obtain both general andmore specific samples. These poolsusually consist of volunteers whoget some sort of incentive for takingsurveys such as money, donations tocharities, or sweepstakes entries. Theprices to access these subject poolsvary, but are cheaper when fewer con-straints with less specific samples arerequested. Amazon.com's MechanicalTurk (MTurk, https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome) offers perhapsone of the most affordable subjectpool options for researchers. MTurkallows organizations to hire individ-uals to complete different web-basedtasks, such as writing, file sorting andcontent posting - as well as surveycompletion. Researchers set the pricethey are willing to pay respondents forcompleted surveys, and to get a largesample in a short amount of time re-searchers should probably expect tospend at least one cent for every min-ute that a survey is expected to take(i.e., $O.lS for a completed IS-minutesurvey). Studies on the use ofMTurkas a research recruitment service havefound it to provide more representa-tive of the general population whencompared to other Internet-basedsamples.

Finally, with the increase in mo-bile technology use, researchers con-ducting web-based research shouldbecome more concerned with howand where respondents are complet-ing online surveys. Respondents mayuse mobile devices such as tablets orsmartphones to access online informa-tion now (including our studies) andto this end, many survey programssuch as Checkbox (www.checkbox.com), Qualtrics (https://www.qual-trics.com), and SurveyGizmo (www.surveygizmo.com) use survey software

SPECTRA I MARCH 20 I 3 17

compatible with most mobile devices.Mobile technologies also provide

new opportunities for collectingdata that can enhance retrospectiveself-report measures that communi-cation researchers commonly rely on.Specifically, the use of mobile devic-es as data collection tools can allowresearchers to capture people's realtime experiences, attitudes, and rou-tines. For instance, our team recentlyconducted an experience samplingstudy of college students' media usehabits using text message surveys. Re-spondents texted information aboutany media they were using whenprompted throughout a week-longperiod. Because the students normallycarried their cell phones with them,this method helped us collect mo-ment-to-moment information abouttheir media activities. A number ofsmartphone applications have alsobeen developed to help researcherscollect ethnographic informationabout research participants. Platformssuch as Over the Shoulder (http://overtheshoulder.com), the Andriodapplication Mylnsighrs (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.appcoders.myinsighrsochleen), andthe iPad-native Ethnocorder (www.ethnocorder.corn) help researchers

collect data by capturing pictures,recording consumed media, scan-ning purchases, and tagging people'sgeo-location. 1hese technologies holdthe promise of giving researchers amore complete picture of the com-munication processes we study bygranting access to the process in themoment.

Tenure and promotion deci-sions are largely rooted inability to make meaningful

contributions (0 the academy and inthis vein we often save the sharing ofour research results for journal pub-lications where it "counts" most. Yet,most all of us recognize that muchof the conceptual and theoreticalheavy lifting comes not from perusingjournal articles, but from engaging inconference discussions and - for manyof us - talking with colleagues over amorning coffee or evening beer.

Discussing preliminary researchideas through blogging and sharinghas the potential to help us iden-tify and address areas of strengthand weakness in our scholarship.For example, our research team hasfirst-hand experience of this with theuse of the blog On Media Theory...(http://onmediatheory. blogspot.com).

Since launching as a graduate schoolproject in 2006, the blog has receivedover 250,000 individual page hitsacross nearly 200 individual researchand theory posts from dozens of col-leagues. The use ofblogs to publicallyincubate research ideas exposes ourearliest conceptual research develop-ment to our peers - relying on themechanics of crowdsourcing to ex-pose ourselves and our thoughts toour contemporaries. This might soundequally daunting and terrifying onfirst pass, yet such a system of open-source research (and open-sourcethinking) forces us to write and craftour ideas before sharing, reading andresponding to criticisms of the same.Rarely in our work are we able to ex-pose colleagues to the thinking be-hind our theory, and open-access blogsystems might prove to be a valuablestep in this direction.

For sharing completed work, web-sites such as Academia.edu (http://acadernia.edu), ResearchGate (www.researchgate.net), and Mendeley(www.mendeley.com) provide con-venient and increasingly ro bustmethods of sharing research pre-sentations and reports - everythingfrom unpublished laboratory notes topeer-reviewed journal articles. While .

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issues of copyright and knowledgeownership are still vague for some ofthese services, many researchers havechosen to share research documentswith the larger academic community- benefitting from increased exposurethrough paper downloads, increasedcitations and increased conversationsand collaborations with like-mindedcolleagues. In addition to these aca-demic-therned services, subscriptionservices such as SlideShare.net (www.slideshare.net) can be used to shareconference presentation and colloquiacontent (e.g., WVU's Department ofCommunication Studies SlideShare,www.slideshare.net/bowmanspar-tan1). All of these platforms, as withmost social media programs, givefeedback such as page views and doc-ument download statistics.

An emerging platform for manag-ing and tracking academic citations isGoogle Scholar (http://scholar.google.com). Although Coogle's scholar-ship-specific search engine has beenin operation since 2004, recent addi-tions to Google Scholar now includescholarship profiles that automaticallypopulate with any articles authored orco-authored by an individual as theyappear in Google Scholar searches. Inaddition to links to articles and otherdocuments, the program also collectsinformation on the number of times agiven articles has been cited (by otherarticles appearing in Google Scholarsearches) and even provides basic ci-tation indices for individual authors,such as a cumulative citations countand an h-index, or "the largest num-ber h such that h publications have atleast h citations." Anne-Wi! Harzing'spopular Publish or Perish citationmanagement software (www.harzing.corn/pop.htrn) draws its data fromGoogle Scholar searches. Notably,while academics cannot directly alteror edit their Google Scholar searchresults (that is, without publishing orotherwise posting and sharing theirresearch online), they can make useof scholarship profiles by creating and

sharing them through other socialmedia platforms (e.g., linking one'sGoogle Scholar profile to their Twitteror Facebook page, or through theirUniversity profile page).

An August 2012 article in TheChronicle of Higher Education (www.chronicle.com/article/S ocial- N et-works-for-Academics/131726) quotedone scientist as referring to the sitesmentioned above as "social networksfor nerds" - which also suggests thateven the social networks du jour suchas Facebook and Twitter might servea similar function. Indeed, manyscholarly organizations such as NCA'sMass Communication Division(https:llwww.facebook.com/groupslNCAMCD) and the journal MediaPsychology (https:llwww.facebook.com/MediaPsychology) have createdFacebook pages to discussion trendsand publications related to the studyof media, and NCA has launched itsown Twitter account (@NatComm,https:lltwitter.com/NatComm) toshare information about the organi-zation and its members.

The research process involves apairing of concept and oper-ation: finding the right tools

to answer the burning questions thatdrive our scholarly interests. For thestudy of human communication - theart and science of stimulating mean-ing in the mind of others - we suggestdigital communication technology tobe an increasingly integral componentof the communication research pro-cess. Digital communication technol-ogies can be harnessed to collect anddistribute data more specifically andmore quickly, and they can facilitatecommunication among researchersleaving the field as a whole morewell-informed.

Moving forward, research on theinfluence of digital communicationtechnologies on the quality of our re-search is greatly needed. At the sametime, we suggest that their usage inthe research should not be dismissed

but rather analyzed and considered incomparison with alternatives. As withall research tools, there are strengthsand limitations and digital commu-nication technology is no different inthis regard - after all, the first digi-tal message was only 40% effectivein stating its point. Yet, rather thanshoot the process down as beingflawed, we should continue to studyand troubleshoot it so that the entiremessage can be received in its highestfidelity. _

Nicholas David Bowman(Ph.D., Michigan State University) andElizabeth Cohen (Ph.D., GeorgiaState University) are Assistant Profes-sors in the Depariment of Com-munication Studies at West VirginiaUniversity, where they both serve asResearch Associates in the Depart-ment's newly-established Media andInteraction Lab (http://communica-tionstudies.wvu.edu/fs/research/lab).

Bowman's primary area ofinterest is the role of interactivityin understanding the relationshipbetween people and communi-cation technology. His work hasbeen published in journals such asCyberPsychology, Behavior, and SocialNetworking; Journal of Communication;Media Psychology; and New Media andSociety. He serves on the editorialboards of both Media Psychologyand Journal of Media Psychology.

Cohen's work focuses on the "thebright side" of media uses and effects,or the prosocial outcomes of involve-ment with media and technology. Herresearch has recently appeared inJournal ofMedia & Electronic Broad-casting; Health Communication; andHoward Journal of Communications.She recently served as an editorialassistant with Media Psychology.

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