Stories on the Internet: Challenges for Qualitative Research and the Example of Ethics

The Internet is a huge repository of personal stories and ethnographic data. Why, as qualitative researchers in the social sciences, have we been so slow off the mark in studying the global social database that is the Internet? Our procedural and ethical guidelines for web research are in their infancy. The topics that we write about and online sites we study often are narrow in scope and stale-dated by the time they are published. Speaking as a qualitative researcher, early-adopting Internet user, and online researcher currently studying the blogosphere, I outline some of the challenges that contribute to the gap between the potential and current state of qualitative cyber research, reflect on the example of research ethics, and share an example from my research on blogs.