Web archiving

Abstract: This article discusses the method of web archiving in qualitative social media research. While presenting a number of methodological challenges, social media archives (i.e., complete recordings of posts and comments on given social media) are also highly useful data corpuses for studying the social media users' communicative practices. Through a theoretical examination of web archiving as a new method enabled by the web itself, and an example-based discussion of the methodological, technical, and ethical challenges of harvesting social media archives, the article discusses the merits and limitations of using social media archives in empirical social media research.

Abstract: In this report, we summarize the state of the art of web archiving in relationship to researchers and research needs. This is a different focus than much of the earlier work in this area, including the JISC PoWR report which focused on institutional strategies for archiving web resources (JISC, 2008). It is important to note that this report focuses on the uses and needs of individual researchers. Research groups are also important, as some of the challenges that face individual researchers can quickly spiral into deeply complex tangles when dealing with collaboratories. For instance, national selection policies and national copyright rules can stand in the way of international projects, even if there are sound academic reasons to pursue international collaboration. While these issues are addressed here when appropriate, the bulk of the report focuses on individual researchers and institutions.

Abstract: This article discusses some of the fundamental methodological challenges related to doing historical network analyses of the web based on material in web archives. Since the late 1990s many countries have established extensive national web archives, and software supported network analysis of the online web has for a number of years gained currency within Internet studies. However, the combination of these two phenomena-historical network analysis of material in web archives-can at best be characterized as an emerging new area of study. Most of the methodological challenges within this new area revolve around the specific nature of archived web material. On the basis of an introduction to the processes involved in web archiving as well as of the characteristics of archived web material, the article outlines and scrutinizes some of the major challenges which may arise when doing network analysis in web archives, among others such issues as completeness, construction of a corpus, temporal and spatial inconsistencies, and cross-archive analyses. The article uses an ongoing case study to feed the methodological discussion, namely the political network on the web which was available to a voter at the Danish parliamentary elections in 2011, 2007, and 2001. As the Internet grows older historical studies of networks on the web will probably become more widespread and therefore it may be about time to begin debating the methodological challenges within this emerging field.