Ignition Points: Sampling and Timelining in the Digital Age

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Revisiting Approaches to Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis

Abstract

Researchers have drawn heavily on the Internet as a tool to collect data since at least the mid-1990’s, but much of the methods literature surrounding research on the Internet focuses on using the Internet as a tool for other modes of inquiry. In the qualitative community, relatively little attention has been paid to using the Internet as a site for data collection. In this paper, I describe a new method for sampling the wealth of qualitative data on the Internet, and for creating dynamic timelines which allow researchers to work backwards from any point of entry to find a dialog’s “ignition point.”

Author

• Andrew LaFave, University of Southern California