Frederick Williams is Mary Gibbs Jones Centennial Professor at the Center for Research on Communication, Technology & Society of the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of The New Communications, among other books.

The "new media" -- interactive videodiscs, telecommunications, computers, VCRs, teletext systems, and more -- present researchers with new challenges when it comes to studying practical applications or theoretical effects. This valuable volume aids researchers in first recognizing the special qualities of interactivity, demassification, and asynchroneity that the new media have created and to instruct professional researchers and students in alternative research methods, multiple methods, and the triangulation of results. For the first time, a variety of methods are examined as they apply to new media research, including mathematical modeling, controlled experiments, quasiexperiments, surveys, longitudinal studies, field studies, archival and secondary research, futures research and forecasting, content analysis, case studies, and focus groups.

Whether the problem to be researched is as focused as considering the cost-benefit for a school wishing to adopt computers in the classroom or as wide-ranging as determining the effects of video games on child socialization, this up-to-date and thorough guide alerts researchers to the pitfalls of traditional methodology and offers a firm foundation upon which they can build reliable, accurate projects able to produce sound results.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: PERSPECTIVES ON RESEARCH AND THE NEW MEDIA

1. DISTINCTIONS IN THE STUDY OF NEW MEDIA

2. TRENDS IN THE STUDY OF NEW MEDIA

3. CHOOSING AMONG ALTERNATIVE RESEARCH DESIGNS

PART II: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS FOR RESEARCH

4. VALIDITY, RELIABILITY AND SAMPLING

5. ADOPTION OF NEW MEDIA

6. USING COMPUTER-MONITORED DATA

7. STRATEGIES FOR STUDYING CASES

8. IMPLEMENTING FORMATIVE EVALUATION

9. EVALUATING COSTS AND BENEFITS

10. MEASURING PRODUCTIVITY

PART III: NEW CONSIDERATIONS

11. NEW THEORETICAL APPROACHES

12. ISSUES OF ETHICS AND IDEOLOGY

REFERENCES