Mitchell, Charles L., Do Something! The Active-Passive Transformation Internet Causes in Political Reasoning (July 24, 2016). Prepared for presentation at the 24th World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Poznań, Poland, July 24, 2016. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2815982

“The motivating effect of Internet on politicians and social scientists has been presented in this paper. When the browser was introduced in 1994 and HTML language begun to produce sophisticated Internet content, an incredible about of motivational developments occurred. People who would not otherwise become involved with politics became opinion leaders. Social scientists reacted to the phenomenon that was happening with a substantial amount of research activity.  Various explanations have been made for the effect of Internet on political activism. The e-Government people claim that there is a natural motivation for people to interest in improved involvement with devising public policy and with deliberating political outcomes. Cognitive psychology contends that Internet has substantial motivating influence because of cognitive reasons. The identity formation model explains that Internet is useful to people because the media is effect at assisting them in defining eight different types of personal and situational identities. Social science has had no difficulty in gaining Internet data. Quantitative data from Internet was from the 1990’s was impressed with the sizable web access logs that were produced by Internet accessors. Statistical analysis programs enabled complex analysis of the data found in web access logs. Online surveys were another source of quantitative data from Internet. Those who thought qualitative data productive found no lack of data possibilities. Narrative analysis of soap operas and social networking start pages exemplified data ideas allowed by qualitative methods. Purposive sampling of images enabled contrasting phenomenon such as the 2012 and 2016 U.S. elections. Research conclusions from these data techniques were substantially influenced by the researcher’s choice of theoretical perspective and unit of analysis. An attractiveness of Internet research has been the many possibilities in theoretical perspective. Global networking, technological innovation, urban myth analysis, generativity, media influence, conflict analysis, social rationalism, and changing realities all are examples of theoretical perspectives possible in Internet analysis. Unit of analysis concerns further define Internet research. Large data sets, photographs, conversation among a group of people, text messaging back and forth, and the sociometric in a social networking group interaction all qualify as units of analysis. The result of this significant interest in the influence of Internet has been constructive for social science. The importance of the social creation of knowledge, repudiating claims for validity in research, and always being reflexive have been realized as important in accomplishing more productive qualitative research. Internet data has been a positive gain for social science because the almost limitless possibilities in data techniques have given the research excellent opportunities to develop and exemplify some of the important qualitative methods concepts. That qualitative methods have gained substantially in the years since 1994 when the browser was introduced is probably no coincidence. Now, there are still many possibilities for Internet qualitative research not yet tried by researchers.”