The Internet Governance Lab is pleased to announce the release of “Researching Internet Governance: Methods, Frameworks, Futures”, edited by Lab Co-Directors Laura DeNardis, Derrick Cogburn, and Nanette S. Levinson, along with Fellow Francesca Musiani. The collection, out this month from MIT Press, will help scholars and students navigate the multiple ways of thinking and writing about Internet governance, as well as understanding different research methods that can be used.
Internet governance scholarship emerged as an interdisciplinary and global community whose subjects of research are broad and complex. It emerged not only as an area of academic inquiry but also as a real-world policy arena. Our new multidisciplinary book focuses on Internet governance research as its main topic, instead of analyzing Internet governance topics themselves. By looking at Internet Governance research as a research subject on its own, the book provides an overview of where the field is and where it may be going. It indicates contrasting theories, methods, and conceptual approaches underway.
“The rising stakes and visibility of Internet governance struggles create an important moment of opportunity to examine how to research such a technologically complex and socially distributed area.” Dr. Laura DeNardis, co-editor
The book is part of MIT Press’s Information Policy series, edited by Sandra Braman, Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Contributing authors approach the subject from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including fields as diverse as political science, communication, science and technology studies (STS), information security, computer science and law. Moreover, the book exemplifies multiple research methods used by Internet governance scholars, like text mining, interviews and discourse analysis. Chapters authors include Farzaneh Badiei, Davide Beraldo, Sandra Braman, Ronald J. Deibert, Dame Wendy Hall, Jeanette Hofmann, Eric Jardine, Rikke Frank Jørgensen, Aastha Madaan, Stefania Milan, Milton Mueller, Kieron O'Hara, Niels ten Oever, Rolf H. Weber.