[CITASA] seeking suggestions about research methodology for online forums

[Tim Hale]

Hi everyone,

I am working with others on a project that will examine health communication among members of an online community who post to an online forum. We have three primary goals: (1) to conduct a content analysis to understand the types of health information that is communicated; (2) identify the context of the discussions, including understanding the characteristics of the individuals who initiate and disseminate health information; and (3) to conduct a social network analysis to examine the larger structures of health information sharing among community members.

Although this type of research could be conducted by manually collecting posts from the online forum, coding for content, and the creation of a data set for social network analysis -- we are interested in other approaches that make better use of the forum database files. We have the cooperation of the website owner and administrator to access the MySQL database.

I am seeking advice from anyone with experience working on similar research questions involving online forums and especially, making use of the original forum database files. All recommendations, suggestions, and pointers to articles, books, and appropriate tools are welcome and greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Tim Hale

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Timothy M. Hale, MA
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Department of Sociology
Heritage Hall 460E
1401 University Boulevard
Birmingham, AL 35294-1152
205.222.8108 (cell)
timhale at uab.edu