Final Remarks

This chapter includes the final remarks about conducting digital social studies. It summarizes the book briefly and encourages to start own independent projects. This monograph has presented the variety of approaches and tools to conduct social research of and through the online world. It explained why the Internet ought to be the subject of sociological studies, and why even traditional social sciences projects ought to include elements of online research. It identified three trends that are strictly connected with the development of communication technology and networks (online transformation of interpersonal relations, crisis of expert knowledge, and the sharing economy). It indicated their importance in many areas, and the need for deep and recurring social science analyses due to the high changeability of the phenomena. It then described the main quantitative approaches, focusing on those that do not require long-term specialist training. It highlighted those qualitative methods that may be used to interpret quantitative research and be a starting point for qualitative analysis. It outlined the possibilities of doing online cultural studies—studying products of Internet culture as a valid method of doing social sciences. Finally, it outlined the ethical considerations that every author of a digital study ought to consider.