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Chapter contents. Majid Yar. Introduction
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CHAPTER CONTENTS
· Introduction 414
· Doing an Online Literature Review 415
· Finding Criminological Data Online 416
· Analysing Web-based Content 417
· Reaching Research Participants Online 420
¡ Doing interviews online 421
¡ Doing criminological surveys online 423
¡ Doing criminological ethnography online 424
· Summary and Review 427
· Study Questions for Students 428
· Suggestions for Further Reading 428
· References 428
GLOSSARY TERMS
ethnography secondary data content analysis purposive sampling participant observation
non-participant observation snowball or chain-referral
sampling
virtual ethnography
DOING CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH ONLINE
MajId Yar
INTRODUCTION
The rapid emergence and global expansion of the internet has had a significant impact on how researchers, including criminologists, go about investigating the social world. The importance of the internet in this regard is centred on three main dimensions. First, there is the number of people who now have access to the web – what media analysts call the ‘penetration rate’, denoting the proportion of the total global population who are active online. According to recent estimates, the number of internet users now stands at 3. 3 billion, comprising some 46. 4% of the global population (IWS, 2015). Second, there is the sheer weight of content available via the internet; there are now an estimated one billion distinctive websites in existence (Internet Live Stats, 2016), playing host to unprecedented amounts of content in the form of text, image and sound. Third, there is the range of internet-based activities in which users engage – spanning, for example, business transactions, socialization, community building, political engagement, education, social care and support, lei- sure and consumption, and the delivery of public services. Across this range of practices, we find those that are sometimes illegal and illicit, breaching as they do established laws and norms that regulate social behaviour. As a consequence, the internet presents researchers with many opportunities both to explore crime and justice issues more effectively, and to study a variety of criminal and deviant behav- iours that now take place within this electronically mediated environment.
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If we think about ‘doing criminological research online’, it becomes apparent that
this phrase can have a number of distinct, if inevitably interconnected, meanings.
First, the internet presents us with numerous resources and avenues for researching a wide range of familiar crime-related issues, such as patterns of offending and victimiza- tion; practices of policing and law enforcement; public attitudes, beliefs and knowledge about crime and justice issues; and popular representations of crime and punishment, to name but some. All of these can be explored by using a range of established research methods (such as literature reviews, survey questionnaires, observation, ethnography and content analysis), appropriately adapted to the structures of the online realm. A number of these will be overviewed in this chapter, including reflections on the opportunities and challenges that they present.
A second sense of ‘doing criminological research online’ relates to the opportunity presented to criminologists for researching criminal behaviours that occur within and are facilitated by the internet itself – these can include a range of (now familiar) ‘cybercrime’ issues, such as hacking, e-frauds and cons, stalking and harassment, media piracy, and the distribution of obscene and hateful content. The internet offers researchers the chance to observe and study such behaviours in their ‘natural envi- ronment’ as it were, alongside the experiences and reactions of victims as well as the wider community of online users. Once again, these opportunities need to be bal- anced against a range of practical and ethical challenges that confront us as we seek to ‘do criminological research’ in, on and through the internet.
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