Association of Internet Researchers

Founded in 1999, the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) is an learned society dedicated to the advancement of the transdisciplinary field of Internet studies. It is an international, member-based support network promoting critical and scholarly Internet research, independent from traditional disciplines and existing across academic borders.

AoIR was formally founded on May 30, 1999, at a meeting of nearly sixty scholars at the San Francisco Hilton and Towers, following initial discussions at a 1998 conference at Drake University entitled "The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory: Metaphor, Magic & Power." ^[1] As the Chronicle of Higher Education noted, its rapid growth during the first few years of its existence marked the coming of age of Internet studies.^[2] It has continued to grow, with a membership of approximately 400 scholars. It supports AIR-L, a mailing list with over 2,000 subscribers.

AoIR holds an annual academic conference, as well as promoting online discussion and collaboration through a long-running mailing list, and other venues. The 2011 conference was held in Seattle.^[3]

Activities

The Association supports scholarly communication in the following ways:

• It organizes an annual, peer-reviewed scholarly conference, which accepts paper and presentation submissions from all disciplines.
• It hosts AIR-L, a free, open-access mailing list with over 2000 subscribers.
• It has published with Peter Lang four editions of the Internet Research Annual.
• It hosts working groups, who produce reports of interest to researches in the field, most notably the AoIR Guide on Ethical Online Research.
• It co-sponsors an annual issue of the journal Information, Communication and Society consisting of top papers from the annual conference.

Past presidents

References

External links

• AoIR Web Site
• Air-L, the AoIR listserv
• Ethical decision-making and Internet research: Recommendations from the AoIR ethics working committee