Graduate Journal of Social Science - call for papers

Call for Papers: Methodological approaches to the study of virtual environments and online social networks

The Graduate Journal of Social Science (GJSS) announces a Call for Papers and Book Reviews for a special issue dealing with methodological approaches to the study of virtual environments and online social networks. The journal encourages the submission of work by MSc/ MA/MS, MPhil, PhD students and junior academics from all geographic regions. All papers are submitted to a blind peer review process. The special issue is scheduled for December 2011.

Papers:
The proliferation of virtual worlds such as The Sims, Second Life, World of Warcraft and of online social networks such as blogs or social networking applications (Facebook, LinkedIn, Hi5) has been met with an enthusiastic interest from researchers across disciplines. Scholars in anthropology, communication and cultural studies, economics, education, psychology and sociology have become increasingly involved in the study of such environments, bringing along not only discipline-specific questions and theories, but also various methodological approaches.

This special issue aims at mapping some of the methodological approaches to the study of virtual environments, and welcomes both theoretical and empirical analyses that address them. The interest here is in what methods graduate researchers choose to use, the problems they face in trying to use them and the ways in which these methods are being adapted in relation to these virtual sites of study. Graduate students doing empirical work on virtual worlds and online social networks from all disciplines are strongly encouraged to submit papers dealing with the processes of choosing, applying and critically evaluating their methods.

for more information: http://gjss.org/index.php?/Methodological-approaches-to-the-study-of-virtual-environments-and-online-social-networks.html