Methods and Approaches to Using Web Archives in Computational Communication Research

ABSTRACT

This article examines the role of web archives as a critical source of data for conducting computational communication research. Web archives are large-scale databases containing comprehensive records of websites showing how those websites have evolved over time. Recent communication scholarship using web archives is reviewed, demonstrating the breadth of research conducted in this space. Subsequently, a methodological framework is proposed for using web archives in computational communication research. As a source of data, web archives present a number of methodological challenges, particularly with regards to the accuracy and completeness of web archives. These problems are addressed in order to better inform future work in this area. The closing sections outline a forward-looking trajectory for computational communication research using web archives.

Notes

^1. It is worth noting that Twitter archives are not explicitly web archives. The distinction is somewhat fine grained, and the use of archived Twitter data is quite common, therefore a number of Twitter examples are included in this article. For a discussion of the limitations of these data, see Driscoll and Walker (2014).

^2. http://archive.org/web/researcher/ArcFileFormat.php.

^3. https://www.iso.org/standard/44717.html.

^4. https://www.archive-it.org/organizations/529?sort=f_sort_title.desc&show=Sites&fc=meta_Subject%3AEmergency+planning.

^5. https://archive-it.org/explore?q=superstorm+sandy&show=Sites&fc=organizationName%3AVirginia+Tech%3A+Crisis%2C+Tragedy%2C+and+Recovery+Network.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (Award #1244727).