What is IS Research Methodologies

This chapter aims to improve the rigor and legitimacy of Web-traffic measurement as a social research method. I compare two dominant forms of Web-traffic measurement and discuss the implicit and largely unexamined ontological and epistemological claims of both methods. Like all research methods, Webtraffic measurement has implicit ontological and epistemological assumptions embedded within it. An ontology determines what a researcher is able to discover, irrespective of method, because it provides a frame within which phenomena can be rendered intelligible. I argue that Web-traffic measurement employs an ostensibly quantitative, positivistic ontology and epistemology in hopes of cementing the “scientific” legitimacy they engender. But these claims to “scientific” method are unsubstantiated, thereby limiting the efficacy and adoption rates of log-file analysis in general. I offer recommendations for improving these measurement tools, including more reflexivity and an explicit rejection of truth claims based on positivistic science.