The discourse of the internet and world wide web: examples from three Australian groups

Julie Lee and Mari Davis
m.davis@unsw.edu.au

The study examined the way in which three specific groups of people - journalists, students, and workers in telecommunications - speak about the Internet and the World Wide Web (I/WWW). Two forms of data were gathered. The first involved a content analysis of the actual words used by journalists in their articles published during a three-month period in 1998 in the 'Computers' sections of The Australian. The second data set came from written responses to self-administered questionnaires from two different groups, students studying in an information management course, and workers in a telecommunications technology firm. This three-part approach to data gathering allowed for different views to be gathered on the same subject matter. The method also provided a degree of validation of the findings. Contrary to findings of earlier literature on the I/WWW, this study found that in 1998 Australians applied factual language or terms to descriptions of the I/WWW.