Researching Religion on the WWW: Identifying an Object of Study for Hinduism

As a result of the increasing importance of the Internet, it is imperative that social researchers subject online phenomena to investigation and analysis. However, online methodology is largely in its infancy which means that researchers are, as yet, ill-equipped to approach this important task. In this article – focusing upon researching religion online – I outline problems regarding researching the WWW and put forward one way of identifying an object of study which can then be subjected to further analysis. Hinduism on the WWW is used as an example, and the discussion of my methodological approach applied to this area demonstrates that the identification of the object of study is actually bound up with the processes that occur online. This means that details of the area under investigation are revealed and that preliminary analysis of the situation can occur at the same time that the object of study is being identified. After this demonstration I challenge the claim that because the WWW is constantly changing, online research can only constitute a snapshot in time, and conclude the article with a plea to other researchers to share their methodological approaches to researching online phenomena in order that effective online research methods will be able to be developed.