CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Frenette, M. (2003). Explorations in students’ sense-making of the Internet. In A. Schorr, W. Campbell & M. Schenk (Eds.), Communication research and media science in Europe: Perspective for research and academic training in Europe’s changing media reality (pp. 361-385). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
© Mouton de Gruyter (2003).

ABSTRACT:
This chapter presents an exploratory study that focused on the relevance of Sense-Making Methodology for understanding how university students integrate the Internet into their lives and in what ways their cognitive, emotional, and social experiences may be altered through their Internet practice. Sense-Making Methodology assumes that humans only use information resources in the context of their own personal trajectories—where they have come from, what they are struggling with, and where they are going. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 25 about their thoughts and practices with regard to the multiple aspects of the Internet. Their responses were analyzed using the core metaphor of the Sense-Making Methodology—the idea that the person’s progress through time-space involves step-takings across gaps and building bridges (cognitive, emotional, spiritual, physical) from past to future. In the context of Internet use, the kinds of gap-facing and gap-bridging emphasized are the asking of questions (implicitly or explicitly), the searching for answers (purposively or capriciously), and the constructing of answers that work for each person. In closing, reflections are offered on the challenges and promises of studying the social significance of communication technologies in accordance with such a dialogic model of communication.

OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistfrenette.html.