2Is the Web a Semiodiscursive Object?
Christine BARATS1 and Julia BONACCORSI2
1 CERLIS, Université Paris Descartes, France
2 ELICO, Université Lumière Lyon 2, France
2.1. Introduction
Data from the Web1 are at the center of many research works in the humanities and social sciences (HSS), and in particular in communication studies. The many different perspectives and issues addressed attest to the diversity of different methods and approaches, as well as the types of data put to use. However, the “websites”2 are at the core of many social practices, but they are not an object in themselves. Thus, in various ways, content from the Web appears to constitute a gateway into analyzing communication processes in most social fields, at the risk of erasing the media-related and mediatizing nature of the research data gathered. Precisely, the apparent simplicity of pre-existing “content” is opposed by a laborious work of selection and characterization of what will constitute the “data” of the survey, in connection with the objectives of the research. This task, while bolstered by the many publications on the production of the body of materials used (in discourse analysis) and the collection of sources (e.g. in the field of analysis of press speeches), is beset by difficulties in the case of computerized media. This is one of the difficulties faced by the institutions tasked with indexing and preserving the Web3, as well as the researchers in this field. Indeed, it must be noted that ...