Mass Automated Internet Analysis and Cyberspace Transparency

One of the roles of media research is to explain social phenomena. The Internet became a place where society expresses itself and where society could be influenced or even manipulated. Therefore, online communication analysis becomes a tool that is expected to guarantee the transparency of the social communication process. Unfortunately, the size of the Internet makes analysis difficult, and traditional methods of analysing communication are not always enough or force the researcher to focus on a fragmentary data. The author asks a question which research methods are suitable for Internet research and allow to improve transparency. It focuses on the method group referred to in the article as Mass Automated Internet Analysis. In the final part, the author shows examples of several – existing or being developed – research methods and techniques (including data collection and data analysis field), what research methods can improve the quality of digital communications research.