'House of knowledge' by Jaume Plensa in Borås, Sweden. Photograph by Adrien Sifre/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nc-nd)
More and more of social life is now happening online. While interactions in cyberspace are often called virtual reality, real people with real problems have increasingly moved online in order to seek information and advice in relation to any number of urgent issues. This has in turn created new methodological challenges for researchers. Herbert Blumer, the prominent Chicago sociologist, wrote decades before the internet, but his approach is as valid as ever: “Respect the nature of the empirical world and organise a methodological stance to reflect that respect”.
In my own research of surrogacy I observed women’s discussions and debates on www.surromomsonline.com (SMO) and took my methodological cues from the nature of this online support group. SMO has been the main public online forum for advice and information about surrogacy-related medical, legal, and emotional issues since 1997. Operated and moderated by current and former surrogates, SMO facilitates discussions and information sharing among surrogates and also intended parents; its classified forum helps parties match independently, without intermediaries.
