INTERNET: THE WIND OF CHANGE IN RESEARCH ARENA

Abstract

Internet and Research cannot be discussed in isolation in this ‘The Information Age’, where internet is considered as the backbone of ‘The Information Superhighway’. New media, particularly internet plays a profound
role and its impact towards Research is tremendous. However, the irony is that, the bombardment of unauthenticated information on internet has given an unconstructive research to the neophyte Research Scholars.
The interpersonal communication theorist like Baxter argues that, “No relationship exists unless the parties
sacrifice some individual autonomy however, too much connection paradoxically destroys the relationship
because individual’s identities become lost” (Baxter and Montgomery, 1988). The theory implies that the
unbridled dependency on internet has destroyed the quality relation between the Researcher-Guide and the
Researcher-Researcher, also the space of academic interaction seems to be diminishing. Is the internet proving
to be creating a better research environment or hampering the quality of research? Internet critics and writers
like Slevin(2000), Terry (2008), Jan Nederveen (2009), have come up with books on internet, but a collection
of their criticism, reviews or internet biographies which has no justification to this field. In order to justify
these discourses, this study looks into the in-depth analysis to the data drawn from the primary and secondary
sources, and carried out through exploratory research under triangulation method. Perhaps, to what extend and
how far the new technologies and tools of Newmedia, particularly the internet will take us has no guaranteed
but so far the internet is sweeping the world over with great impact.