Hi all,
My PhD is focused on examining the ability of local political online
forums to support different types of political participation and
deliberation – the methodological tool I am using in this process is
analytic induction. As there was no database(s) of local political
online fora from which I could draw a sample from, I decided to
devise my own. Using the Google search engine and the following five
search phrases I developed my sample. Forums were chosen on the
basis of the criteria table I have attached within the files
section.

1. Online political discussion forum
2. Local politics discussion forum
3. Community online discussion forum
4. Local government council online forum
5. Local politics message board

The internet as a whole was focused on not geographically specific
areas. Google's most relevant search result pages (not including
omitted results) were examined in total i.e. all pages and forums
which appeared in the search result pages were examined and
selected if they fell within the criteria –a total of 3393 forums
were examined, which produced a sample of 148. It is acknowledged
that this sampling strategy has an under representation of sites
with few links to them. The link to my sample can be found here:
http://del.icio.us/kerilldunne