Estudar o fenómeno enquanto ele decorre

«While the uses and effects of many major communication technologies (such as the pen, telegraph, telephone, photocopier, memo), have been studied retrospectively, if at all, the recent rapid growth of the Internet affords communication researchers a unique opportunity to describe, assess, predict and evaluate short-term changes as well as long-term developments. If the current speculation and research seem to indicate diverse, contradictory and simultaneous consequences, at several levels of analysis, this may be because that is fundamentally the nature of social change. » (Rice, 2006: 108)