The reader-browser and the academic reasearch on the Internet

Abstract

In Western cultures based on logic woven networks on the Internet, we are witnessing a gradual transformation with respect to support, the technique of writing and new opportunities of receiving, appropriating and interacting with digital textuality, which has contributed to a gradual introduction of new ways to read and be reader-browser. This article aims to share the main findings and reflections arising from the research titled Academic research on the Internet: reading and modes of appropriation of digital informational content, research conducted in 2010 at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), integrated Education Research Group, Speech and Media. This research aimed to identify and analyze some central modes of interaction, reading-browsing and appropriation of information produced by a group of students belonging to the Pedagogy Course, based on their practices as readers-browsers to conduct an academic research into digital networks. The research used as methodology design, a qualitative research, as instruments of data collection the questionnaire, observation and interview undertaken with a purposive sample of 10 university students, producing a body of knowledge on some practices of reading-browsing and search developed. Data collected and treated in the research confirm that we are living a moment of paradigm transition in contemporary, permeated by advances and setbacks coexistences in reading practices and ways of being a reader. Accordingly, the students investigated demonstrated a remarkable ability in ways to read and construct meanings from the uses of textuality read on the net, but at the same time, reproduced standards, conventions and values used in printed textuality. This study reinforces the idea that, depending on the context of the reading event (immersed in concrete cultural practices) and the characteristics of the object read (incorporating the technique of textual production, structures and forms of supporters), the reader-browser uses different reading strategies that are alternated and adapted according to his experiences, prior knowledge, needs and interests. A complex approach and extended relates reader, reading and text seems to spring from the dynamics of this process.