According to the preface, “this book aims to provide students, researchers, and practitioners with the theory and methods for understanding the web as a socially constructed phenomenon that both reflects social, economic, and political processes and, in turn, impact on these processes.” This is a fair description of both the intended audience and the content. The book is not exclusively of interest to social scientists. The author successfully brings together a very comprehensive volume that illuminates fundamental concepts, theories, and views related to the web, chiefly understood from the social science point of view. However, both the content and the way it is presented are very informative for other scientists and interested individuals.

The content of the book is split into two parts, plus an introductory chapter. The introduction provides an overview of web social science, its context, and themes that are to be elaborated in the rest of the book.

The first major part tackles essential web social science methods: online research methods, social media network analysis, and the analysis of hyperlink networks. In chapter 2, the following online research methods are presented and discussed: online surveys, online interviews, web content analysis, social media network analysis, online experiments, and online field research. In chapter 3, “Social Media Networks,” social networks and their analysis are presented, and then social media networks and subsequently information networks and communication networks are addressed. A special chapter is devoted to hyperlink networks (chapter 4). The author identifies three disciplinary perspectives on them: citation, issue, and social hyperlink networks.

Part 2 is devoted to examples illustrating the advancement of social science, thanks to research using data from the web. It also discusses the contribution of empirical social science to the understanding of the social, economic, and political impacts of the Internet. Chapter 5 deals with friendship formation and social influence. Specifically, homophily in friendship formation is discussed. Chapter 6, “Organizational Collective Behavior,” begins by providing background on collective behavior on the web. It also discusses networked social movements. The remaining chapters--“Politics and Participation,” “Government and Public Policy,” “Production and Collaboration,” and “Commerce and Marketing”--each tackle examples of important issues in web social science to be researched and discussed.

The book is written in a very readable style. The author has developed or adopted a rather rigid scheme. Each chapter begins with an outline of what follows, and the book’s chapter conclusions are generally just repeated outlines of each chapter’s content. There is seldom any value added.

The book is based heavily on research conducted by the author. This view is endorsed not so much by the number (eight) of research works authored by Ackland and listed in the references, but much more by their extensive (self-)citations throughout the book.

All in all, the book is an important contribution to web research. Implicitly, it endorses the view that the web is a phenomenon of such importance that it requires comprehensive study. Explicitly, it links the advancement of social science with the web.

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