The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) is a learned society dedicated to the advancement of the transdisciplinary field of Internet studies. Founded in 1999, it is an international, member-based support network promoting critical and scholarly Internet research, independent from traditional disciplines and existing across academic borders. AoIR was formally founded on May 30, 1999, at a meeting of nearly sixty scholars at the San Francisco Hilton and Towers, following initial discussions at a 1998 conference at Drake University entitled "The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory: Metaphor, Magic & Power". The inaugural conference was organised by Nancy Baym, Jeremy Hunsinger and Steve Jones at the University of Kansas in 2000, and attracted 300 scholars. As the Chronicle of Higher Education noted, its rapid growth during the first few years of its existence marked the coming of age of Internet studies. It has continued to grow, with a membership of approximately 400 scholars. It supports AIR-L, a mailing list with over 5,000 subscribers. AoIR holds an annual academic conference, as well as promoting online discussion and collaboration through a long-running mailing list. It also hosts a Mastodon instance, AoIR.social.

Activities

The Association supports scholarly communication in a number of ways:

Conferences

Presidents