ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the methodological challenges of approaching the Internet as a site of study about the authority of Buddhist related narratives and how to handle the data that is in flux. The narratives under investigation were found on two different and oppositional networks of websites: one network of sites that support the Tibet Movement and a network of websites from the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) that promotes the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) government propaganda about Tibet and Tibetan refugees. The two methods used to place these narratives in their technical contexts are hyperlink network analysis (HNA) and narrative analysis. HNA is a quantitative method that consists of mapping hyperlink connections between sites, thinking of hyperlinks as social connections, and making sense of these relationships. The URLs to develop the PRC propaganda issue network derived from URL lists from two web-sites: China Tibet Online and Peoples Dailys China Tibet Online.
