ABSTRACT
THOSE who are interested in conducting research on the uses and effects of the World Wide Web may believe that, because searches of electronic data bases and recent communication journal articles produce few studies with “World Wide Web” or “Internet” in their titles or abstracts, research in this area must start from scratch. To the contrary, the literature on hypermedia uses and effects, in conjunction with research on the uses and effects of other media, can offer useful starting points for research on the World Wide Web. This article focuses on the theories and empirical studies that make up the hypermedia literature because
they are less familiar and less readily available to communication researchers. However, it also addresses some points of intersection between the hypermedia and communication literature that can guide future World Wide Web research in the field of communication. We hope that this article will encourage the application of hypermedia theory and research to the study of the uses and effects of the Web among communication scholars.
