ABSTRACT
It may seem strange to readers of a book devoted to historical and criticalresearch methods in electronic media to find a chapter focusing on quantitative methodology. Indeed, some contemporary historical scholars hold the basic assumptions of social scientific research in such contempt that young readers of this book may have been influenced already, and hence developed either a well-acknowledged bias or unintentional skepticism toward the principles of so-called empiricism or logical positivism as many social scientists have developed toward historiography. Recognizing that this might well be the case, we would ask the reader to suspend immediate judgment on any particular methodology and consider the contributions of this chapter with an open mind.
