Keeping up with developments in digital technologies and their regulation is exhausting.
Whenever a technology becomes mainstream (looking at you, ChatGPT, but also looking at blockchain in the rear mirror, and web 2.0 slightly behind… etc) there is a (seemingly) steep learning curve for researchers interested in regulation to climb — sometimes to find little novelty in the regulatory challenges they pose.
It recently seems like those curves are coming closer and closer together, whichever route one takes to exploring tech regulation.
Yet, it is not only that debates and regulatory interventions shift rather quickly, but also that these are issues of such social importance that the (academic) literature around them has exploded. Any automated search will trigger daily alerts to new pieces of scholarship and analysis (of mixed quality and relevance). Not to mention news items, policy reports, etc. Sifting through them beyond a cursory look at the abstracts is a job in itself …
These elements of ‘moving tech targets’ and ‘exponentially available analysis’ make researching these areas rather challenging. And sometimes I wonder if it is even possible to do it (well).
Perhaps I am just a bit overwhelmed.
I am in the process of finalising the explanation of the methodology I have used for my monograph on procurement and digital technologies—as it is clear that I cannot simply get away with stating that it is a ‘technology-centred interdisciplinary legal method’ (which it is, though).
Chatting to colleagues about it (and with the UK’s REF-fuelled obsession for ‘4* rigour’ in the background), the question keeps coming up about how does one make sure to cover the relevant field, how is anyone’s choice of sources not *ahem* capricious or random? In other words, the question keeps coming up: how do you make sure you have not missed anything important? (I’ll try to sleep tonight, cheers!).
I am not sure I have a persuasive, good answer. I am also not sure that ‘comprehensiveness’ is a reasonable expectation of a well done literature review or piece of academic analysis (any more). If it is, barring automated and highly formalised approaches to ‘scoping the field’, I fear we may quickly presume there is no possible method in the madness. But that does not sit right with me. And I also do not think it is a case of throwing the ‘qualitative research’ label as defence, as it means something different (and rigorous).
The challenge of expressing (and implementing) a defensible legal method in the face of such ‘moving tech targets’ and ‘exponentially available analysis’ is not minor.
And, on the other side of the coin, there is a lurking worry that whichever output results from this research will be lost in such ocean of (electronic) academic papers and books —for, if everyone is struggling to sift through the materials and has ever growing (Russian-doll-style) ‘to read’ folders as I do, will eyes ever be set on the research?
Perhaps method does not matter that much after all? (Not comforting, I know!).
Rant over.