4. Discussion and conclusions
If communication research is a relatively young
field, there are important reasons to think that it is
necessary to incorporate advanced methods and tools
to reconfigure the discipline and even aspire to propose
new objects of study. The results of this exploratory
study, that is delimited to the Ibero-American region,
demonstrates that there is a strong disposition among
academics towards e-Research, a trend that seems to
have extended to all of the social sciences. In the study
conducted by Dutton and Meyer (2008), social researchers
from the United Kingdom show a positive attitude
towards e-Research and more than half of them
(58.7%) believe that many of the new questions in
research will require new tools, a point of view that is
shared by academics in the Ibero-American region.
This demonstrates, for example, that communication
research continues to be a field that is highly dependent
on general research in social sciences, as affirmed
by Jensen y Jakowsky (1993) when they referred to
qualitative methodologies. On the other hand, similar
to what is occurring in other social disciplines,
Communication Studies is a field that is very suited to
the implementation of advanced digital technologies.