The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) is a learned society dedicated to the advancement of the transdisciplinary field of Internet studies. Founded in 1999, it is an international, member-based support network promoting critical and scholarly Internet research, independent from traditional disciplines and existing across academic borders.
AoIR was formally founded on May 30, 1999, at a meeting of nearly sixty scholars at the San Francisco Hilton and Towers, following initial discussions at a 1998 conference at Drake University entitled "The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory: Metaphor, Magic & Power".[1] The inaugural conference was organised by Nancy Baym, Jeremy Hunsinger and Steve Jones at the University of Kansas in 2000, and attracted 300 scholars.[2] As the Chronicle of Higher Education noted, its rapid growth during the first few years of its existence marked the coming of age of Internet studies.[3] It has continued to grow, with a membership of approximately 400 scholars. It supports AIR-L, a mailing list with over 5,000 subscribers.
AoIR holds an annual academic conference, as well as promoting online discussion and collaboration through a long-running mailing list. It also hosts a Mastodon instance, AoIR.social.
The Association supports scholarly communication in a number of ways:
| # | Name | Term |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Steve Jones | 1999–2003 |
| 2 | Nancy Baym | 2003–2005 |
| 3 | Matthew Allen | 2005–2007 |
| 4 | Charles Ess | 2007–2009 |
| 5 | Mia Consalvo | 2009–2011 |
| 6 | Alexander Halavais | 2011–2013 |
| 7 | Lori Kendall | 2013–2015 |
| 8 | Jennifer Stromer-Galley | 2015–2017 |
| 9 | Axel Bruns | 2017–2019 |
| 10 | Lynn Schofield Clark | 2019–2021 |
| 11 | Tama Leaver | 2021–2023 |
| 12 | Nicholas John | 2023–2025 |