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Nicole Ellison, Book Reviews, Journal of Communication, Volume 57, Issue 2, June 2007, Pages 408–409, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00349_2.x
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Andrea J. Baker’s (2005) book, Double Click: Romance and Commitment Among Online Couples, explores the phenomenon of couples who meet online and then move their relationship offline. Although scholars working within the tradition of quantitative social science methods will find some methodological and theoretical limitations to the study, those who appreciate a data-driven approach and rich, expressive qualitative data will find much here to celebrate.
Data for the project come from a lengthy e-mail questionnaire, supplemented by an unreported number of phone interviews, and eight in-person meetings. Baker’s 89 couples were recruited through a variety of means including online conferences, online dating services, referrals, and “real-life” encounters with Baker. Chapter 1 describes the study, its method and participants. Chapter 2 reviews the literature on online relationships in a fairly succinct manner, focusing primarily on the fields of communication, sociology (Baker’s home discipline), and psychology. It also introduces a tentative model, which describes the factors associated with successful and unsuccessful online relationships. Chapters 3 through 6 divide Baker’s rich data into sections focusing on how the couples met, where they met, the couple’s communication processes, and their first face-to-face meeting (or “meat” as Baker refers to it). Chapter 6, “How the couples met in real life” will be of particular interest to computer-mediated communication (CMC) scholars, as it describes steps leading up to the meat, such as sharing (or not sharing) photographs and the circumstances surrounding the first actual offline interaction. Following this, Baker presents select in-depth cases exemplifying successful and unsuccessful relationships. The final chapter summarizes these factors, offers suggestions for future research, and describes the sample in more detail.
