3.1 Online Ethnography
Online ethnography has various names, such as virtual ethnography, cyber ethnography, netnography and digital ethnography. These names refer to a branch of approaches that draw on a classical method of anthropologists, that of ethnography. Today, ethnography is applied in various ways to the study of digital environments and phenomena. Indeed, Hallet and Barber have stated that "it is no longer imaginable to conduct ethnography without considering online spaces" (2014, 307). Online ethnography is a flexible method that can be adapted and reshaped according to diverse online environments. The key practices of online ethnography include making observations, collecting material and following items, objects and actors. This method aims at situational and contextual knowledge.Autoethnography, where researchers participate in the same activity they are observing, researching, and reflecting, can be integrated into research on digital and online environments. Digital autoethnography is applied to investigate the lived experiences, interactions, self-formation, and meaning-making in relationship with digital spaces, technologies, and participants.
Websites
Digital Ethnography Research Centre
A Research Pathfinder – Virtual Ethnography
- A pathfinder made by a doctoral student during her studies
- One can find here online and print resources, a list of key researchers, and other tips about the subject
Books and articles
Methodology and theory
Airoldi, Massimo (2018). Ethnography and the Digital Fields of Social Media. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 21:6, 661–673.
- An article about the differences between "‘contextual’ fields of bounded online communities and the fluid, ‘meta-fields’ resulting from the aggregation of scattered communicative contents based on their metadata".
Boellstroff Tom; Nardi, Bonnie; Pearce, Celie & Taylor, T.L. (2012). Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. Princeton University Press. (Helka)
Caliandro, Alessandro (2018). Digital Methods for Ethnography: Analytical Concepts for Ethnographers Exploring Social Media Environments. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 47:5, 551–578.
Dunn, T. R., & Myers, W. B. (2020). Contemporary Autoethnography Is Digital Autoethnography: A Proposal for Maintaining Methodological Relevance in Changing Times. Journal of Autoethnography (pp. 43–59). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2020.1.1.43
Geiger, R. Stuart & Ribes, David (2011). Trace ethnography: Following coordination through documentary practices. Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Hart, Tabitha (2017). Online Ethnography. In: Matthes, Jörg (2017). The international encyclopedia of communication research methods. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Haverinen, Anna (2015). Internet Ethnography: The Past, the Present and the Future. Social Networks, Communication and the Internet. Etnologia Fennica 42, 79–90.
Hine, Christine (2000). Virtual Ethnography. SAGE Publications Ltd. (Helka)
Hine, Christine (2015). Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. (Helka)
Isomäki, Hannakaisa & Silvennoinen, Johanna (2013). Online Ethnographies. In: Isaias, Pedro & Nunes, Miguel (eds.). Information Systems Research and Exploring Social Artifacts: Approaches and Methodologies. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Kozinets, Robert (2019). Netnography: The Essential Guide to Qualitative Social Media Research. SAGE Publication Ltd. (third edition).
Kennedy, Ü. (2021). Arriving on YouTube: Vlogs, Automedia and Autoethnography, Life Writing, 18:4 (pp. 563-578), DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2021.1927485
Luhtakallio, E., & Meriluoto, T. (2022). Snap-along ethnography: Studying visual politicization in the social media age. Ethnography, 0(0).
Pink, S., Fors, V., & Berg, M. (2017). Sensory, digital and visual methodologies. In Routledge handbook of physical cultural studies (pp. 528-536). Routledge.
Pink, Sarah (2013). Doing Visual Ethnography. SAGE Publications Ltd. (Helka)
- The third edition includes a chapter on web-based practices for visual ethnography.
Pink, Sarah; Horst, Heather; Postill, John; Hjort, Larissa; Lewis, Tania & Tachhi, Jo (2015). Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices. SAGE Publications Ltd. (Helka)
Risi, E., & Pronzato, R. (2022). Back to Practices and Narratives: Auto-Ethnography as a Practice of Access to Data and Algorithms. In Handbook of Research on Advanced Research Methodologies for a Digital Society (pp. 265-279). IGI Global.
Skågeby, Jörgen (2011). Online ethnographic methods: Towards a qualitative understanding of virtual community practices. In: Daniel, Ben Kai (eds.). Handbook of Research on Methods and Techniques for Studying Virtual Communities: Paradigms and Phenomena. Hershey: IGI Global, 410–428.
Sumiala, Johanna & Tikka, Minttu (2020). Digital Ethnographers on the Move: An Unexpected Proposal. Journal of Digital Social Research.
Sumiala, Johanna; Tikka, Minttu; Huhtamäki, Jukka & Valaskivi, Katja (2016). #JeSuisCharlie: Towards a Multi-Method Study of Hybrid Media Events. Media and Communication 4:4.
- Combining digital ethnography with computational methods
Utekhin, Ilya (2017). Small Data First: Pictures from Instagram as an Ethnographic Source. Russian Journal of Communication 9:2, 185–200.
- The use of Instagram as an source of ethnographic research
- The role of "small data" in the interpretation of visual data
Studies
Laaksonen, Salla-Maaria; Nelimarkka, Matti; Tuokko, Mari; Marttila, Mari; Kekkonen, Arto & Villi, Mikko (2017). Working the fields of big data: Using big-data-augmented online ethnography to study candidate–candidate interaction at election time. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 14:2, 110–131.
- Proposes a big-data–augmented ethnography as a "mixed-methods approach to studying political discussions in a hybrid media system".
Nardi, Bonnie (2010). My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft. Michigan Publishing University of Michigan Press. (Helka)