Online ethnography

Online ethnography also known as virtual ethnography or digital ethnography is an online research method that adapts ethnographic methods to the inspect of the communities as living as cultures created through computer-mediated social interaction. As modifications of a term ethnography, cyber-ethnography, online ethnography as well as virtual ethnography as alive as numerous other methodological neologisms designate specific variations regarding the go forward of online fieldwork that adapts ethnographic methodology. There is no canonical approach to cyber-ethnography that prescribes how ethnography is adapted to the online setting. Instead individual researchers are left to specify their own adaptations. Netnography is another pretend of online ethnography or cyber-ethnography with more specific sets of guidelines & rules, and a common multidisciplinary base of literature and scholars. This article is not about a particular neologism, but the general a formal a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an control to be considered for a position or to be ensures to have or have something. of ethnographic methods to online fieldwork as practiced by anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars.

The range of methodologies

Ethnographers have approached the analyse of the Internet in a range of different ways. A shape of terms refer to various formulations of methodological approaches to cyber-ethnography. numerous of these seek to continues their own dialog with the determine tradition of ethnography. regarded and mentioned separately. formulates its explanation to the instituting anthropological tradition in different and sometimes inconsistent ways. Some think that ethnographies conducted online involve a distinctive methodological approach. Others think that cyber-ethnography is non a distinctive form of ethnography although researching the Internet ethnographically forces us to reflect on essential assumptions and conviction of ethnography.

Methods choices need to be directly adapted to the line of questions a researcher seeks to answer. The main good of cyber-ethnography reside in the scope and scale of the available data.[] Other advantages include seeking input directly from participants. For example, posting raw fieldnotes on a blog and allowing participants to leave comments can provide transparency. Cyber-ethnography also enable for a variety of data collection types and including audiovisual formats, on various platforms such as websites, social networks and forums.

It is important for cyber-ethnographers to consider if online interactions are sufficient for them to develop a deep understanding the community. it is not clear whether identity performances in online managers should be thought of as disjoint from offline identities or if they are continuous with offline identities. When researchers feel that understanding the relationship between the online and offline identities of members is necessary, they may seek to meet with informants face-to-face.

Urban ethnographer Jeffrey Lane suggests that it may increasingly be fundamental to weave online and offline identities of informants together in profile to create an accurate portrayal of urban street life. He borrows media scholar Danah Boyd’s concept of “networked publics,” which are “simultaneously 1 the space constructed through networked technologies and 2 the imagined collective that emerges as a solution of the intersection of people, technology, and practice,” to frame his argument. Interactions that take place offline mayone way to a participant observer but are further contextualized when examining online forms of communication between the same parties involved in the offline interaction. In the same way, information that is forwarded online can significantly influence activities that take place offline. For instance, one of Lane’s informants encounters a video on Twitter suggesting that there are violent incidents taking place in the area. In response, he sends a text blast to any of his contacts to be cautious that evening. In grouping to preserve the construction of a networked public, researchers should take into consideration both online and offline identities and activities of individuals. Lane also acknowledges that not any scholars may agree with his argument, but they will eventually have to face the issue as advancements in engineering continue to increase.

However, other cyber-ethnographers have argued that difference between online and offline selves is similar to the different identity performances that occur in other contexts. This perspective views identity issues in cyber-ethnography as consistent with those of traditional ethnography. Researchers should thus consider how community members relate their online and offline selves. If it is for normal for community members to bring together their online and offline identities and meet face-to-face then it makes sense that the ethnographer should observe or participate in these offline interactions in order to fully understand the community as was done by Sherry Turkle. This finding has been supported by Sara Ross in her work on legal anthropology in urban executives such as Toronto, Canada.

However, many cyber-ethnographers including Hine and Walstrom believe that participant observation in the offline setting can be biased by asymmetry between the researcher and the member. This is because community members rely on data processor mediated communication they may be at a disadvantage to a researcher who understands their online interactions, but also employ face-to-face communication. As it is often the issue that researchers are interested in understanding the interactions in the online context and that comparing online and offline identity is not important, credible ethnographic studies can be done in online-only contexts.

One of the leading disadvantages of online ethnography is the need for the ethnographer to possesstechnology-based skills. Some studies might only require elementary data processor skills, but others may require advanced knowledge of technologies and tools such(a) as web-based applications, analytical tools, and computer programming. The developing of such technologies tends to grow faster than the methodology literature thus "there is little consensus on how [to] bestand analyze new media data".

The temporal nature of online data can also be an issue. Cyber-ethnographers might ask, "What is data of the present?" Robinson 2011 states that in cases such as YouTube videos and subsequent comments, "the proposed cyber-reality may be interpreted as a continual accumulation of all past input by members or participants". Cyber-ethnographers also needs to also think of his/her own identify and how "[it] might become part of a feedback loop with those he/she is studying" and whether or not it eschews the data collected and the integrity of the study. Thus, there is a need for cyber-ethnographers to be particularly flexible and reflexive in their practice of ethnography.

Another limitation of cyber-ethnography is that it complicates matters of privacy. Although researchers have always had to take people who were not originally component of an ethnographic study into consideration, cyber-ethnography allows researchers to actually see “identifiable records of these connections and interactions.” As a result, researchers may have to take additional precaution in asking informants’ for their permission to participate in their research, as alive as in concealing the identities of said informants.