Online ethnography refers to a number of related online research methods that adapt ethnographic methods to the study of the communities and cultures created through computer-mediated social interaction. As modifications of the term ethnography, online ethnography and virtual ethnography (as well as many other methodological neologisms) designate online fieldwork that follows from the conception of ethnography as an adaptable method. These methods tend to leave most of the specifics of the adaptation to the individual researcher. Netnography suggests the use of specific procedures and standards, and argues for consideration of particular consensually-agreed upon techniques, justifying the use of a new name rather than a modification of the term ethnography.
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