Online Ethnography - Introduction

Introduction

All ethnographies of online cultures and communities extend the traditional notions of field and ethnographic study, as well as ethnographic cultural analysis and representation, from the observation of co-located, face-to-face interactions to technologically mediated interactions in online networks and communities, and the culture (or cyberculture) shared between and among them. In doing so, these techniques are founded in the sense that traditional notions of a field site as a localized space are outdated. They suggest that ethnographic fieldwork can be meaningfully applied to computer-mediated interactions, an assertion that some have contested, but which is increasingly becoming accepted.

Almost since their inception, ethnographies of online cultures and communities have been conducted that are purely observational, in which the researcher is a specialized type of lurker or non participant observation in online communities. However, other researchers have emphasized a more participative approach, in which the researcher fully participates as a member of the online community. This latter approach is closer to traditional ethnographic standards of participant observation, prolonged engagement, and deep immersion. In many of its renderings, netnography, online ethnography, or virtual ethnography should maintain the values of traditional ethnography through providing a Geertzian sense of "thick description" (1973 ) through the immersion" of the researcher in the life of the online culture or community (Hine 2000, Markham 1998 ). This focus on participation and immersion makes these approaches quite distinct from Web usage mining or social network analysis, although ethnographers may use similar techniques to identify or map networks.

The key question for the researcher is "how can ethnography be pursued in computer-mediated social settings"? Researchers have attempted to create computer-mediated counterparts for many of the basic ethnographic concepts but whether they can appropriately be applied to technologically mediated interaction is still open (Howard, 2003). For example, if a researcher simply reads some emails or participates in chat rooms, does this represent an ethnography? The key is participation. Can the researcher still be said to have immersed themselves in the life of the community and to have engaged in the culture as a full-fledged member? There is debate in the online research community to what extent participation is required, with completely observational articles published as a type of ethnography of online cultures.