This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Cyber-ethnography, also known as virtual ethnography, and most commonly online ethnography, is an online research method that adapts ethnographic methods to the study of the communities and cultures created through computer-mediated social interaction. Online ethnography has by far the wider use. As modifications of the term ethnography, cyber-ethnography, online ethnography and virtual ethnography (as well as many other methodological neologisms) designate particular variations regarding the conduct 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 form of online ethnography or cyber-ethnography with more specific sets of guidelines and rules, and a common multidisciplinary base of literature and scholars. This article is not about a particular neologism, but the general application of ethnographic methods to online fieldwork as practiced by anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars.
Traditional ethnography study observes the interactions between individuals who are co-located. Ethnographies of online cultures and communities extend ethnographic study to settings where interactions are technologically mediated, not face-to-face. Cyber-ethnography therefore addresses limitations in the traditional notion of a field site as a localized space. It also understands that online communities can create a shared culture through digitally mediated interactions. Although the assertion that ethnographic fieldwork can be meaningfully applied to computer-mediated interactions has been contested, it is increasingly becoming accepted.
Like other early internet researchers, early cyber-ethnographers such as Sandy Stone and Sherry Turkle observed that participants in online role-playing communities enact social performances that can diverge dramatically from their offline personas. This led to the idea that online identities can be segmented from offline ones. Cyber-ethnography was seen as a new kind of methodology that might uncover how the internet would radically change society. However, as the internet reached the mainstream and cyber-ethnographers sought legitimacy, cyber-ethnography was reframed as adaptation of traditional methods into a new context. Understanding the degree to which divergent performances in online and offline settings reflect a segmentation of identity or a continuous identity performed differently in different contexts remains an important consideration for cyber ethnographers.
Many other aspects of online, computer-mediated, or virtual, interaction and community formation are distinct from their in-person, real life, or face-to-face counterparts. Of central importance is that many interactions in online communities are textual. While these textual artifacts resemble the traces of interaction, they constitute the interactions of interest to the cyberethnographer. They are a different kind of interaction in which body language and other kinds of social cues are absent or translated into signs and text.
The character and level of access available to researchers of online communities are also particular to cyber-ethnography. Whereas face-to-face interactions are ephemeral as they occur, online social interactions are often automatically saved and archived, creating permanent accurate records. Also, distinctions between private and public spaces are often unclear in online communities. cyber-ethnography attempts to adapt participant-observation procedures such as making cultural entrée, collecting and analyzing data, and conducting ethical research to these computer-mediated contingencies.
Cyber-ethnography has significantly developed with the emergence of new technologies. Almost since their inception, some researchers have acted as lurkers and conducted purely observational studies of online cultures and communities rather than as participant observers in an online community. This approach has been criticized by scholars who argue that researchers should fully participate as members of the online community. These scholars value the traditional ethnographic standards of participant observation, prolonged engagement, and deep immersion. Cyber-ethnography, like traditional ethnography often aims to produce a thick description that can help an outsider understand the meaning of behavior in a culture or community. This focus on participation and immersion makes these approaches quite distinct from qualitative internet research methods like online interviews, and online content analysis. Ethnographic methods are also quite different from quantitative Internet research methods like web usage mining or social network analysis. However some researchers complementary research methods along with cyber-ethnography in order to triangulate their findings.
The range of methodologies
Ethnographers have approached the study of the Internet in a range of different ways. A variety of terms refer to various formulations of methodological approaches to cyber-ethnography. Many of these seek to maintain their own dialog with the established tradition of ethnography. Each formulates its relation to the established 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 not a distinctive form of ethnography although researching the Internet ethnographically forces us to reflect on fundamental assumptions and concepts of ethnography.
Methods choices need to be directly adapted to the kind of questions a researcher seeks to answer. The main advantage 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 allows for a variety of data collection types and including audiovisual formats, on various platforms such as websites, social networks and forums.
Offline participant observation
It is important for cyber-ethnographers to consider whether online interactions are sufficient for them to develop a deep understanding the community. It is not clear whether identity performances in online environments 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.
Virtual research ethics: Issues and controversies.
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 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.
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 computer 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 case 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 main disadvantages of online ethnography is the need for the ethnographer to possess certain technology-based skills. Some studies might only require elementary computer skills, but others may require advanced knowledge of technologies and tools such as web-based applications, analytical tools, and computer programming. The development of such technologies tends to grow faster than the methodology literature thus "there is little consensus on how [to] best collect and 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 present 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.
To the extent that cyber-ethnography is similar to ethnography in a localized space, it will raise similar ethical considerations. However, the nature of the online space does raise new ethical issues, including those related to informed consent of human subjects, protections of privacy or anonymity of research subjects, and whether cyber-ethnography might be a form of "electronic eavesdropping." In spite of these differences, the American Anthropological Association has yet to include any specific recommendations regarding cyber-ethnography in its Code of Ethics.
Thus, there are significant ethical issues around the use of digital tools and data collection from the cyberspace. "Cyberethnographer need to respect privacy in cyberspace". That a website is not password-protected researcher does not necessarily imply that it is open space where the right to anonymity and privacy dissolve. Thus Robinson (2011) insists, "if our identities in cyberspace are extensions of our off-line identities, they must be afforded the same ethical consideration as they would be given in the off-line world".
Institutional review boards (IRBs) may not be equipped for ethical dilemmas presented by cyber-ethnography. Researchers need to make their intentions clear and define properly what data will be collected. When researcher "lurk" by covertly observes and gathers data they will not gain participants' knowledge and consent. This conflicts with the traditional ethnographic practice of informed consent, in which participants have the right to learn about the study at hand and make an informed decision on whether or not to participate. Cyber-ethnographers face the challenge of informing participants of their presence and research activities without jeopardizing their ability to collect valid data. Scholars recommend including note in the researcher's posts that identifies their research interest and links to more information. However, this practice is only possible in some online spaces, such as forums, but not in others.
Another issue is that the technological innovations and possibility for new research outpace the creation of clear and adapted ethical guidelines. Nonetheless, some guidelines do exist and are regularly updated by the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR).
Another ethical constraint and a possible disadvantage to cyber-ethnography is the intricate anonymization of the data. Protecting participant anonymity often conflicts with the preservation of the participants' words. Although, consent might be obtained from participants to collect, use and publish textual data, the simple use of pseudonyms is in most cases not enough to guarantee the anonymity of the data. Indeed, searching for direct quotes in a Google search is often sufficient to identify participants. anyone can potentially have access to search results revealing the author and their identity. To mitigate this issue, many scholars choose to paraphrase textual data to avoid source identification. Thus, "ethical concerns must be reexamined in light of new technologies for both subjects and researchers alike".
- Anthropology of cyberspace
- Networks of practice
- Online research community
- Social networks
- Virtual community
- Virtual community of practice
- Clifford, J. (1997). Spatial Practices: Fieldwork, Travel, and the Discipline of Anthropology. In A. Gupta & J. Ferguson (Eds.) Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 185-222.
- Garcia; Cora, Angela; Standlee, Alecea I.; Bechkoff, Jennifer; Cui, Yan (2009). "Ethnographic Approaches to the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication". Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 38 (1): 52–84. doi:10.1177/0891241607310839.
- Robinson, L., & Schulz, J., "New fieldsites, new methods: New ethnographic opportunities," Ch. 8 In The Handbook of Emergent Technologies in Social Research.
- Del Fresno, Miguel (2011) Netnografía. Investigación, análisis e intervención social. Editorial UOC, 1ª edición, Barcelona, España
- Bell, D. (2001). An introduction to cyberculture. New York: Routledge
- Miller, D., and Slater, D. (2000). The Internet: An ethnographic approach. Oxford; New York: Berg.
- Geertz, Clifford (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
- Hine, Christine (2000). Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage.
- Markham, Anette (1998). Life Online: Researching Real Experience in Virtual Space. AltaMira Press.
- Domínguez, Daniel; Beaulieu, Anne; Estalella, Adolfo; Gómez, Edgar; Schnettler, Bernt; Read, Rosie (2007). "Virtual Ethnography". Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum Qualitative Social Research. 8: 3.
- Robinson, Laura (2007-02-01). "The cyberself: the self-ing project goes online, symbolic interaction in the digital age". New Media & Society. 9 (1): 93–110. doi:10.1177/1461444807072216. ISSN 1461-4448.
- Wilson, Samuel M.; Peterson, Leighton C. (2002). "The Anthropology of Online Communities". Annual Review of Anthropology. 31: 449–467. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085436. JSTOR 4132888.
- Murthy, D. (2011) "Emergent digital ethnographic methods for social research," Ch. 7 In The Handbook of Emergent Technologies in Social Research.
- Alzola Romero, Aarón "/WHOIS? Identity: Collectivity and the Self in IRC," Psychnology Journal, Vol. 1 No. 2, 87-130.
- Beaulieu, Anne, and Mette Terp Hoybye, "Studying mailing lists: Text, temporality, interaction, and materiality at the intersection of e-mail and the web," Ch. 11 in The Handbook of Emergent Technologies in Social Research.
- Brotsky, Sarah R. and David Giles. 2007. "Inside the 'Pro-Ana' Community: A Covert Participation Observation." Eating Disorders: pro The Journal of Treatment & Prevention 15(2): 93-109 (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10640260701190600)
- Clark, Lillian I-Hsien Ting, Chris Kimble, Peter Wright and Daniel Kudenko. "Combining ethnographic and clickstream data to identify user Web browsing strategies," Information Research, Vol. 11 No. 2, January 2006
- Chrichton, Susan and Shelly Kinash. "Virtual Ethnography: Interactive Interviewing Online as Method," Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, Volume 29(2) Spring, 2003.
- Coleman, E. G. (2010). "Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media". Annual Review of Anthropology. 39 (1): 487–505. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.104945.
- danah boyd. (Forthcoming). "Making Sense of Teen Life: Strategies for Capturing Ethnographic Data in a Networked Era." In Hargittai, E. & Sandvig, C. (Eds.) Digital Research Confidential: The Secrets of Studying Behavior Online. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
- Dicks, Bella; Mason, Bruce; Coffey, Amanda; Atkinson, Paul (2005), Qualitative Research and Hypermedia: Ethnography for the Digital Age, London: Sage Publications, ISBN 0-7619-6098-8
- Greive, Gregory. (1995) "Imagining a Virtual Religious Community: Neo-pagans on The Internet," Chicago Anthropology Exchange 7 (Winter): 98-132.
- Humphreys, L. 2007. Mobile social networks and social practice: A case study of dodgeball. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (13) 1.
- Mann, Chris; Steward, Fiona (2000), Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online, London: Sage Publications, ISBN 0-7619-6627-7
- Paccagnella, Luciano (1997), "Getting the Seats of Your Pants Dirty: Strategies for Ethnographic Research on Virtual Communities", Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 3 (June)
- Puri, Anjali. "The Web of Insights - The Art and Practice of Webnography". International Journal of Market Research. 49 (3): 2007.
- Tomlinson, Mark. "The Academic Robotics Community in the UK: Web based data construction and analysis of a distributed community of practice" (Working Paper). Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics.
- Torres, L., Gonzalez, H., Ojeda, J., & Monguet, J. (2010). "PLEs from virtual ethnography of Web 2.0". In The PLE Conference 2010. Barcelona. http://pleconference.citilab.eu.
- Verhaeghe A., Prof. Dr. Schillewaert N., Van den Berge E., 2009, Getting answers without asking questions, ESOMAR ONLINE RESEARCH '09]
- Williams, Matthew (2007). "Avatar Watching: Participant Observation in Graphical Environments". Qualitative Research. 7 (1): 5–24. doi:10.1177/1468794107071408.