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Chapter 10 - Participatory and Invasive Online Worlds

Exploring the Research Method of Qualitative Digital Ethnography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

By
Adele Phillips  and
Shane Blackman
Edited by
Paul M.W. Hackett ,
Christopher M. Hayre ,
Dave Muller ,
Marcia Scherer  and
Ava Gordley-Smith
Paul M.W. Hackett
Affiliation:
Emerson College, Boston
Christopher M. Hayre
Affiliation:
The University of Canberra
Dave Muller
Affiliation:
Suffolk University, Massachusetts
Marcia Scherer
Affiliation:
University of Rochester Medical Center, New York
Ava Gordley-Smith
Affiliation:
University of Suffolk
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Summary

This chapter seeks to advance the debate on digital research methods beyond the opposition between ‘face to face’ or online ethnography. Our focus will be on the practical experience of doing online ethnography, alongside how traditional and online ethnography can be integrated through the ideal of ‘being there’ i.e., direct observation. Christine Hine (2016: 257) notes that “the study of Internet interactions became popular in the 1990s.” We explore what is understood as authentic ethnography between the online and the offline through critically observing what is comfortable and uncomfortable in both worlds to argue that as a method and theory ethnography adapts.

Keywords

online ethnographydigital research methodsethnographyresearch authenticityembodied experience
Type
Chapter
Information
The Future of Qualitative Research in Healthcare
The Role and Management of Digital Methods
 , pp. 141 - 160
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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