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Online ethnography (Netnography) (Extreme Ethnography: Challenges for…

- - - - Nethnography is an established approach to qualitative research, whose name combine the terms "internet" and "ethnography" (see Kozinets 2010).
      - Netnography shares many characteristics of ethnography, from which it has been adapted.
      - The output of a netnography can be descriptive as well as analytical and the method tends to generate rich, thick description through grounded interpretations.
      - Netnography is also different from ethnography in many aspects, and thus require a new set of skills. The specificities of a rigorous and disciplined approach to netnography are organized through data entry, data collection procedures, choices about field sites, decisions about the type of data to gather and analyse, the evaluation of the quality of netnographic research, and ethics
      - As netnography is a naturalistic method, its interpretations can be built from a combination of elicited and, more often, non-elicited data. These data emerge and are captured through the researcher's observation of and participation with people as they socialize online in regular environments and activities (Kozinets 2010).
      - Online cultural research is far less intrusive than traditional ethnography, as the online researchers can gather a vast amount of data without making their presence visible to culture members (Beaulieu, 2004 and Kozinets, 2010).
      - The field of social media offers several advantages rarely found in the traditional ethnographic
        field.
        
        Researchers generally have access to vast amounts of data, archived through forums and search engines. These resources can provide an unprecedented ampunt of information on cultural members, values, and structures, allowing researchers to better choose their field studies and plan their entry (Kozinets, 2010).
        
        Ethnographers that employ interview methods can transcend geographic and time limitations by using asynchronous communication technologies such as email to conduct interviews.
        
        Netnography can leverage the connective power of the Internet and the search and orgaanizing capabilities of contemporary search engines to offer accessibility and openness to a vast variety of virtual voices.
    - - Online fields offer dramatically increased field site accessibility. The explosion in online social worlds offers participants a virtually (although not absolutely) borderless environment where geographically dispersed members can meet and communicate.
      - There is added complexity in that these forms of communication are now often linked one to the other. Conversations are happening on multiple sites, between multiple community members, and recent technological advances make it possible to easily post and share content on multiple platforms. In order for a netnographer to understand the social circumstances of this activity, studying one manifestation of a particular message can often be insufficient.
      - There is a constant and automatic saving, sorting, classifying, and archiving of all types of asynchronous – and much synchronous – media. This makes the Internet a very different site for ethnographic research compared to ‘real’-life social interactions, and requires levels of procedural adaptation.
    - - Ontological and concerns the somewhat false distinction between online and offline social "worlds". Because social worlds cut across complex networks of face-to-face and technologically mediated communications, the use of netnography, as with the use of any single method or focus, offers an incomplete view.
      - However, if netnography offers only a partial view of many online-offline phenomena, the reverse is also true. That is, in the current environment - and increasingly in a rapidly computerized and mobile internet world - many social activities cut across both online and offline worlds (Garcia et al, 2009, Kozinets, 2010, Miller and Slater, 2000)
      - Because the internet provides access to so much data, so easily, netnographers face the inherent challenge of data overload. Identification and classification of data can be challenging as the optional anonymity that the Web provides can lead to an absence of demographic markers.
      - This seemingly convenient, easy, and anonymous datastream can also open a Pandora's box of ethical issues related to privacy, consent, and appropriate representation.
  - - - (1) are more ‘research question relevant’;
      - (2) have a ‘higher traffic of postings’;
      - (4) have more detailed or descriptively rich data; and
      - (5) have more between-member interactions of the type required by the research question (Kozinets, 2002: 63).
      - (3) have larger numbers of discrete message posters;
  - - - (1) Ethnographic siting - netnographers should go site specific, which concentrates on a small number of postings or a very constrained data set in order to gain a deep cultural sense of "what is going on" in that particular social space. From there, the analysis can go broader or deeper.
      - (2) Ethnographic engaging - to undertake cultural analysis, while engaged as a participant in a manner appropriate to other cultural participants or community members.
      - (3) Ethnographic communicating - communications should be analysed and viewed in their natural "real-text" format rather than experienced through the filters of some language processor or compressive software engine.
      - (4) Ethnographic timing - messages and posts are experienced, read, interpreted, and analysed in real time, as they become available, rather than all at once.
- - - - An important research question has already been defined and that online ethnography has been identified as a workable method for addressing this particular question.
      - Although online ethnography is meant to study online communities, online and offline methods can sometimes be used in conjunction when researching certain practices or other social phenomena (Garcia et al, 2009, Silver, 2000).
      - Therefore, defining the setting and how the studied phenomena permeates the online/offline border can be crucial for subsequent methodological choices.
      - Consequently, the setting should be defined in both social and technical terms, such as typical features, system development processes, user base, historical background, characteristic, etc.
      - This paper strongly recommends that the critical next step of an ethnographic research process is to declare the perspective from which the researchers are initiating their endeavorur.
      - To declare a research perspective means to initiate a self-reflecting process, where the researchers try to unfold their prior interpretations and personal experiences of the studied domain and the presented research questions.
      - It also means to acknowledge the perspective that pure objective and value free descriptions are very difficult. The internet is also a setiing for fieldwork and as such not neutral to bias from agendas, personal histories, or social norms (Murthy, 2008).
      - In many ways, an ethnographic process is about taking turns between the stories of the researcher (debriefing descriptions) and the stories of participants (Guimaraes, 2003)
      - As online enthnographers, ask ourselves, and people in our close surroundings, some important questions. Answering these questions, honestly and with detail is likely to enhance the dependability of the research.
        
        What phenomena do we initially see in the problem area and why?
        
        Are there other ways to delimit or categorize phenomena in the problem area?
        
        What are my experiences of the problem area?
        
        What are my preconceptions about relationships between phenomena in the problem area?
        
        What are my values relating to phenomena in the problem area?
    - - How to "enter" the studied community depends much on whether hidden or open research is intended (if the researcher does not only gather data from archives, but also engage in the community)
      - The entrance in a community can vary from simply identifying a community forum message archive appropriate to study to presenting oneself and study the continuous result in the community.
      - Any attempts to recruit or approach participants should adhere to the current informal rules, or netiquette, in order to circumvent potential social gaffes.
    - - The three most common data collection methods used in online ethnography are (1) document collection, (2) online observation, and (3) online interviews.
      - Document collection
        
        Document collection refers to the gathering of some form of archived interaction (e.g. mailing list, forum discussion).
        
        With the increasing of multimediated social interaction in social networking sites, audio and video are to an increasing extent included as data sources.
        
        The richness of social networking sites is acknowledged by Murthy (2008, p.846) who says "when conducted alongside other data, the sites can provide unique in-depth autobiographical accounts of scenes and respondents.
        
        Certain structural and contextual information can also be collected, for example. using screenshots.
        
        The selection and amount of data collected is usually at the discretion of the ethnographer and should, naturally, be guded by the research question. Since a lot of communities are highly social areans with its benefits and drawbacks, data can be cluttered with "off-topic" material.
        
        A risk is that it can be hard to predict what to save and pursue and hwat to discard and ignore, even with a narrow topic of research.
        
        There are 2 tyoes of document collection: targeted and distributed.
        
        Targeted document collection means that one specific forum is selected because of its specific relevance to answering the research question.
        
        Distributed document collection refers to several sources (or blogs) that are searched for relevant discussion. It might be that the sources contain a wide variety of discussions.
      - Online observation
        
        Online observation refers to the researcher's concurrent use of, and data collection through, the services or applications utilized in the studied online practice.
        
        Online observation is real time and synchronous, something which carries implications on both the observation type and the researcher role.
        
        A combination of different sources of data can be very rewarding for scientists with an interest in social activities on the net. Thus, actual engagement in the common activities of a network or community is beneficial in reducing the potential gap between what people say and what people do.
        
        In summary, the researcher should make an effort to experience daily life as it is composed for the regular members of the studied community (Garcia et al, 2009)
        
        The choice of how to conduct online observation can depend on several factors.
        
        It is not always technically possible to be open towards all other members (e.g. in P2P sharing).
        
        A hidden approach is acceptable if online observation is used as supplementary method and does not involve with individuals or sensitive data, but just to confirm insights about ways of conduct in general sense.
        
        A hidden approach should be done if online observation is done as a primary method (Skitka & Sargis, 2006).
        
        How to record data from online observation?
        
        Jakobsson (2006) made video recordings of a virtual environment (while concurrently also entrusting his avatar with a video camera)
        
        Screenshots are another, more static, option.
        
        As always, such material must be kept confidential. If considered, informed consent, and/or anonymization should be collected and performed.
        
        Several authors have reported on the high value of field notes in online ethnography (Baym, 2000, Jakobsson, 2006).
        
        The main point of online observation and field notes is that the researcher must be sensitive to phenomena that cannot be deduced from text only.
        
        Typical categories of data that can be recorded via fieldnotes are implicit practices, member hierarchies, relationship structures, and tacit knowledge.
      - Online interviews
        
        Online interviews refer to synchronous, micro-synchronous, or asynchronous communication technology as a mediator of an interview.
        
        THe main "genres" of computer-mediated communication which are used for performing online interviews are either instant messaging (Davis et al, 2004, Lawson, 2004, Voida et al, 2004) or email (Bompton & Cowton, 2002)
        
        Interestingly, online interviews direct attention towards the benefits and drawbacks of conventional or face-to-face interviewing,
        
        Scholars skewing away from online interviews often acknowledge the "technical" benefits that come with it, such as diminished costs, speed, and geographic reach.
        
        However, the lack of non-verbal behavior, the possibilities to manufacture online identities and less in-depth replies are only some of the drawback of online interviews (Fontana and Frey, 2000)
        
        Advantages of Online Interviews:
        
        Online conversations allow participants to reconsider, research, recognize, and reflect on words and expressions prior to posting them, allowing the converstaion to be mutually negotiated.
        
        Interviewees with textual skills are able to create more refined accounts of their experience.
        
        The aim of the interview becomes more clear due to the absence of visual and bodily cues.
        
        No non-verbal cues that discourage or distract participants.
        
        Goes beyond geographical and economical limitations in term of reaching participants and interviewees otherwise not accessible.
        
        Can be conducted with the convenience of time and familiarity of the home or work environment.
        
        Transcription is less demanding (simply copy and paste)
        
        Disclosure of more honest and deep information.
        
        Limitations of Online Interviews:
        
        Limited non-verbal cues for encouragement
        
        Empathic and emotional communication is not obviously manifested
        
        Covert or constructed identities or characteristics, as well as temporary nature of participation, can make follow-ups difficult.
        
        Potentially skewed population (e.g. predominantly young European or American)
        
        Asynchronous: can be stretched out over time due to flexibility in response time - respondents can answer in their own time.
        
        Requires careful development of research relationships and knowledge of studied venue, and thus time.
        
        Potential strategic self-presentation.
    - - The more general approach of Romano et al (2003), combined with thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, Freedat & Muir-Cochrane, 2006)
      - Thematic analysis refers to a careful reading and re-reading of the data in order to find recurrent themes across the data.
      - Through an iterative process, where the analyst conducts careful reading and re-reading of the data, the analyst then identifies emergent and recurrent themes and key terms.
      - There needs to be a balance between experimenter expectancy through overreliance on a priory theory and total dependence on data-derived meaning that may not provide any generalizability of the results (Romano et al, 2003)
    - - Use Qualities
        
        Use qualities are "properties of a digital design that is experienced in its use" (Löwgren, 2006).
        
        The concept is based on value perspectives that include instrumental, aesthetical, social/communicative, constructional, and ethical aspects.
        
        While many general user experience attributes has been introduced over the years, the use qualities approach suggest that not all of them are equally relevant to all systems.
        
        One way to make use qualities more specific in terms of informing design is to include opposing use qualities as conflicting forces in design patterns (Arvola, 2006).
      - Analytical Dimensions
        
        Analytical dimensions aims to envelope the full diversity of use qualities that commonly exist in complex information systems (Skågeby, 2007)
        
        Analytical dimensions offer a frame for relating and contrasting the complexity of the studied conflict. Thus, it is good for presenting comprehensive view that supports comparison over several specific cases,
        
        The basic anatomy of the analytical dimension is a polarized conflict, where the most obvious counterparts make up the poles of the dimension.
        
        Once these poles are identified, they give the researacher the opportunity to postulate, identify, and research activities, concerns and intentions in-between the extremes.
        
        In summary, the analytical dimension is a versatile communicative tool, allowing both for precise descriptions, but also recognizing the full range of potential use qualities that make up the dimension.
      - Design Patterns
        
        In short, a design pattern is a structured exposition of a generic solution to a problem in a context.
        
        Another definition is that the design pattern includes a feature that resolves forces in some contexts (Martin et al, 2001, Martin & Sommerville, 2001)
        
        The concept of design patterns was originially developed by architect Christopher Alexander and colleagues (Alexander, 1979). Alexander had noticed that there were qualities of architecture that were "hard to define", but that were still very common and desirable.
        
        There are certain features of design patterns that have been agreed upon:
        
        Design patterns address a re-occurring problem in a specific context.
        
        They build on understanding of what needs, interest and motivations (forces) that drive people in specific contexts.
        
        They include features that coordinate or resolve these forces.
        
        They are not too vague nor too specific and are thereby able to help designers understand what forces are at play and how these can be resolved, but still be flexible enough to allow infinite specific solutions.
        
        They focus on what is good, rather than critique what is bad.
        
        They are testable. That is to say, by applying the pattern to other cases, by sharing the patterns and debating, discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing on them, and by examining how a specific pattern-derived solution functions and feels, patterns can be put to empirical tests.
        
        They are shareable in that they create a concrete common resource debatable to all involved stakeholders. They also create a way for people who are not designers, but still holds relevant and valuable knowledge, to inform the design (Erickson, 2000)
        
        They can help to bridge the gap between the qualitative descriptions of (users') problems and solutions applicable in a design or implementation phase (or analysis phase, for that matter).
        
        There are also a number of elements that are common to most design patterns: a name, a description of the problem, a description of the context, the forces at play, and a generic solution.
        
        A benefit that cannot be over-emphasized is that design patterns are fairly simple and to the point, and can therefore straightforwardly be brought back to the studied communities for discussion.
        
        Drafts of insights and study results posted to the community can open up to both grounding and improvements of the research in whole (Erickson, 2000, Matthews and Cramer, 2008)
  - - - The population online may be heterogeneous and almost ubiquitous to researchers, which raises questions about the validity and reliability of the data.
      - Not only are the users dissimilar, but the specific technologies used to communicate can be quite diverse and consequently influence the entire socio-technical setting.
      - Identity, anonymity, and pseudonymity give rise to methodological concerns.
      - All statements above raise issues pertaining to research ethics.
    - - Credibility refers to the degree by which the results are recognizable and valide from the perspective of the participants (Guba and Lincoln, 1989).
      - Transferability refers to the degree to which the results can be transferred to other settings and contexts (Guba and Lincoln, 1989)
      - While ethnographic studies are often idiosyncratic in nature, there is still reason to discuss and even try to defend such scientific concepts as credibility and transferability.
      - In online ethnography, there is a practical issue: it can only address individuals who speak up or "write up" or somehow participate. Therefore, it is hard to generate a statistically representative sample.
      - Moreover, the use of an application theory can aid in holding back the overhelming idea of trying to draw a complete picture of all social interaction occurring in a virtual community (LeBesco, 2004)
      - While themes and insights are usually developed from one specific community, they often represent a class of concerns and intentions, which can also be identified or alluded to other context, thus the results are not transferrable.
      - Thus, online ethnography describes the social significance of dimensions and the relations between them, rather than statistically logic populations, and how many individuals who possess a certain characteristic.
    - - Dependability refers to the obligation of the researcher to provide accurate descriptions of the context so that readers feel they can depend on the results
      - Dependability is important as a fundamental assumption of qualitative research is that we cannot measure the exact same thing twice.
      - This has 2 implications: (1) researchers must aim to describe the socio-technical context to the best of their ability and (2) it is a benefit if presentations of results are also in forms that can be easily compared.
      - Researchers must be setting aware that there are obvious risks with condensing insights, such as over-reduction or constraining future interpretations of data (Diggins & Tolmie, 2003)
      - Consequently, researchers should stress that any developed models or theories are most often not complete or generi theories. Rather, models are interfaces through which data can be understood.
      - Confirmability refers to the degree bby which the results can be confirmed by others. This becomes interesting vis-a-vis confidentiality and anonymity.
      - While confirmabilty is certainly desirable, there can also be reason to protect users or even the entire virtual community from identification.
- - - - Individually distinctive data - data that can answer quesitons, like who is online and who does what online.
      - Structural data - data that can describe who is connected to whom and how.
      - Activity logs - data that can describe who does what, when, and where.
  - - - Online ethnography can be compared against multi-sited ethnography, since both depart from traditional ethnography to discover "the circulation of cultural meanings, objects, and identities in diffuse time-space" [26]
      - The basis for multi-sited ethnography is that macro understanding of a world system is the result of piecemeal accounts of individual micro-groups spatially and temporally separate [27].
      - To compare and consolidate observations, the researcher has to diligently translate connections and connotations from one group to the other, letting comparisons rise continuously from the findings.
      - Considering online environments as multi-faceted sites, allowing researchers to justify selection choices of sub-networks, specific environments or informants, and the particular viewpoints that are garnered through this type of research.
      - Marcus [26] calls for ethnographers to "follow the person" or "follow the object" and compare the understanding gained from both routes in order to attain a holistic understanding of the specific system.
      - This type of ethnography is a solution for large scale online environments for providing a comprehensive and heterogeneous understanding of these environments. It can also offer researchers the benefits of both breadth and depth.
      - However, it should be remembered that issues of scale still persist and large teams of researchers are needed to overcome spatial and temporal limitations.
    - - Quantitate methods (e.g. social network analysis, log analysis and visualizations) are appropriate techniques for addressing some research questions in online environments, although they are limited in the depth of the findings.
      - However, those methods can serve as complementary methods that will bring ethnographers to point of interest within the researched landscape.
      - Those methods can also surface phenomena that will not be observable through inherently limited scope of an ethnographic inquiry.
      - Findings from a structural analysis should be examined diligently so that researchers will not embark on a study of a seemingly compelling phenomena just to discover that the network structure leads them to the wrong sites or highlights a marginal structure. It is crucial for researchers to focus not only on structure, but rather on context and narratives.
    - - NLP uses algorithmic tools to process texts in order to analyze and understand interactions and processes based in human language. It is grounded in the idea of using small textual portions as an indicative representation of the entire document [31].
      - In many cases, NLP-based exploration of large scale online environments revealed its potential in uncovering promising areas for in depth ethnographic exploration, such as tracking trending topics [32], conversational motives [33], opinions [34], and extract situational awareness [35].
      - Despite the benefits of NLP, purely textual-based NLP algorithms perform poorly in detecting such subtle concepts [31, 37]. Unlike normal texts, online interactions carry nuanced idiosyncrasies and contextual connontations that are dependant on attributes of specific users.
      - Using NLP as a starting point for an in-depth exploration can enable ethnographers to focus their efforts on the most compelling sites for research, but they should be cautious with the limitations of NLP.
- - - - The textual data available for participant observation research include email, chat room interactions, instant messagin, etc.
      - Campbell (2006) argues that what participants write conveys important information about their identity, presentation of self, and how they define and perceive the world.
      - However, Markham (2004) warns against making assumptions about interviewees based on their use of emoticons, style of communication, or writing skills, etc.
      - A print out of a chat room conversation is not a substitute for observing the interactional process which produced it. Ethnographers should consider using a research setting which allows them to obtain save data from all participatns, to determine how each party interpreted the conversation as it unfolded.
    - - Online ethnographers should also take care to integrate visual aspects of the data into their observations and analysis and treat visual data as a key aspect of the online location.
      - Online ethnographers have developed useful ways to incorporate visual data into their participant observation research:
        
        Visual aspects of Web sites (Hine, 2000)
        
        Use of photos by online participants (Jones, 2005)
        
        The use of avatars (Taylor, 1999)
        
        The use of Webcams by online participants (Keating and Mirus, 2003, Lyons, 2003, Wise, 2004, Adrejevic, 2004, White, 2003)
        
        Videotaping computer users (Ruhleder, 2000)
    - - Sound and movement are becoming common aspects of website design as well as other types of online settings and communication.
      - In addition, the increasing use of direct voice communication provides data which more closely mirros conversations in face-to-face settings.
      - While previous generations of online ethnography have been biased towards textual data, the next generation must engage not only with textual and visual material, but also with sound and movement.
    - - The role of field notes, both textual and visual can be recorded by screen saver programs providing a digital videotape of an online environment.
      - An online ethnographer can digitally record their visit to a website and replay it at will, stopping, starting and moving around in the data as needed.
      - However, field notes are still essential to help researchers to catalogue, describe, and develop theories from their observations, and to record their reactions and subjective experiences.
      - Because of multimodal nature of online communication, ethnographers often find themselves trying to describe visual, aural, and kinetic observational data in verbal form. Ethnographers must also make decisions about how to represent participants' text-based actions for their readers.
      - Markham (2004) argues that participants' writings should be conveyed to the reader exactly as they were written, without correcting spelling, grammatical or punctuation errors, or standardizing fonts. Schaap (2002) chose to correct typos to make quotes easier to read, but otherwise left the text exactly as written by the participants.
  - - - The boundaries between public and private "spaces" are drawn differently in online locations than they would be in comparable offline spaces.
      - In contrast, members of some online communities may define their "public" postings as private material (Kozinets 1998).
      - The practical and ethical issues around the boundaries between public and private online spaces are also relevant when collecting archived data.
      - The ethical landscape for the use of archival data are not yet clear. While some argue that websites are analogous to magazines or television shows, and hence are intentionally and inherently "public", others argue that some Internet locations are inherently private.
      - Ethnographers can increase their chances of making the right choice about how to gain access to archival and other online data by learning the norms of behavior in the specific environment they are studying.
    - - Porr and Ployhart (2004) states that "it is impossible to gain complete anonymity over the Internet because of technologies, such as cookies, IP addresses, etc.
      - Because of these potential problems, Carter (2004 and 2005) changed the "nicknames" of her research subjects to protect their privacy.
      - Researchers can also decide to let participants to edit or delete portions of online materials to protect privacy. However, ethnographers must have an understanding of how the technology operates to be aware of all potential threats to privacy and anonymity.