- Title
- Internet-mediated ethnography : issues and challenges in social science research discourse
- Creator
- Jang, Sun-hee; Terry, Daniel; Lê, Thao
- Date
- 2013
- Type
- Text; Book chapter
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/172337
- Identifier
- vital:14484
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781626186514 (ISBN)
- Abstract
- Turing their attention to the trend of social and cultural changes heavily influencedby the constant development of new technologies, researchers have endeavored to pavenew ways in conducting ethnographic studies to cultivate social meanings embedded inInternet-mediated environments. With the expansion of different ethnographic practicesin online settings, methodological operations documented in the literature are showingchanges in the way researchers shape and perform ethnography. When considering thenotion of ethnography, which cannot radically change, the traditional ethnographic viewtowards online ethnographic research is at odds with these researchers. Their attempts areseen as the inappropriateness of ethnographic studies, rather than facilitating innovativeapproaches to the ethnographic field.This chapter discusses three key arguments from the plethora of debate whichsurrounds Internet-mediated ethnographic studies. These key arguments include: how canthe research field be defined when borderless; is it ethnography when the observation ofindividuals and communities is not conducted in person; and how can text-basedconversation be merely trusted to be rich and meaningful enough to demonstrate a newsocial formation? Emphasising these issues contributes to the current discussion about developing newdirections of ethnography to unfold further social aspects of online culture. From anepistemological perspective, this chapter argues that the significance of ethnographicstudies is not simply defined by what ethnographical research is, but also by how itshould respectively be conducted. Therefore, there is a need for further attention tocontinually develop approaches which enable online ethnographic researchers to act in anexplicit and systematic manner to explore, with ease, the online domain and its culture. © 2010 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
- Publisher
- Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
- Relation
- Conducting Research in a Changing and Challenging World p. 173-184
- Rights
- Copyright Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Ethnography; Internet-mediated; Online research; Participant observation
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