Ethnograpy of the Internet
0Tuesday, November 20, 2012 by Dongxia Wang
In Hine’s article “How can qualitative Internet researchers define the boundaries of their project?”, he brought up the debate about ethnography in research design though the Internet. Instead of assuming that the Internet is a place and can be considered a field site for ethnographers, he agrees that the Internet can be seen as tool, place and way of being that offers different methodological choices. Ethnography is important in establishing the cultural context on the Internet which is considered as part of everyday life. Beaulieu argues that there is much continuity between virtual ethnographies and more conventional and fundamental ethnographic principles. Virtual ethnographers tend to conduct multi-sited research. According to Hine, ethnography of the Internet is about mobility between contexts of production and use, and between online and offline, and the deployment of forms of engagement to observe the how these sites are socially constructed. He concerns the studies that illuminate the social dynamics at the centre of the technology. “The key to this insight is immersion, not necessarily through being a particular field site, but by engaging in relevant practices wherever they might be found.”
