Digital Methods for Ethnography: Analytical Concepts for Ethnographers Exploring Social Media Environments
Abstract
The aim of this article is to introduce some analytical concepts suitable for ethnographers dealing with social media environments. As a result of the growth of social media, the Internet structure has become a very complex, fluid, and fragmented space. Within this space, it is not always possible to consider the “classical” online community as the privileged field site for the ethnographer, in which s/he immerses him/herself. Differently, taking inspiration from some methodological principles of the Digital Methods paradigm, I suggest that the main task for the ethnographer moving across social media environments should not be exclusively that of identifying an online community to delve into but of mapping the practices through which Internet users and digital devices structure social formations around a focal object (e.g., a brand). In order to support the ethnographer in the mapping of social formations within social media environments, I propose five analytical concepts: community, public, crowd, self...
... The dimension of space (defined place and media) and time (lasting relationships) is rather replaced by an affective dimension. In this sense, the concept of community is replaced by that of "public," groups of people characterized by an intense emotional union, but dispersed in space, who gather on different media around a common discourse, being it an opinion, a political issue, a media event, a brand, an interest, giving rise to a social imaginary (Caliandro 2018). ...
... They resemble the daily practices of users who interact and produce content in a discursive field without space by constantly producing social media feeds, searching keywords on search engines, using tags and hashtags. When meta-fields and their creators are the sites of digital ethnography, the field is represented by decontextualized, disconnected, or connected self-narratives through shares and comments, about a shared object (Airoldi 2018;Caliandro 2018). ...
... In such cases, in order to reach more holistic insights, researchers need to equip themselves with a natively digital methodological array using internet and online social spaces as a source of methods instead that a mere object of analysis (Caliandro 2018;Rogers 2010). ...
The article focuses on the digital transposition of ethnography (e.g., digital ethnography or netnography) which is not a homogeneous approach. In the last few years, various attempts have been made of considering digital fields in ethnographic research producing an internally diverse array of approaches. Differences emerge with reference to objects (digital cultures), research field (contextual fields: blogs, forums, and communities VS decontextualized narratives aggregated through tags or a hashtags), access to the field (covert or overt), observational strategies and data analysis (text analysis VS hermeneutics). The article investigates such an array of approaches through a scoping review of the existing digital ethnographic research (selected in Web of Science and Scopus) to map methodological differences. The main goal is to systematize an extensive set of research design and analysis differences in order to discuss how the nature of participant observation is changing in digital spaces and how to resist the tendency to decontextualize culture and humanities.
... As Martínez (2018, 2) notes, "what often happens is that the hints enabling us to go forward in our knowledge about a theme are not to be found but rather encountered on the way, thrown by the field, faced in semideliberate detours, not by following straight lines." This plasticity is a broad and prominent feature of ethnographic research, perhaps even more so when conducted in digital and online environments (Boellstorff et al. 2012;Caliandro 2018;Pink et al. 2016). Ethnography is, therefore, the perfect example of the Mertonian idea that it is not possible to plan discoveries, but it is possible to orientate scientific work in (flexible) ways that will probably lead to discoveries (Campa 2008). ...
... For the first six months I settled in Ponta Negra, the reference context for the empirical research. The more intensive place-based ethnography carried out here was articulated and complemented with ethnographic research exercises dispersed across European contexts (e.g., in Italy and the Netherlands) and within the digital space of the internet, a social space of practices that is increasingly enmeshed in daily life and therefore indispensable as a research location (Boellstorff 2016;Caliandro 2018;Grigoryan 2024;Hine 2020;Postill 2024). To avoid turning the field into a mere collection of disconnected and unframed units, I sought to follow people-and, in a certain way, the users and the medium on the Internet (Caliandro 2024)-as well as their practices, stories and plots (Marcus 1995), always keeping Ponta Negra as the common denominator. ...
... However, the diffusion of algorithms, standards in the recording of metadata and data mining in the information organization, revolutionize both the spaces of online discussions -which develop in non-linear directions from one media to another (Airoldi, 2018) being delimited online by content through the use of tags and algorithms -and the data capture for research purposes. Thus, the digital ethnographic research opens its boundaries beyond central media to cross-media digital spaces, to decontextualized narratives aggregated through common domains (such as a tag or a hashtag) called meta-fields (Airoldi, 2018;Caliandro, 2018) or expandend ethnography (Beneito-Montagut, 2011). ...
... This to say that in digital ethnography is equally important the natively digital methodological array (Rogers, 2013;Caliandro, 2018) supposed to be essential for digital methods and the use of the same principles valid for digital methods, such as that of following the medium (Rogers, 2013) which prescribe to the researcher to be guided by the ontological properties of the medium. ...
In this paper we investigate the potential of digital research when the digital is both the topicand the instrumentof research. The digital is an interesting topicof social research when technologyintersect society, that is in those fields where technology give new rise to some social issues directly impacting mainstream social problems (such as identity and sexuality). In the case of sexuality, for example, the digital offers discursive spaces to legitimate sexual minorities identities, especially when their sexual models do not conform to social norms. For these topics digital ethnography may be a distinctive method to study social change deriving from the digital. It seems to be particularly appropriate to study phenomena born digital and to investigate generative and productive (and not just reflective) digital identities and cultures avoidingthe contrived situation of an interviewer asking people direct questionsand allowing to document the performative use of language. In other words, it gives access to sensitive topics and hidden population which would otherwise be less visible. By using the case of sexuality and providing a typology of the main topics in sexuality research investigated through digital ethnography, the paper demonstrates that the digital is associated with a variety of social transformations and presents several important dimensions of sociological inquiry which cannot be framed uncritically positive but are fundamentally marked by normative ambivalence (bad and good dimensions).
... Quando i meta-campi e i loro creatori sono i luoghi dell'etnografia digitale, il campo è rappresentato da auto-narrazioni decontestualizzate, disconnesse o connesse attraverso condivisioni e commenti, su un oggetto condiviso (Caliandro 2018). ...
... La dimensione dello spazio (luogo e media definiti) e del tempo (relazioni durature) è piuttosto sostituita da una dimensione affettiva. Le comunità digitali sono gruppi di persone caratterizzate da un'intensa unione emotiva, ma disperse nello spazio, che si riuniscono su diversi media intorno a un discorso comune, sia esso un'opinione, una questione politica, un evento mediatico, un marchio, un interesse, dando vita a un immaginario sociale (Caliandro 2018). ...
Il libro si concentra sulla trasposizione digitale dell’etnografia – definita etnografia digitale o netnografia. La netnografia rappresenta l’ultima risposta allo stiramento dell’approccio etnografico che nel tempo ha subito un’estensione dei suoi obiettivi, dei suoi campi e dei suoi oggetti: dai viaggi dei primi etnografi in isole remote per l’esplorazione di culture altre, esotiche e primitive, allo studio delle culture vicine, urbane e mediali, fino alla navigazione in rete. Può essere definita come l’osservazione prolungata nel tempo e più o meno partecipata delle comunità e culture digita-li, al fine di pervenire ad una loro interpretazione e descrizione profonda. L’obiettivo del saggio è di comprendere quali implicazioni metodologiche il digitale possa avere per la pratica etnografica, in che modo la netnografia modifichi gli assunti e i presupposti etnografici e di fornire indicazioni metodologiche che permettano di non alterare la natura non-standard dell’approccio. Rappresenta dunque un tentativo di restituire un’identità ad un approccio che sembra averla persa nella sua trasposizione digitale, tanto da essere ripetutamente assimilato all’analisi dei contenuti digitali, di mettere dei paletti alla sua estrema diffusione, di evidenziarne le potenzialità, senza perdere consapevolezza dei costi.
... Per tale motivo, è stata integrata una etnografia virtuale. La ricerca empirica si è così andata sviluppando sia online che offline seguendo gli stessi soggetti in una particolare forma di etnografia multi-situata 38 (Caliandro, 2017). ...
Il volume esplora le pratiche e i significati della cittadinanza vissuta dalle donne migranti in Italia, adottando un approccio analitico integrato. Attraverso una prospettiva intersezionale, analizza le interconnessioni tra genere, migrazione e cittadinanza, evidenziando le dinamiche di inclusione ed esclusione a cui sono sottoposte le donne immigrate nel contesto italiano. Combinando un approccio femminista intersezionale con un disegno di ricerca a metodi misti, il volume indaga le forme di partecipazione sociale e politica delle migranti attraverso strumenti quantitativi e qualitativi. L’analisi quantitativa evidenzia i fattori che influenzano la partecipazione politica e le disuguaglianze intersezionali che ne derivano; mentre quella qualitativa offre una lettura situata delle strategie di negoziazione della cittadinanza nella vita quotidiana. In entrambe le prospettive, emerge il ruolo cruciale del capitale sociale. Il volume mostra come la partecipazione sociale rappresenti uno spazio di azione, soggettivazione e riconoscimento politico che va oltre lo status legale. L’adozione della lente di genere evidenzia il protagonismo delle donne migranti nei processi di partecipazione, confutando la narrazione della loro passività politica. L’approccio intersezionale consente di superare categorizzazioni rigide, mostrando come genere, classe sociale, etnia e status migratorio si intreccino nella costruzione delle traiettorie di cittadinanza. Attraverso un’analisi critica dei confini quotidiani dell’appartenenza, il volume propone nuove prospettive teoriche e metodologiche per lo studio della cittadinanza nell’era della mobilità globale. Oltre ad arricchire il dibattito accademico, ridefinisce la cittadinanza come spazio di negoziazione e mutamento sociale, portando il genere dal margine al centro degli studi su migrazioni e cittadinanza.
... Renada-as all other open source communities-is not located in a single place or even time. The working site, and therefore the field site, are created and cocreated (Burrell, 2009;Caliandro, 2018;Markham, 2020). Presence is not defined by physical location, but rather interaction (Beaulieu, 2010;Campos-Castillo and Hitlin, 2013). ...
Purpose
Digital ethnography is still a growing field within organization studies, with conflicting and still-developing understanding of how it should and can be conducted. This article aims to explore how enactive ethnography, in which the researcher engages in the phenomenon being studied, occurs in online research settings.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is based on over two years of digital ethnographic fieldwork in an open-source blockchain community. Confessional tales were produced after reviewing field notes to identify the challenges and benefits of such immersive fieldwork.
Findings
The article provides empirical examples of two challenges and three benefits of enactive ethnography in a digital setting. The challenges included issues of consent and privacy and financial complications due to the central role of tokens in blockchain communities. Benefits included a first-hand understanding of technical practices, experiences of asynchronous environments and the ability to take on multiple community roles. While many additional challenges arose, this article focuses on those unique to the context.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the confessional nature of the article, it may not be generalizable to all forms of digital ethnography. The article intends to serve instead as a starting point, from which researchers should carefully consider their own research aims and context.
Originality/value
This article fulfills the need for a greater understanding of the researcher’s positionality in ethnography while providing empirical examples of how practices can be studied in online settings.
... Like traditional ethnography, the virtual ethnographic method allows me to immerse myself within a community to examine the group's social interactions, dynamics, and localized culture, where meanings can be contested and co-constructed in a naturalistic setting (Caliandro 2017;Davis 2012;Hine 2000;Kaur-Gill and Dutta 2017;Murthy 2008;Pink et al. 2016). In addition, as an anonymous forum, we should expect users to have the ability to express themselves without fear of stigmatization, which is especially important for topics that can be uncomfortable or taboo offline (Kavanaugh and Maratea 2016). ...
Freedom of speech has long been considered an essential value in democracies. However, its boundaries concerning hate speech continue to be contested across many social and political spheres, including governments, social media, and university campuses. Despite the potential of examining the social psychological dynamics of this debate for advancing theory on meaning-making, polarization, emotions, and social status, empirical research in this area is scarce. This dissertation aims to address this gap by examining first-hand perspectives and media frames on the free speech and hate speech debate using digital, archival, and interview data from an online forum and four university campuses.
The first empirical chapter focuses on the moral discourse of individuals within an online free speech community. I analyze 418 discussion posts on the r/FreeSpeech subreddit using a digital ethnographic approach and find that most users understand free speech in an absolutist sense but differ in their justifications for why hate speech should be allowed. The study highlights the variation in free speech discourse within online spaces.
The second empirical chapter explores campus culture and students’ meaning-making processes toward speech on campus at four large public universities in the U.S. and Canada. The chapter, which draws on data from 150 student newspaper articles and 55 semi-structured interviews with students, finds the culture on each of the four campuses to be polarized around free speech issues. However, interview participants express complex and sometimes conflicting meaning-making processes, particularly around the concept of “harm,” theories about speech and how it spreads, and the roles and responsibilities of universities in society. Overall, these findings challenge the assumption that the campus free speech debate is neatly divided along ideological or moral lines.
The third empirical chapter investigates how social status shapes university students’ experiences of campus speech. I draw on the same interview data and find that lower-status students express a high degree of fear and anxiety about expressing themselves openly on a range of politicized topics, including free speech itself. This self-censorship negatively impacts lower-status students’ educational experiences, sense of belonging, and professional aspirations.
... The researchers analysed the role of online communities in overcoming gender stereotypes. A. Caliandro (2018) proposed an analytical concept for ethnographic research in the social media environment. The researcher considered the specific features of identity development in the context of digital ethnography. ...
The purpose of this study was to comprehensively investigate the mechanisms of interaction between online communications and identity development processes, analyse the specifics of these processes in various regions of Ukraine, and examine the impact of modern technologies on identity transformation in the digital space. The study was conducted using mixed methods, including an online survey of 2,000 social media users, in-depth interviews with 50 active users, content analysis of 100 Facebook and Instagram accounts, and a netnographic study of 10 Ukrainian online communities. The results revealed that 78% of respondents consider their online identity to be a significant part of their overall identity. It was found that social media algorithms substantially influence the shaping of users’ information environment, with 67% of content in news feeds matching users’ preferences. It was found that virtual communities play a significant role in shaping collective identity, especially among young people aged 18-25. The analysis of regional differences showed that the level of digital inequality affects the specific features of online identity development, with the greatest differences observed between urban and rural users. The study showed the need to develop innovative approaches to digital identity management and increase the level of media literacy in Ukrainian society. The study also revealed a growing trend towards the development of multiple online identities, especially among users aged 18-35. 62% of respondents in this age group reported having different “versions” of themselves for separate social platforms. The analysis of discourse in online communities showed that language practices and the use of specific Internet memes play a major role in the development of group identity. A correlation was found between the intensity of social media use and the level of subjective well-being of users (r = 0.43, p < 0.01). The study also discovered the growing influence of virtual and augmented reality (AR) technologies on self-presentation and identification processes, with 35% of respondents regularly using AR filters to create an online image. The findings have major implications for the development of digital literacy education programmes and social media regulation policies in Ukraine
Purpose
This study aims to advance qualitative digital research on service quality by developing an approach for online ethnographic service quality analysis. It synthesizes, analyzes, and interprets text-based customer data to assess service experiences and related quality attributes of a focal service provider.
Design/methodology/approach
Applying the design science research methodology, we develop an approach for online ethnographic service quality analysis and demonstrate its application in an exploratory case study of German Rail’s mobility service. Using an extensive dataset from platforms such as TripAdvisor, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, we analyze the service quality perceived by customers in this critical case.
Findings
Our approach serves as a compelling example of how service quality analysis can be advanced using online ethnography. By exploring the experiences of German Rail’s customers throughout the mobility service, we gain a holistic picture of service quality from the customer’s perspective and in-depth insight into key service quality features.
Research limitations/implications
Future research opportunities include expanding data sources, methodological diversity, and a longitudinal perspective to improve the analysis of service quality in complex and digital service environments.
Practical implications
For practitioners, the study provides a transparent approach for assessing service quality from the customer’s perspective, with potential applications across industries. By gaining insight into the customer’s service experience, organizations can better understand customer requirements across different service activities and use these insights to enhance overall service quality.
Originality/value
This paper introduces an approach for online ethnographic service quality analysis. By leveraging shared customer data relating to both offline and online (service) experiences, it extends traditional service quality assessment methods and provides a more holistic, experience-driven perspective, addressing the complexities of modern multi-channel service environments.
Bu çalışma, netnografi yönteminin ulusal ve uluslararası bağlamdaki kullanımlarını ve bu yöntemle çalışılmış konuları incelemek amacıyla gerçekleştirilmiştir. Web of Science (WOS) ve TrDizin veri tabanlarında gerçekleştirilen sistematik bir inceleme ile netnografik araştırmaların disiplinlerarası dağılımı, metodolojik yaklaşımlar ve kullanılan dijital platformlar analiz edilmiştir. Netnografi araştırma yöntemi, sosyal medya, forumlar ve diğer çevrimiçi topluluklar üzerinden sosyal ve kültürel etkileşimleri incelemek için kullanılan yenilikçi bir araştırma yöntemidir. Ayrıca, çevrimiçi toplulukların dinamiklerini ve etkileşim biçimlerini inceleyerek, toplumsal değişimlerin ve kültürel evrimlerin dijital platformlar üzerinden nasıl gerçekleştiğine
dair değerli bilgiler sunmaktadır. Dijital kültürlerin ve sosyal değişimlerin gözlemlenebilir hâle gelmesini sağlayarak kültürel evrimi takip etmektedir. Çalışmada, “Netnografik araştırmalar, disiplin alanlarına göre nasıl bir dağılım göstermektedir?”, “Netnografik araştırmalar, yayın yıllarına göre nasıl bir dağılım göstermektedir?”, “Netnografik araştırmalarda kullanılan dijital platformlar nasıl bir dağılım göstermektedir?” ve “Netnografik araştırmalarda araştırmacıların yoğunlaştığı konular nelerdir?” gibi sorulara cevaplar aranmıştır. Çalışmanın sonuçları, netnografi yönteminin özellikle eğitim, sağlık ve pazarlama gibi alanlarda artan bir şekilde tercih edildiğini göstermektedir. Ayrıca, Türkiye’deki araştırmalarda netnografi kullanımının
nispeten sınırlı olduğu, ancak giderek artan bir ilgi gördüğü belirlenmiştir. Bu çalışma, netnografi yönteminin mevcut durumunu anlamayı ve bu yöntemin gelecekteki araştırmalarda nasıl daha etkin kullanılabileceğine dair yol gösterici bilgiler sunmayı amaçlamaktadır.
In Digital Methods, Richard Rogers proposes a methodological outlook for social and cultural scholarly research on the Web that seeks to move Internet research beyond the study of online culture. It is not a toolkit for Internet research, or operating instructions for a software package; it deals with broader questions. How can we study social media to learn something about society rather than about social media use? Rogers proposes repurposing Web-native techniques for research into cultural change and societal conditions. We can learn to reapply such “methods of the medium” as crawling and crowd sourcing, PageRank and similar algorithms, tag clouds and other visualizations; we can learn how they handle hits, likes, tags, date stamps, and other Web-native objects. By “thinking along” with devices and the objects they handle, digital research methods can follow the evolving methods of the medium.
Rogers uses this new methodological outlook to examine such topics as the findings of inquiries into 9/11 search results, the recognition of climate change skeptics by climate-change-related Web sites, and the censorship of the Iranian Web. With Digital Methods, Rogers introduces a new vision and method for Internet research and at the same time applies them to the Web's objects of study, from tiny particles (hyperlinks) to large masses (social media).
Digital methods have previously been described as ‘a term that seeks to capture a recent development in Internet-related research, summarized as approaches to the web as data set’. Using this as a starting point, this paper positions digital media methods as a methodological approach that incorporates internet-based data, while also including other communicative and social media platforms such as Instagram, Vine, Twitter, giffy, Periscope, and Facebook amongst others. Digital media methods also extends to database research, data generated by sensors, drones and autonomous automobiles. Contemporary research engaging digital media methods is built upon the ‘computational turn’ where ‘computational approaches is increasingly reflected across a number of disciplines, including the arts, humanities and social sciences, which use technologies to shift the critical ground of their concepts and theories’. As media and communication scholars, our ‘research is increasingly being mediated through digital technology… affecting both the epistemologies and ontologies that underlie a research program’. This paper highlights three significant points of departure for digital media methods in the media and communication discipline: the increasing need for typologies and ontologies in social media research; the significance of mapping public issues; and the difficulties researchers face as text-based communication shifts to visually oriented platforms.
Exploring the new professional scenes in digital and freelance knowledge, this innovative book provides an account of the subjects and cultures that pertain to knowledge work in the aftermath of the creative class frenzy. Including a broad spectrum of empirical projects, The Reputation Economy documents the rise of freelancing and digital professions and argues about the central role held by reputation within this context, offering a comprehensive interpretation of the digital transformation of knowledge work. The book shows how digital technologies are not simply intermediating productive and organizational processes, allowing new ways for supply and demand to meet, but actually enable the diffusion of cultural conceptions of work and value that promise to become the new standard of the industry.
This paper explores the four difficulties of actor-network theory: the words "actor," "network," "theory," and the hyphen. The originality of ANT lies in the fact that this not so much an alternative social theory as it is a method of unravelling the activities of the actor who constructs their own world. By focusing on operations of structuring and summation rather than on concepts of "actor" and "network," we are able to show that the tension between the macro and the micro levels in the social sciences is largely artificial. ANT allows us to overcome this tension by channeling our attention away from objects and towards circulations instead. According to the author, the main contribution of this theory to the social sciences is the transformation of the social from the surface, territory, or region of reality into circulation. In the latter half of the paper, the author discusses the potential of ANT as a symmetrical anthropology of the modern and the defining structure of modernity. This implies accounting for the emergence of the ontological opposition between "out there" and "in there" (the nature and the subject), and (the deletion of) political and theological interests. The difference between ANT and many kinds of reflection on modernity, post-, hyper-, pre-, and antimodernity, is simply that it took to task simultaneously all of the components of what could be called the modernist predicament. According to the author, ANT is not a theory of the social any more than it is a theory of the subject, or a theory of God, or a theory of nature. It is a theory of the space or fluids circulating in a non-modern situation. In the conclusion of the article, the author offers an optimistic take on the potential of developing ANT further and giving it new forms.
Social media play a prominent role in mediating issues of public concern, not only providing the stage on which public debates play out but also shaping their topics and dynamics. Building on and extending existing approaches to both issue mapping and social media analysis, this article explores ways of accounting for popular media practices and the special case of ‘born digital’ sociocultural controversies. We present a case study of the GamerGate controversy with a particular focus on a spike in activity associated with a 2015 Law and Order: SVU episode about gender-based violence and harassment in games culture that was widely interpreted as being based on events associated with GamerGate. The case highlights the importance and challenges of accounting for the cultural dynamics of digital media within and across platforms.
Twitter’s hashtag functionality is now used for a very wide variety of purposes, from covering crises and other breaking news events through gathering an instant community around shared media texts (such as sporting events and TV broadcasts) to signalling emotive states from amusement to despair. These divergent uses of the hashtag are increasingly recognised in the literature, with attention paid especially to the ability for hashtags to facilitate the creation of ad hoc or hashtag publics. A more comprehensive understanding of these different uses of hashtags has yet to be developed, however.
Previous research has explored the potential for a systematic analysis of the quantitative metrics that could be generated from processing a series of hashtag datasets. Such research found, for example, that crisis-related hashtags exhibited a significantly larger incidence of retweets and tweets containing URLs than hashtags relating to televised events, and on this basis hypothesised that the information-seeking and -sharing behaviours of Twitter users in such different contexts were substantially divergent.
This article updates such study and their methodology by examining the communicative metrics of a considerably larger and more diverse number of hashtag datasets, compiled over the past five years. This provides an opportunity both to confirm earlier findings, as well as to explore whether hashtag use practices may have shifted subsequently as Twitter’s userbase has developed further; it also enables the identification of further hashtag types beyond the “crisis” and “mainstream media event” types outlined to date. The article also explores the presence of such patterns beyond recognised hashtags, by incorporating an analysis of a number of keyword-based datasets.
This large-scale, comparative approach contributes towards the establishment of a more comprehensive typology of hashtags and their publics, and the metrics it describes will also be able to be used to classify new hashtags emerging in the future. In turn, this may enable researchers to develop systems for automatically distinguishing newly trending topics into a number of event types, which may be useful for example for the automatic detection of acute crises and other breaking news events.