Slides from my seminar presentation on cyber-ethnography as a research methodology,

1. That’s nice,
dear.
An Overview of
Cyber-ethnography
by Kelli Buckreus
EDDE 802 | March 6, 2018
Athabasca University
When I grow up, I’m going to be a
princess CYBER-ethnographer!

2. (Gatson & Zweerink, 2004; Hine, 2017)
Classical Ethnography:
Immersions + Active Participation = Observation + Experience

3. Must ethnographers start from a distance?
(Gatson & Zweerink, 2004; Hine, 2015, 2017)

4. Early cyberethnograhpers
focussed on single online
spaces, making it easy to
bound field sites.
(Hine, 2017)

5. Towards multi-sited
ethnography
(Gatson&Zweerink,2004;Hine,2015,2017)

6. Blurred boundaries and fluid movement
between offline and online spaces
(Hallet & Barber, 2014; Hine, 2015, 2017;; Teli, Pisanu & Hakken, 2007,p. 29)

7. Ethnography of online groups?
Ethnography of groups online?
Is there a difference?
(Hine, 2015, 2017; Savin-Baden & Tombs, 2017)

8. Hine,2017;Savin-Baden&Tombs,2017

9. Table 3.2 Forms of ethnography for the digital age
Savin-Baden & Tombs, 2017, p. 62

10. Savin-Baden & Tombs, 2017, p. 61

11. (Gatson and Zweerink, 2004; Hine, 2015, 2017)
Ethnographer establishes presences
in multiple sites within a system

12. Both subjects and researchers
create and simultaneously
manage multiple identities
(Gatson and Zweerink, 2004; Hine, 2015, 2017)

13. Where do YOU engage online?
What identities do YOU create?

15. BE fashion!

16. Me, most of the time.
(Gatson and Zweerink, 2004)

17. ?
(Gatson and Zweerink, 2004; Hallet & Barber, 2014; Savin-Baden & Tombs, 2017)

18. (Gatson & Zweerink, 2004; Savin-Baden & Tombs, 2017)

19. “… where in the offline world the ethnographer must translate the field site into field
notes or text, online members took on the ethnographer’s task by translating the
offline range of interactive cuing mechanisms into textual format.”
- (Robinson & Schults, as quoted in Savin-Baden & Tombs, 2017, p. 58)

20. Table 1.1 New typology of data
DATA TYPE DATA SOURCES RESEARCH CHALLENGES
Orthodox intentional data Interviews, surveys, focus
groups, with explicit consent
Difficult to determine what online
data is “orthodox”
Participative intentional data Participatory action research,
appreciative inquiry,
crowdsourcing
Consent can be difficult in online
settings.
Consequential data Secondary data Incomplete datasets
Self-published data Blogs, personal websites, used
with or without permission
Difficult to decide on sampling,
and managing large datasets
Social media data Twitter, Facebook, etc., used
without permission, in public
domain.
Difficult to determine
provenance,
truthfulness/authenticity, and
validity
Data traces “Footprints” left behind, e.g.
search histories, used without
permission
Difficult determining what might
be an honest use of data in
research
Found data Public domain, e.g.
observations in public spaces
Covert data collection, therefore
ethical issues.
(Gatson & Zweerink, 2004; Savin-Baden & Tombs, 2017, p. 20)

21. “… when [does] participant observation move
from being a description of being… to an
inscription of ethnography?”
(Gatson and Zweerink, 2004, p. 187)

22. Provocative Questions!(… none of which address our glam shots)
• What arguments are there fore or against the assertion that ALL
contemporary ethnography should be multi-site, and should include
online field sites?
• How might the idea of researcher as native enhance or undermine
ethnography? (… considering Geertz’s experience-near and experience-
distant for simultaneously interpreting local details and global structures)
• How might an ethnographer’s (manipulated) digital identity or identities in
online contexts shape research and interpretations that may be different
in nature compared to research and interpretations involving the
ethnographer’s in-person identity in wholly offline contexts? How access
be impacted? How might authenticity be impacted?

23. References
Gatson, S. N., & Zweerink, A. (2004). Ethnography online: ‘Natives’ practising and inscribing community. Qualitative
Research, 4(2), 179-200. DOI: 10.1177/1468794104044431
Hallett, R. E., & Barber, K. (2014). Ethnographic research in a cyber era. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 43(3),
306-330. DOI: 10.1177/0891241613497749
Hine, C. (2017). Ethnography and the Internet: Taking account of emerging technological landscapes. Fudan Journal of
the Humanities and Social Sciences, 10(3), 315-329. DOI 10.1007/s40647-017-0178-7
Hine, C. (2015). Ethnography for the internet: Embedded, embodied and everyday [Kindle version]. Retrieved from
Amazon.ca
Savin-Baden, M., & Falconer, L. (2016). Learning at the interstices; Locating practical philosophies for understanding
physical/virtual inter-spaces. Interactive Learning Environments, 24(5), 991-1003.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2015.1128212
Savin-Baden, M., & Tombs, G. (2017). Research methods for education in the digital age [Kindle version]. Retrieved
from Amazon.ca
Teli, M., Pisanu, F., & Hakken, D. (2007, September). The internet as a library-of-people: For a cyberethnography of
online groups. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 8(3), 1-24.
http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-8.3.283