Netnography: A Method Specifically Designed to Study Cultures and Communities Online

With many people now using online communities such as newsgroups, blogs, forums, social networking sites, podcasting, videocasting, photosharing communities, and virtual worlds, the internet is now an important site for research. Kozinets' (2010) new text explores netnography, or the conduct of ethnography over the internet - a method specifically designed to study cultures and communities online. Guidelines for the accurate and ethical conduct of ethnographic research online are set out, with detailed, step-by-step guidance to thoroughly introduce, explain, and illustrate the method to students and researchers. Kozinets surveys the latest research on online cultures and communities, focusing on the methods used to study them, with examples focusing on the blogosphere (blogging), microblogging, videocasting, podcasting, social networking sites, virtual worlds, and more. The book is essential reading for researchers and students in social sciences. Key Words: Netnography, Internet Research, Ethnography, Online Community, and Research Methods Introduction Netnography is an excellent resource for the seasoned qualitative researcher and a useful entry point for the newcomer to qualitative research. Kozinets (2010) has written in a coherent and thought-through style, making this text accessible for a very wide market. He mostly steers clear of complicated and contrived jargon, and he gives clear explanations and provides useful examples where needed. The included glossary also serves as a handy reference for more unfamiliar terms. The author points to further reading and information sources at the close of each chapter for those seeking further knowledge on the topics covered in the book. Kozinets (2010) writes, "Online communities form or manifest cultures, the learned beliefs, values and customs that serve to order, guide and direct the behavior of a particular society or group" (p. 12). As more and more people use the Internet, a growing number of them are utilizing it as a highly sophisticated communications device that enables and empowers the formation of communities. Online ethnography refers to a number of related online research methods that adapt to the study of the communities and cultures created through computer-mediated social interaction. Prominent among these ethnographic approaches is "netnography" (Kozinets). As modifications of the term ethnography, online ethnography and virtual ethnography (as well as many other methodological neologisms) designate online fieldwork that follows from the conception of ethnography as an adaptable method. These methods tend to leave most of the specifics of the adaptation to the individual researcher. The author of Netnography suggests the use of specific procedures and standards, and he argues for consideration of particular consensually-agreed upon techniques, justifying the use of a new name rather than a modification of the term ethnography. By whatever name, all ethnographies of online cultures and communities extend the traditional notions of field and ethnographic study, as well as ethnographic cultural analysis and representation, from the observation of co-located, face-to-face interactions to technologically mediated interactions in online networks and communities, and the culture (or cyberculture) shared between and among them (Kozinets, 2010). In doing so, these techniques are founded in the sense that traditional notions of a field site as a localized space are outdated. Kozinets suggests that ethnographic fieldwork can be meaningfully applied to computer-mediated interactions, an assertion that some have contested, but which is increasingly becoming accepted. A number of researchers have conducted ethnographies of online cultures and communities that are purely observational, in which the researcher is a specialized type of lurker (Kozinets, 2010). However, other researchers have emphasized a more participative approach, in which the researcher fully participates as a member of the online community. …