Netnography & eFieldnotesEvolving Methods & Ethical Context

Purpose: to present an overview of

• the practice of netnography• the use of eFieldnotes • ethical considerations for collecting data in the digital world

By: Stephanie Page

___________________________________________________________________________________________• Roughly 40% of the world’s population are internet users [Internet LiveStats, 2016]

• Over 1 billion people participate in online communities regularly [Inter LiveStats, 2016]

• Great need for social sciences to understand the nature of sociality and culture by incorporating Internet and computer-mediated research into design, methods and analyses [Kozinets, 2010]

• Capacity development specialist often consider the role of online or virtual communities and;

• How these communities are being used to “communicate, commune, socialize, express and understand” social phenomenon (Kozinets 2010: p 2)

• ‘Network ethnography’, ‘digital ethnography’, ‘digital anthropology’ or Netnography [Kozinets 2010] delivers important insight to capacity development researchers employing qualitative methods in the digital world

Evolving Context, Evolving Methods

Netnography: Definition and Quality Criterion

Reflexivity Judges the extent to which the role of the researcher is acknowledged and is open to alternative interpretations

Praxis Judges the extent to which the netnography inspires and empowers social action

Resonance Judges to what extent personalized and sensitizing connection with the cultural phenomenon is gained

Verisimilitude

Judges the extent to which a believable and lifelike sense of cultural and communal contact is achieved

Rigour Judges the extent to which netnography recognizes and adheres to the procedural standards of netnographic research

[adapted from adapted from Kozinets, 2010: p. 1 – 8 & p. 1 – 20, 189 – 195]

The practice of ‘netnography’ is a useful method for researchers interested in revealing, analyzing and understanding “the self-presentation strategies individuals use to construct a digital self” (Kozinets, 2010: p.2)

Criterion for quality netnography include reflexivity, praxis, resonance, verisimilitude and rigour [Kozinets, 2010]

Netnography Definition

“A specialized form of ethnography adapted to the unique computer-mediated contingencies of today’s social world’s” (Kozinets 2010: p. 1)

• Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and the Internet are changing more than just the nature of the communities we study.

• Technoculture has created the digitization of fieldwork, a major evolution in how we collect data and understand the world

• eFieldnotes refer to an evolving form of qualitative data collected through the use of digital devices such as personal computers, laptops and smart phones

• Output include: video, audio recording, digital text, images etc...

eFieldnotes might be:• About online communities and recorded digitally

Ex: transcribed comment forum from Reddit.com• About communities which exist offline, but were

recorded digitallyEx: Mobile video recording of busy Eaton Centre• About communities which exist both online and

offline, and recorded digitally

Ex: screen shot of #BlackLivesMatter Twitter feed

Figure 1: Example of eFieldnote: Screenshot of blacklivesmatter.com taken 02/05/2016

This piece of data captures the site as a social content aggregator around which a blended (online/offline) virtual community organizes itself and expresses its interests through a ring. This approach would be considered ‘research on online communities’ rather than ‘online community research’. It demonstrates asynchronous, computer-mediated communication. Data of this nature might be used to conduct a Social Network Analysis.

eFieldnotesSanjek, Roger & Tratner, Susan W. (2016) eFieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology in the Digital World. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, USA

• When researchers encounter the field through social media, the local-global divide shrinks - the distinction between being ‘in the field’ and ‘out of the field’ can blur

“Digital communication technologies do not dissolve boundaries between field and home, but they can bring disparate worlds into close proximity”

[Jordan Kramer (2016) eFieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology in the Digital p. 123]

• Sense of time and space changes in the digital world, immersion takes on new forms

• Sequestering time in the organization and analysis of data becomes a major advantage [Sanjek & Tratner, 2016]

• eFieldnotes are widening the complexity of qualitative data collection and analysis

• New methods for combining eFieldnotes with standard fieldnotes is a necessary evolution

Encountering the Field Through Social MediaSanjek, Roger & Tratner, Susan W. (2016) eFieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology in the Digital World. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, USA

Codes of Ethics are adapting to research on/with the digital world The Internet is a transnational entity which facilitates knowledge mobilization within and across global politics of information

access Some digital information is public, some private and some is actually beyond the control of the people and identities connected

to its content. Issues of consent, privacy, anonymity, identification, inclusion and exclusion need to be thoroughly explored when conducting

netnography or other forms of research on/with online communities

Understanding the virtual landscape and the ethical nature of information access on any particular website or social media platform is a predecessor of designing an ethical project

Publically accessed information does not necessarily mean it is ethical to collect and reproduce it as data

PUBLIC INFORMATION ACCESS

Ethical Considerations for Netnographic Research“Social media is affecting researcher’s efforts to recruit participants, gain informed consent, collect

data, leave the field, and disseminate results because participants have greater ability to respond to those findings. [This] points to shifts of power between participants and researchers…suggests that this might promise greater equity between participants and researchers, while also potentially introducing

new pitfalls.” [Reich, 2015. p. 395]

Facebook & Twitter are global communication platforms where researchers can recruit & collect data

Consideration: Is it ethical to friend a research participant? It is always unethical to friend a participant for the purpose of covertly collecting data Strong privacy settings are not the Facebook default. As a result, many people are vulnerable to being

victims of undesired or unintended information access It is always necessary to obtain informed consent for private information It is best to obtain informed consent for publically accessible information when that dat it is insensitive to

participant anonymity and when it risks unintended information access

Consideration: Storage of Data• Digital data should always be secured and protected in storage• Researchers need to store data with proper encryption and password protection on digital

devices• It is unwise to store sensitive data in software applications that are easily transgressed, like

Cloud or Email platforms

More Ethical ConsiderationsConsideration: How do parameters of ‘informed consent’ change across privately/publically accessed information?

[Sin, Harng Luh (2015)]

Participants who give informed consent have the right to anonymity

It is getting increasingly easy to link the identities of Internet users with the private social-media related information they produce

Is it ethical to disseminate published data on those social media platforms through which the data is collected? Answer requires researchers to consider how their publication & dissemination risks:

disclosing participant identity exploiting vulnerability

Online Consent Forms• An online consent form should be distributed to any participant disclosing private information.• An online consent form should be distributed to vulnerable individuals or individuals whose

anonymity/identification are at risk of being exposed, even if the data being used is publically accessible

• Kozinets (2010) suggests that any netnographic consent form should include the following:

Consent, Identification and Anonymity

Consideration: If you remove participant username from a Tweet used as data, it remains possible for the participant’s identity to be deduced through a hashtag or content search if you include that tweet in the research publication. How do we assess participant vulnerability in this situation?

Purpose Procedures Risks Benefits Compensation Confidentiality Costs Participant rights

[Sin, Harng Luh (2015)]

• As Internet usage and digital devices evolve, computer-mediated communication (CMC) is an increasingly important aspect of human systems

• Technoculture is changing both the nature of human systems and the nature of qualitative methods

• Netnographic techniques provide capacity development researchers with important implications for how to do research with/on virtual communities

• eFieldnotes are an important tool for contemporary researchers• Social media has the potential to shift power dynamics between researchers and

participants, but this potential equity comes with certain ethical challenges• The parameters of informed consent are difficult to define given the mix of public and

private information sharing via the Internet• Researchers should always strive to protect participant rights by respecting anonymity,

identity and informed consent in the collection, publication and dissemination of netnographic research.

Summary

GLOSSARY [adapted from adapted from Kozinets, 2010: p. 189 – 195]

Asynchronous Communication

Communications that are staggered in time, such as billboards, web-pages, forum postings, emails; spread over days, weeks, months; contrasted with synchronous “real-time” communication 

Blended netnography

Combines collection of online data/interactions with face-to-face data/interactions. Contrasted to ‘pure’ netnography 

Computer-mediated communication (CMC)

Communication that takes place through a computer or network; forums, postings, instant messaging, e-mails, chat rooms, texting etc… 

Cyberculture Distinct type of culture; developed along with digital information, communication technologies & the Internet: learned systems of meaning, which include beliefs, values, practices, roles & languages that organize online social formations 

Online community research

Examines some phenomenon directly related to online communities and online culture itself, its manifestations and/or elements 

Research on online communities

Examines general social phenomenon whose social existence extends beyond the Internet and online interactions, where online communication plays an important, but not exclusive, role in the group membership 

Rings organizations of related web-pages, linked together & structured by interest 

Social Content Aggregators

Sites/services designed to facilitate communal discovery & sharing of Internet content, vote on it, and comment upon it; a potential sit of online community and culture. Ex: Reddit, Buzzfeed etc… 

Social Networking Analysis

determining structural relationships among and between communities 

Technoculture Term to represent that technology does not determine culture and culture does not determine technology; they are co-evolving 

Online (or Virtual)Communities

Terms popularized by Howard Rheingold (1993: p.5): “social aggregations that emerge from the Internet when enough people carry on… public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feelings, to form webs of personal relationships in cyber space.” 

• Internet Live Stats (2016) Internet Users in the World. Retrieved February 15th, 2016 from http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/

• Kozinets, Robert V. (2010) Netnography: Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage Publications Ltd: California, USA

• Reich, Jennifer A. (2015) Old Methods and New Technologies: Social Media and Shifts in Power in Qualitative Methods. Vol 16 (4), 394 – 415

• Sanjek, Roger & Tratner, Susan W. (2016) eFieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology in the Digital World. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, USA

• Sin, Harng Luh (2015) “You’re not doing work, you’re on Facebook!” Ethics of Encountering the Field Through Social Media. The Professional Geographer, 67 (4), 676-685

References