FQS: Virtual Ethnography

The Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung released a new edition covering Virtual Ethnography in September. Complete texts are provided in English, German and Spanish. What is Virtual Ethnography?

The label "virtual ethnography" includes a broad range of methodological approaches aimed at answering the complexities of the object of research and the different ways in which this object has been constructed. Virtual ethnographers, ethnographers of the Internet or of cyberspace are faced with the need to answer very pressing questions such as how to use heterogeneous data (text, audiovisual data, etc.) in their analysis, or how to combine research in front of the screen and in the virtual field. (1 Beaulieu/Dominguez/Estalella/Gomez/Read/Schnettler 2007)

There is a chapter about Cyberethnography, whereas ethnography is "a written represenation of culture":

Cyberculture is a prolific area of research, and ethnography occupies a central position in studying cybercultures (BELL, 2001). In brief, ethnography is "a written representation of culture" (MAANEN, 1988). It strives to create descriptions of individual or collective subjectivities for the purpose of understanding different cultures. (2 Gajjala/Rybas 2007)

The authors develop ethnographic methods to investigate the internet by basing their research on the epistemologies of doing. In the conclusion they call for a "process-oriented multi-modal cyberethnographic engagement".

Several reviews and conference reports consummate the edition. All texts are available via *.pdf - download, publications date back to the year 2000.

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1 Domínguez, Daniel; Beaulieu, Anne; Estalella, Adolfo; Gómez, Edgar; Schnettler, Bernt & Read, Rosie (2007) Virtual Ethnography. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 8(3), http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-07/07-3-E1-e.htm

2 Rybas, Natalia & Gajjala, Radhika (2007). Developing Cyberethnographic Research Methods for Understanding Digitally Mediated Identities [33 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 8(3), Art. 35, http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-07/07-3-35-e.htm

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