2.5.

Virtual ethnography
Elisenda Ardvol and Adolfo Estalella

2.5.1. The ethnographic method

Ethnography is a description of the way of life of a community or social group based on a holistic
understanding of the various parts of its social structure and cultural universe. This description is
oriented by the theories and research questions that we have on mind (Velasco & Daz de Rada,
1997: 21). This holistic understanding includes both the meaning the actors give to their own
actions and the definitions of their operations and structure as given by the researcher. As such, any
element of the group under study can only be understood in relation to the others, and this also
implies that this web of relationships and meanings constitutes a dynamic whole.
Ethnography, as we have briefly stated here, is the empirical basis from which anthropological
theories are drawn and it was developed to study small communities, usually illiterate, with
subsistence economies. However, its application has slowly been expanded to allow it to be used in
the study of complex societies with market economies, of social groups in urban centres, and
institutions such as schools, prisons, political parties or companies.
In short, it could be said that the ethnographic method is a method for collecting data based on
observation and in-depth interviews; ethnography could be defined as a dense, detailed description
that defines the relationships between the various elements involved in the organisation of societies,
taking their cultural meanings into account. It is currently used as a research method (fieldwork)
and as a way of presenting results (ethnographical description) in social sciences. Ethnography is
usually applied by qualitative researches that are interested in the microsocial analysis of face-to-face
relationships in any type of social context or cultural environment.
Qualitative research is not always based on ethnographic fieldwork, but the rules used in the
ethnographic method can be very useful for qualitative research as it cover all of the techniques
used for obtaining and treating data in a unified research project and can be used to orient research.

Emic and etic

One of the steps of the ethnographic method involves distinguishing between emic information
from within, information coming from the social actors and etic information from without, that
provided by the researchers theoretical framework to put it very simply. To illustrate this
difference we could look at, for example, a description of a population based on its demographics
an etic perspective. We can build the age pyramid for the population based on its demographic
distribution, which can be useful for looking at its demographic structure and comparing it with the
age distributions of other populations. However, this data will not tell us if there are semantic and
cultural differences within the group based on age, or if there are different rights and duties
associated with being a member of a particular age group that might include criminal status or
voting rights the emic perspective 1 .
Some cultures do not put much emphasis on the year of birth and the social age of a person is associated
with other traits (for example, having passed puberty rituals, being married or single etc.) more than on their
chronological age. The first is an etic description of the culture under study as the categories used (based on
date of birth) form a part of the universe of the researcher, but not necessarily of the social actor. On the
other hand, the second is an emic system in that it refers to the age-related values, rights and duties that are
specific to this group and which may or may not coincide with those of another cultural group, with
associated meanings that are not always measurable or deducible from chronological age.

In the case of a study of Internet forums, for example, we may be interested in the chronological
order of postings from an etic point of view it will give us clues about the writing habits present
on this forum. However, from an emic perspective, the chronological order will not always be
meaningful for the actors depending, for example, on the emotional state of the users or the
expectations associated with participating in the forum. Time and space perception is significant for
us as researchers and should be taken into account as it will demonstrate how the emic perception
of the space-time variable is constructed by Internet users and, in particular, in the forum being
studied.
Ethnography, by default, should adopt at least two perspectives: That which the object of study sets
out and the theoretical position of the researcher (etic) and that which arises from the community
under study (emic). Therefore, aside from the data, in the strictest sense of the term, the
fieldworkmay include explanations, interpretative evaluations and descriptions of the impressions
of the researcher, including descriptions of the interpretations and explanations given by the actors
about what they did or said, that constitute the emic source of information.
There is also an aspect of the ethnographic method that we have not mentioned before, which
conditions the presentation of the research results and of which we have to be aware; even if it is
not always advantageous. As Velasco and Daz de Rada have stated, ethnographic work attempts to
represent the link between day-to-day experiences and the process of constructing cultural
generalisations, the link between the micro level and the macro level. This means that
ethnographies lose some of their value and usefulness when we skip the description phase and go
straight to the chapter on conclusions (Velasco and Daz de Rada, 1997:245).
Ethnographical results, and those of many qualitative studies, are comprehensive and systemic
models, they are not mechanistic causal models. Ethnography provides the researcher with detailed
knowledge of his or her object of study and the body of data will provide the implicit knowledge in
the dense description, giving the reader a global vision of the phenomena under study.
Ethnographical results therefore often take the form of a monograph similar to those of a case
study. However, as Kirsten Hastrup (1999) points out, this exhaustive description does not imply
the substitution of one discurs for another (the native narratives for the scientific ones), nor does it
have to do exclusively with a representation of the other. Ethnography is not an intercultural
translation (interpreting the other), but rather, this dense description is the fruit of a creative
process involving the relationship the ethnographer has with the field and with the theoretical
perspective he has adopted. The objective of the ethnographic work goes beyond the description in
that it proposes an expansion of our knowledge about how human societies organise themselves,
how they live and how they feel, in other words, it tries to give us an understanding of cultural
differences. It is for this reason that ethnography is considered to be a necessary prior step in the
development of knowledge that will allow us to compare different cultural universes and to
elaborate general theories that have a greater scope.
When investigating contemporary societies, we will often find that our studies will need to include
the use of digital technologies for communication and for retrieving information. This is so
because people use more and more internet and other digital technologies in their everyday life.
This means that we can use Internet from three perspectives: a) as a source of data on certain
social and cultural aspects we wish to study; for example, analysing the content of the posts found
on a discussion forum of a self-help community, if we are studying issues relating to e-health; b) as
a way of gathering data, for example, we can distribute a questionnaire on the usefulness of the
discussion forum for the participants or conduct online interviews about how the participants
perceive the benefits of the forum; and c) we could make the forum itself our object of study
we want to study computer mediated interaction, for example-, or as our fieldsite, the empirical
unit in which we are conducting at least part of our participative observation. In an ethnographic
investigation, we will generally use the Internet from these three perspectives, although this does
not mean that we should limit our field work to Internet relationships but rather we should make
the Internet a part of our field of study and use it in our data-collection procedures.

How we adapt the ethnographic methodology to the study of Internet practices will depend on how
we define the object of study, our theoretical perspective and how the field is structured.

Virtual ethnography: specific aspects of the Internet as the field and a source of
qualitative data
Virtual ethnography is a term used by Christine Hine (2001) and other authors to describe the
adaptation of the ethnographic methodology to the study of computer-mediated interaction and
those social and cultural practices associated with the use of the Internet and new digital
technologies. The term virtual is slightly controversial and has been repeatedly questioned because it
establishes a polarity between whats real as opposed to virtual, in the sense that real implies
the accomplishment of an action and its consequences while virtual implies that the action is a
possibility, but is not already done. It has not yet real consequences. Furthermore, the term also
leads us to the opposition of authenticity versus simulacrum or simulation virtual reality. The
choice of the term virtual to describe the adaptation of the ethnographic method to the context of
the Internet presupposes that we are dealing with a specific type of interaction that is different
from others and, in particular, from face-to-face, physical or group interaction. This also leads us to
believe that interaction on the Internet is less real and that it is potential, in other words, that
actions do not necessarily have the same consequences as they would in the real world, or that
social relationships that are established on the Internet are in some way simulated or less
authentic.
This definition of the Internet as a world that is separate from real life stems from the first
investigations into social interaction on the Internet, which were fundamentally based on multi-user
games and chat rooms that characterise the Internet as a space (cyberspace) not entirely real, in
which everyone can be who they want to be; according to the famous cartoon by Steiner, on the
Internet, nobody knows youre a dog. Later developments of new Internet technologies gave rise
to the sharing of not just text, but also images. This non-corporeal concept of the Internet has
changed for current Internet users and social networks. Social networks sites, for example, are now
based on the idea that everyone should know who you are.
Having said this, it would appear that we should reject the adjective virtual in reference to
Internet-mediated ethnography as it leads to a series of assumptions that are not sustainable, given
that the Internet forms a major part of the daily lives of a large section of the world population and
transactions are made on the Internet that are not "virtual" in the slightest, but have very real
effects on people's lives. Nevertheless, the virtual ethnography label has prevailed and it is still
useful for denoting the specificity of the Internet-mediated ethnographic method, and also for
denoting the specific conditions we must bear in mind when conducting qualitative research
mediated by these technologies.
Here we have decided to carry on using the term virtual for various reasons. The first is that it
refers directly to qualitative research in the context of computer-mediated interaction. The second
is because the term virtual presents problems in terms of the nature of the interaction and
therefore leads us to question issues relating to techniques used and the object under study, as well
as the ethics surrounding Internet research. Virtual ethnography is no different from real-world
ethnography but rather it invites us to look at methodological aspects important for all
ethnographic methods from a different angle.
Below we have included a series of articles that encourage discussion and dialogue surrounding the
various theoretical and methodological implications of the various adjectives that have been applied
to the ethnographic method in terms of the Internet as an object and as a field of study.
These articles deal with some of the problems posed by virtual ethnography and propose other
ways of looking at the relationship between ethnographic methodologies and the Internet.

Belladicks, Bambo Soyinka and Amanda Coffey. 2006. Multimodal ethnography. Qualitative
Research Review. Vol. 6, No. 1, 77-96 [pdf document can be downloaded at
http://qrj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/6/1/77]
The integration of different media has potentially significant implications for ethnography. Rather
than seeing these media forms as discrete, we suggest an approach to ethnographic work which sees
meaning as emerging from the fusion of differently mediated forms into new, multi-semiotic
modes. The article recognizes the need to develop ways of understanding what kinds of meanings
are produced in multimodal ethnographic work [excerpt from the abstract].
Maurizio Teli, Francesco Pisanu & David Hakken. 2007. The Internet as a Library-of-People: For
a Cyberethnography of Online Groups. Forum for Qualitative Social Research FQS, Volume 8, No. 3,
Art. 33. [pdf document can be downloaded at
http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/viewArticle/283]
The concept "cyberethnography" remains undefined in the social sciences while, at the same time,
still overlapping too much with the more well-known concept of "virtual ethnography." The aim of
this paper is to explore new directions in the ethnographic study of computer mediated settings. To
do so, we define cyberspace as computer-mediated contexts intrinsically related to supposed-to-be
"real" places. From this point of view, the ethnography of online groups is not just the ethnography
of the groups online (or the online ethnography of groups), but it is both the ethnography of online
and related off-line situations, the ethnography of humans and non-human actors in these related
fields. It is hybrid, like a cyborg. In a word, it is a cyberethnography [excerpt from the abstract].
Christine Hine, (2007). 2007. Connective ethnography for the exploration of e-science. Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(2), article 14 [article available at
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue2/hine.html]
This article describes a study that focused on the biological discipline of systematics, exploring the
ways in which the use of a variety of information and communication technologies has become a
routine part of disciplinary practice. The ethnography combined observation and interviews within
systematic institutions with mailing list participation, exploration of web landscapes, and analysis of
expectations around information and communications technologies as portrayed in policy
documents. Exploring connections among these different activities offers a means to understanding
multiple dimensions of e-science as a focus of practice and policy [excerpt from the abstract].

2.5.3. Can you tell me where the field is please?

What exactly is ethnographic fieldwork? Ethnographic fieldwork is based on the prolonged
investigation of a community or social group and the collection of data about its way of life. It
could be said that the field is the environment in which the ethnographer conducts his or her
empirical research. Within the anthropological tradition, the field has generally been defined by the
ethnic boundaries related to a specific place or geographic area, and has been carried out in towns,
villages or limited regions. The term ethnography refers to the description of an ethnic group and
constitutes the basis of ethnology knowledge about a people or a nation and of posterior
anthropological theorisation knowledge about human beings in terms of their social and cultural
similarities and differences. Any community or social group is easily susceptible to ethnographic
study if its members share the same collective identity or a common culture, language and history.
In fact, there are many ethnographies that are conducted in urban environments or in specific
institutions and communities meaning that the ethnographic method has been opened up to other
objects of study that go beyond ethnic groups. The problem faced when delimiting the field in the
ethnographic method can be divided into two aspects: The first is that, even if the study is focused
on an ethnic group, the ethnographer will be faced with high mobility within the field, mainly due
to migratory processes, in that there are many transnational communities and ethnic groups that are

not well-defined geographically and there is also a high rate of mobility of individuals between
countries, meaning that the field does not remain stable for very long. The second is related to the
opening up of the ethnographic method to other objects of study, such as thematic ethnography, in
which the object of study might be the behaviour of adolescents, prostitution, the economy, or the
practice of yoga.
Veret Amit (2000), and before him, George Marcus (1995), have already warned us about the
disappearance of the field as a space for natural observation that is well-defined in terms of
political boundaries and identity and that clearly corresponds to a physical space. According to
Amit:
In a world of infinite interconnectedness and superimposed contexts, the ethnographic field can
not simply exist waiting to be discovered. The field must be laboriously constructed, carefully
separating it from any other possible contextualisation that its constitutive relationships and
connections may refer to. This process of construction is inevitably limited by conceptual,
professional and financial aspects including the relational possibilities and the resources that the
ethnographer can access.
(Veret Amit, 2000)

If we look up a well-known ethnographic manual written by Hammersley and Atkinson (1995), we

will find that also there has space been always constituted and maintained by social strategies and
cultural definitions. If this is valid for the communities we are studying, if we recognise that space
and time are not absolute categories but have been socially developed and maintained, we can also
say that we are doing the same when we define our field of investigation. We should not imagine
that our field is already out there, or that it is clearly defined and delimited independently of any
definitions we might make.
When studying Internet practices we tend to characterise the Internet as an "electronic space" or
"cyberspace", making it equivalent to a physical space, we also provide it with intrinsic
characteristics that have specific social effects such as, for example, the instability of online
identities. Leander and Mckim (2003: 223) are clear on this point:
The online/offline, virtual world/real world, cyberspace/physical space binaries need to be
disrupted not simply because they are imperfect, fuzzy distinctions, but because they provide a priori
answers to some of the most intriguing questions about Internet practices.
(Leander and Mckim, 2003: 223)

The most interesting and surprising aspect, according to them, is not the absence or presence of a
clear definition or a boundary between the Internet and daily life, but rather the ways in which both
the participants and the researchers construct the Internet as a separate social space and why.
In fact, we are increasingly encountering research results that confirm that, for most subjects, the
virtual/real dichotomy has no value for the quality of their experiences and that people do not
consider Internet participation to be something extraordinary, rather, participants tend to view
online and offline experiences as being continuous. Contrary to initial hypotheses maintaining that
the Internet causes social isolation, we are currently observing that Internet technologies do not
limit or restrict, but rather are expanding and organising our social relationships either in the office
or in the bar.
The Internet has been constructed by many investigators as a non-corporeal or physical place
where the physical dimensions of participants and their location are irrelevant. This dislocation of
physical spaces does not mean that they do not matter, or that the separation is considered to be
artificial, rather that they can not be considered to be self-evident merely by limiting the field of
investigation to the Internet alone. Even so, can we maintain the specificity of the field when we

are working with Internet practices? Can we apply the same ethical rules when acting in physical
environments as when we are acting in virtual environments?
To continue with this discussion, we invite you to read the following recommended articles on
defining the field, both in ethnographic fieldwork that includes the Internet and that which does
not. Think about how prior concepts define the object of study and the research field, especially in
the case of studies that include computer-mediated relationships. Justify and argue the need to
include or exclude the Internet as a field of study.
Sarah Strauss. 2000. Locating yoga: ethnography and transnational practice. In Amit, Veret.
Constructing the field: ethnographic fieldwork in the contemporary world. Routledge pub. Chapter 9, pp. 162190.
This article demonstrates that yoga can be seen in the literal fact of re-circulation of ideas and
practices from one place on our planet to another, and back. The world is increasingly characterized
by the rapid dissemination of people, goods, ideas, images, and practices around the globe.
However, the majority of studies which address these transnational phenomena focus on flows
from a centre or core of political and economic power, usually somewhere in the West, to a
peripheral locale. Strauss presents an original methodology to deal with practices that are around
the world [excerpt from the abstract].
Kevin M. Leander & Kelly K. Mckim (2003). Tracing the Everyday Sitings of Adolescents on
the Internet: a strategic adaptation of ethnography across online and offline spaces. Education,
Communication & Information, Vol. 3, No. 2, July.
This article argues for the need to move beyond place-based ethnography and develop
ethnographic methodologies that follow the moving, travelling practices of adolescents online and
offline. In the first part of the article, challenges to traditional ethnographic constructs such as place,
identity, and participant observation, and the ways in which these constructs are further destabilized
in research online are reviewed [excerpt from the abstract].
Mizuko Ito. 2000. Network Localities: Identity, Place, and Digital Media.
http://www.itofisher.com/mito/publications/network_localit.html
Addressing debates about culture and globalisation, this paper looks at how identity and place is
produced through and within digital media infrastructures. Network locality describes affiliation
that spans geography through media technology, but is grounded in concrete places, practices, and
material relations. The contrast between global flows and local practice and identity is the wrong
starting point for approaching new media technologies [excerpt from the abstract].
Jenna Burrell (2009). The Field Site as a Network: A Strategy for Locating Ethnographic
Research.
Field
Methods
OnlineFirst,
published
on
February
18,
2009:
http://fmx.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/1525822X08329699v1
Through the work of constructing a field site, researchers define the objects and subjects of their
research. This article explores a variety of strategies devised by researchers to map social research
onto spatial terrain. Virtual networked field sites are among the recent approaches that are
challenging conventional thinking about field-based research [excerpt from the abstract].

2.5.4. Participative online observation

The heart of the ethnographic method is the technique of participative observation, which involves
the researcher immersing himself or herself in the actual situation being studied and understanding
it from within, as any other social actor. The aim of participative observation is to gain first-hand
knowledge about the lives of groups, their practices, their use of objects, the context in which

results are produced, the tone of conversations, day-to-day life and the rituals they use. During this
period, the ethnographer will observe, participate and construct his or her data in a flexible way,
even if surprised by the things she or he sees, hears or feels. These accumulated impressions and
observations will be systematically noted down in a field diary, an essential tool that will be referred
to throughout the research process (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1994).
Participative observation involves tracking the activities of our subjects on a daily basis and in the
creation of field notes in which we note down our observations and impressions. This ethnographic
knowledge will give us the appropriate context in which to interpret our data and it will be analysed
later on.
As we have already stated, when we apply the technique of participative observation to Internet
environments we must bear in mind that we are entering the field in order to observe and to
participate in these environments.
For example, let us use an online forum as our empirical observation unit. In order to enter this
forum, we will need to register a user name, so this will therefore be our first step. We will also
need to introduce ourselves to the forum and to contact the administrators to inform them of our
research. Just because a forum is publically accessible it does not mean we can study the interaction
taking place on it without permission, much less when we intend to observe it, to participate in it
and to become a member of it.
When we observe the forum from our screens, we are observing what we understand to be social
interaction using message lists, some of which we will see are related. How can we see this? Not
just from the discussion threads, but also from phrases such as in reply to your previous
message... etc. In this case, we are able to read these written communications in the form of a
collective novel, inter-personal links are another fundamental aspect to take into account when
observing activities. This is a direct clue to the type of social activities that are taking place on the
forum under study. The messages create relationships between people. People are conducting their
social lives through the forum and on the forum. I like what you said in your last post does
not just suggest a relationship between one message and another, but also between one person and
another. Very often, the information on this relationship is not contained in the text of the message
but emerges from the relationship the message has within the context of other messages and from
the memories that the recipient has of the life of the forum and from his level of participation in
it and knowledge of it.
When observing the activity of the forum as a participant who understands what is being said, we
will feel that we are seeing how friendship relationships are constructed, how some people will
react to a message in a hostile way and others in a supportive way. We will be observing a
relationship between two people and making inferences about the type of relationship (hatred,
friendship, dependency, prestige). We participate, although simply as actors, in a true social
interaction that is meaningful for us. The forum will change each day and we will be able to see
what has happened, how one person has responded to a provocative message. That feeling of being
present in a live social dynamic that is organised but unpredictable will be lost if messages are
only opened randomly or if the forum is not visited on a regular basis. We can therefore say that we
are observing an active forum that is alive.
Observers regularly following the activity on a forum for a prolonged time will be able to infer
social knowledge about what is happening, and previous and successive messages will either
confirm or negate their inferences and expectations. This knowledge and the associated memories
are ethnographic knowledge and largely make up the researchers interpretive framework.
Participative observation implies learning, not just of the use of technology and the procedures
used for intervening in a forum, but also social learning about what it means to be involved in that
social space and how that involvement should be conducted. We are attempting to initiate a
secondary process of socialisation (Velasco & Diaz de Rada, 1997). Participation provides a

different type of knowledge about the forum than observation alone. In the first place, it provides
first-hand knowledge about the technological procedures that participants must follow and which
are not always visible on the screen. Secondly, it provides information about the subjective
experience of the participation why do they respond to your message and it provides the basis
for interaction with the participants and the establishment of field relationships that will be
fundamental for interviews and life histories, in other words, to expose the narratives of the
participants concerning their experience and to access inside knowledge about what happens on
the forum.
Participative observation does not just imply reading text contents and analysing texts. The concept
of participative observation always implies a social interaction context and the observation of
behaviour, as well as active participation in the chosen scenario.
In order to translate that participative observation method to an online context, we need to
consider how we are going to do it and the characteristics of the social interaction context or
medium in which we are going to insert it. For example, observing or participating in a chat room
or an instant messaging environment is different than observing and participating in a blog, on
Facebook or in a virtual community. Participating in an online environment means that, to a certain
extent, we need to be behaving in the same way as our subjects of study. In a chat room, we will
need to have a nickname create a nickname and an online identity, in a blogging environment, we
will need to create our own blog to be able to experience having a blog and participating and
interacting using a blog, entering and expanding our profile on Facebook, or setting up an account
and posting videos on Youtube, etc.
In order to participate in an online environment, we need to create an online identity that is similar
to those of the other participants; however we also need to make our activities and our goals clear.
In this sense, it is worth thinking about how we construct our online identity and the information
we provide about ourselves and our research. Some researchers have opted to create an identity
related to research in their nickname and they appear in chat rooms as researcher or they create a
blog directly related to research. Others choose to create a more complete personal identity and add
more information about their research task. For example, they use their first name on the site but a
link will direct people to a website that explains, in general terms, the research they are conducting
and the ethic considerations being used etc. Constructing a good field identity is crucial for correct
online participation.
The concept of participative observation includes spatial conceptualisations and a series of
dichotomies and stresses, for example, observation/participation, inside/outside, native/foreign,
far/near, presence/absence, that will also influence its adaptation to Internet environments. Crises
may occur, not just due to epistemological and ethical issues, but also due to the actual process of
adaptation and the practices of the informants.
Deborah A. Fields & Yasmin B. Kafai (2007). Tracing Insider Knowledge Across Time and
Spaces: A Connective Ethnography in a Teen Online Game World. Proceedings of the 2007 Computer
Supported Collaborative Learning Conference New Brunswick, NJ July 16-21
[http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1599600.1599640]
In this study, our goal is to conduct a connective ethnography that focuses on how gaming
expertise spreads across a network of youth at an after-school club that simultaneously participates
in a multi-player virtual environment (MUVE). We draw on multiple sources of information:
observations, interviews, video recordings, online tracking and chat data, and hundreds of hours of
play in the virtual environment of Whyville ourselves. By focusing on one particular type of insider
knowledge, called teleporting, we traced youth learning in a variety of online and offline social
contexts [excerpt from the abstract].
Okabe et al. (2006). The Social Uses of Purikura: Photographing, Modding, Archiving, and
Sharing. PICS Workshop, Ubicomp.

Drawing from ethnographic research in Tokyo, this paper describes the social practices of
photographing, modding, archiving and sharing Print Club sticker pictures. The case of purikura is
presented in order to illustrate a pervasive image capture and sharing modality that is optimized to
capture and display peer network relationships. [excerpt from the abstract]
T. Heng (2007). A Virtual and Visual Ethnography of the Singaporean Ethnic Chinese Wedding
and its Preparations. First Presented at the BSA 2007 Conference, University of East London. [access at
http://heng.hurricadia.org/shapingrituals_bsa_may07.pdf]
This paper examines the interactions that take place in virtual communities and how actors might
shape the performance of rituals and ritualistic behaviour offline. I use the modern ethnic Chinese
wedding in Singapore as an example of rituals, and the online forum at the wedding portal
Singaporebrides.com as the accompanying virtual community. The virtual community will be
shown to be a mode of facilitation for the sharing and consumption of information about rituals,
according to the interpretations of the actors involved. [excerpt from the abstract]

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