Ethnographic field work is the primary methodology employed by anthropologists, although other

disciplines such as cultural studies and sociology may also employ ethnographic methods.
Ethnography involves immersion in the daily lives of a particular community of people for an
extended period of time for the purpose of collecting various types of data about that community.
An ethnographer will typically choose a particular community, village, or ethnic group, request
permission from the group in question to live among them for the purpose of research, and then
conduct the period of research for anywhere from several months, to several years. For instance,
in one famous study the ethnographer Janice Radway found a group of women in the rural
Midwest who were fans of romance novels. Radway spent several years attending their book
clubs, interviewing participants, and talking with them informally about why they like romance
novels. Her book Reading the Romance is considered a classic of contemporary American
ethnography.
Ethnography attempts to understand human cultures both through the eyes of the community
themselves, as well as through the analysis and interpretation of a trained ethnographer.

Problems and Issues

Obviously, a key dimension relates to the kind of methods employed.

Ethnography is oft\en seen as a specific form of qualitative inquiry, to be
compared or contrasted with others, for example, with life history work or
discourse analysis; though even the boundaries with these neighbours are
somewhat fuzzy. Yet ethnographic work sometimes includes the use of
quantitative data and analysis, so that it may not be purely qualitative in
character. 

These issues include: how ethnographers define the spatial and temporal
boundaries of what they study; how they determine the context that is
appropriate for understanding it; in what senses ethnography can be—or is—
virtual rather than actual; the role of interviews as a data source; the
relationship between ethnography and discourse analysis; the tempting
parallel with imaginative writing; and, finally, whether ethnography should
have, or can avoid having, political or practical commitments of some kind,
beyond its aim of producing value-relevant knowledge.

Examples

Social media is used by 2.3 billion people and any one Internet
user has on average 5.54 social media accounts.
 Eye tracking has several applications in market research from
understanding shopper behaviour, to measuring marketing
effectiveness, to exploring how consumers interact with digital
content. 
Whilst scrapbooks are not as sophisticated as eye tracking, they
are just as effective in allowing consumers to show you what
surrounds them, what attracts their attention and what they
find visually appealing.
Another format of digital ethnography is Vox Pop videos. This
activity uses the high consumer engagement with smartphones
and their sophistication to the researcher’s advantage. 
Those of you who kept a diary know what a great way they are to
record your daily experiences. Online diaries are therefore an
excellent way of getting to know your customers.