ERIC Number: EJ1192341
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1364-5579
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Available Date: N/A
Ethnography and the Digital Fields of Social Media
Airoldi, Massimo
International Journal of Social Research Methodology, v21 n6 p661-673 2018
Qualitative researchers struggle to study the transient fields of social network sites like Twitter through conventional ethnographic approaches. This paper suggests that, in order to step further, we should distinguish between the relatively stable 'contextual' fields of bounded online communities and the fluid, 'meta-fields' resulting from the aggregation of scattered communicative contents based on their metadata. Both these two intertwined layers of the digital environment interplay with users' online social practices -- which are embedded within offline everyday life and vice versa. While Internet ethnography largely dealt with contextual digital fields, recent developments in the realm of online research allow the ethnographic exploration of digital meta-fields and their publics. This shift recalls Marcus' appeal for a multi-sited ethnography but, in fact, goes further beyond, towards a truly 'un-sited' ethnography. I highlight and discuss the main methodological implications of meta- and contextual fieldworks by presenting an exploratory study of European exchange students' Facebook identities.
Descriptors: Ethnography, Social Media, Internet, Metadata, Computer Mediated Communication, Student Exchange Programs, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: European Union
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