Online ethnographic research is finally getting some signficant academic attention. I believe I have a little perspective on the subject; I have co-authored a chapter on the subject of “electronic ethnography” in two editions of an anthropology textbook, “Doing Cultural Anthropology” (M. Angrosino, ed.). In preparing for an edition update, I had collected some thoughts on the subject, and some recent research impelled me to share them now. Here are the different ways I think “electronic anthropology” can be categorized:

1. Ethnographic Research of Internet Communities
   At the 2008 SunBelt conference (the International Network of Social Network Analysis), I saw a fun presentation by Dr. William Bainbridge (a NSF staffer) regarding his ethnographic research of the World of Warcraft. MMORPGs probably represent the clearest example of frontier cultures from an anthropological sense, in that they have unique symbologies, languages, rituals, communities, geographic spaces, etc. However, any online community probably has many of the same characteristics and potential for the application of the ethnographic perspective and qualitative research. Any search of the literature will produce a ton of citations now. This category includes:
   • Traditional ethnographic and qualitative research methods applied to online groups (Apophenia has a nice citation list for a starting point).
   • All social media analytics, “buzz”monitoring, and sentiment analysis (although blogs and web sites probably overlap the next category).
   • Social network analysis applied to social media or social networking sites (see this link for a slideshow by the esteemed Caroline Haythornthwaite)
   • Internet geography and mapping research (VisualComplexity has an amazing gallery)
   • Probably all “digital divide” studies (visit the Pew Internet & American Life Project)
2. Electronic Research of Real-World Communities
   The internet (largely speaking) has enabled traditional communities, groups, and individuals to communicate and interact in new ways (sometimes referred to as “computer mediated communication”). Further, individuals are increasingly leaving “digital footprints” wherever they go, whatever they do, whether it involve financial transactions or placing phone calls or walking under surveillance cameras. This category includes:
   • Data mining and business intelligence systems
   • Email mining and CRM/contact list mining (See my “mining internal communications” post for an example)
   • Traditional social network analysis
   • Badges, movement trackers, networked sensors, and embedded location systems (see my post on “new tools for data collection“)
   • Embedded GPS and mobile technologies (especially cell phones). Some good links include this great MIT TR article on the subject (even though it’s not ethnography-focused), the MobileMessaging blog , and the book “Mobile Communication in Everyday Life” (Höflich and Hartmann, eds., 2006).
   • Consumer RFID tags (believe me, when RFID tags become common in your clothes, perishables, and consumer products, they will become a major source of behavioral data - this UW Article touches on the subject)
   • Analyzing digital media for ethnographic content (I like this post on electronic archeaology as a good example)
3. Electronic Tools to Support Traditional Ethnographic Research
   We can’t leave the topic without considering how new technology is changing how traditional ethnographic research is done on on “real life” communities as well. Data collection, management, and interpretation has always been a major component of qualitative field research, and there’s some interesting new tools available to help researchers perform those tasks.
   • Data management / assistance - Nvivo
   • Cultural domain analysis - Anthropac
   • Qualitative text mining and analysis - Atlas.ti, MaxQDA, PolyAnalyst, AutoMap
   • Link and timeline analysis - Analyst’s Notebook
   • Knowledge and concept mapping tools - Staz has a nice post (albeit a couple years old) that has a nice overview of what’s out there.
   • Unstructured pattern recognition / neural networks: KnowledgeMinerX

I’ll cover some of the other types of qualitative research in perspective on social media and the internet in a future post, particularly focus groups, which have generated quite a bit of controversy.

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