 Welcome friends to this discussion on digital ethnography very recently I recorded a video on ethnography so digital ethnography is almost an extension of that. So let's talk about the various characteristics of digital ethnography and how do we go about it and so on and so forth. So we'll see in today's discussion we'll talk about how to prepare for data collections and cultural entry. Because we know that in ethnography it's important for the researcher to participate in that cultural group. So how do we make that entry into a virtual setting or into a digital setting? How do we collect data and how do we create that data? And finally how we perform ethical research in a digital ethnographic perspective and then conducting trustworthy and insightful analysis as I call it. And finally how do we represent the data analysis? So let's start today's discussion. So there are various ways of talking about digital ethnographies. One of it is virtual ethnography or ethnographies of cyberspace where internet is seen as a separate space and we talk about ethnographies of that particular space. We will also be talking about connective ethnography or online slash offline ethnographies. So how do people move across their life in the online setting and offline settings. Then we have ethnographies of internet in everyday life. And finally we also have a representation of the lived online experience of cultural members. So the researcher participates in that online experience of that particular cultural group and then provides a detailed representation of that online experience. And as we can see that in all these cases the role of the researcher as instrument, the researcher himself or herself is an instrument there. So it's through the researcher's authorial voice or through the researcher's perspective we get to see the life of people in the virtual space. So this is a very challenging for a number of reasons because unlike offline settings where probably the researcher is the only person who has access to that cultural setting. This is one setting where almost everybody has access. So anyone with an internet connection has access to these online social fields. So the position of the ethnographer as the sole and privileged witness is more difficult to uphold. And the authorial voice is also very difficult to uphold because everything is happening or most of the communication is happening in a public space already. So we will talk about ethnographies as immersive environments. So as we go along we will discuss what this actually means. So earlier face-to-face meetings or conversations or letters or phone calls were enough for the ethnographic exercise. But nowadays we have a variety of online platforms. It could mean blogs, it could mean Twitter accounts, it could mean Facebook postings, LinkedIn groups, LinkedIn meetings and many other kind of social media meeting and communication platforms. So they are places or they are sites where the ethnographer can make an entry and can get data and very, very important data from those kind of platforms as well. And as we all know these online interactions are very complex because they happen both privately and publicly. So some of these interactions are in the public space, some of them might be in some encrypted group or only allowed to certain people. And they also take place synchronously and asynchronously. Synchronously in the sense that it could be video meetings or whatever where people are interacting in real time and reacting to each other's comments or communication. Or it could be asynchronous like emails for example where one communicates and the other might communicate at a very different time period. And there might be numerous contributors too. So it might not just be two people communicating, it might be more than two people at any point of time. So that makes ethnographic study in the digital space quite challenging. At the same time this distinction between the online and offline social world is not always ontologically tenable. Because these social worlds they cut across complex networks of face to face and technology mediated communication these days. So it could be face to face communication, it could be followed by a mobile message, it could be followed by a video call or through a tweet or through a Facebook post or those kind of things. So if one is using just a ethnography that is one special type of digital ethnography as we will see. So just the use of only ethnography or just the traditional ethnography would only provide us with an incomplete view. So it's important for us as researchers to have a rounded view of both the offline world as well as the online world. So there are cases where one could do a ethnography without an offline component but that is reserved for phenomenon which are happening strictly in the online world. So it could be self presentation on websites or it could be online word of mouth or those kind of things. So there we might go for what is known as pure ethnography otherwise the offline component is almost as important as the online component at times. There are a lot of advantages we'll see as we go along. One of the advantages is that it is far less intrusive. The researcher may be present there and he might not even be interacting with the other members. So in the traditional ethnography platform the researcher has to be there either as a participant or as a non-participant as we have seen. But here in the online research platform one can gather a vast amount of data without even making their presence visible to the cultural members. So they might not even be visible to the members of the group and that's where that is a concept which is known as lurking. So that is also an appropriate technique in digital ethnography and we go for elicited data and non-elicited data as well. So it could be where the researcher is eliciting data in terms of questions or interviews or direct communication. Or it could be non-elicited data that one can see on the blogs or on websites or on Facebook posts or tweets for example. So in that way it's a lot less intrusive. And there are a number of at least three different kinds of data which are available and there are different ways of recording that data. So there is the archival data which the online world by its very nature archives a lot of data through the search engine mechanism and other mechanisms. We've already spoken about what is the elicited data so one can use the online methods and as we'll see that the online platform has a lot of advantages when it comes to providing interview data for example. And we also have a scope of field node data and that's where the reflexive exercise of the researcher comes into play. And there are various ways of recording this data so it could be just plain copy pasting on some word processing platform. It could be just a screenshot. One could be recording the screens and there are lots and lots of other ways of mining data for example. But for qualitative digital ethnography it's important not to fall into the temptation of gathering all the data that is available because here the objectives are different. Here the way in which the research is carried out is different and the research report is also more about description. So this temptation to mine data it can overshadow one's real-time engagement and we must make sure that this real-time engagement is always a part of this research process. So field nodes as we've seen earlier as well when we spoke of ethnography they are one of the most important parts of the ethnographic research process. So there are certain things that field nodes should do and one of it is that it should document the journey of the ethnographer from an outsider to an inside culture member. So this should be documented by the ethnographer himself or herself. And it should also talk about an internal reflection as one carries on interacting with the group either as a lurker or as a participant observer where you're actually participating in the communication. It's also important to keep your side notes where you talk about your internal reflections. You're in the moment impressions, what were your impressions at that point of time when that communication was taking place and the deep culture bound introspective analysis. So that deep culture bound analysis about that culture group is important for strong sociological ethnography as we say. So these field nodes are a very important part of the data collection process apart from the archival and the elicited data that I just spoke of. So in this part of the presentation I'm going to talk about the characteristics of the virtual world and the advantages of the internet platform as well. Virtual worlds are regarded as object-rich environments so participants can traverse and interact with a lot of various ways. For example it could be audio interaction, it could be video interactions, it could be animations, it could be memes. So it's object-rich in that manner. Virtual worlds are also multi-user in nature so there is participation from lots and lots of people there. These worlds they continue to exist in some form even as we log off. So even when we are logging off from Facebook for example that platform with other participants it continues. So this virtual world continues even when we log off so one can't get away from that enough. And they also allow us to embody ourselves as avatars if we can say or we can create a desired digital identity for ourselves. So these are from Christine Heinz's principles for virtual ethnography and she suggests a number of important requirements for virtual ethnography. Now this is sustained physical presence in the cultural field site along with intensive engagement. So this is very important, the physical presence along with intensive engagement is important there. And also because this interactive media it questions the notion of a field site because this internet is both a site as well as it's a cultural artifact. So this notion of location almost becomes unnecessary in this kind of a mediated interaction. So this has to be kept in mind by the ethnography. So it's not too different from offline ethnography. One major difference is that there are just different kinds of environments and different ways of social co-presence. So in the real world the social co-presence is of a certain kind and in the virtual world this social co-presence is of a different kind. So digital ethnographers have to conduct participant observation also just like in the offline world and also interviews. But they are through the digital technological devices and the researcher must develop the right technological skills and the cultural skills and the social skills to participate in these socio-technical contexts. These are no longer just social but your skill in wafting through this technology is also a very important component of participation in that particular environment. So it moves from a conception of location and boundary to one of flow and connectivity because we know in ethnography it's about one bounded cultural group which we study as participants. But this one is of flow and connectivity so it flows across various platforms and the connections are not limited just to the online world or just to one platform but across the platforms. So these boundaries are explored these cultural, social and even ontological and epistemological boundaries are explored through research. In another video I've spoken about ontology and epistemology so I'm not going into details about this here. So another important component is dislocation in time. So there is dislocation in time because it might happen asynchronously as we say so as one is responding here the other might respond at some other point of time. So that idea of time is no longer fixed also dislocation in space. So how could we be interacting with people in America in Africa in other continents as well. So that is possible for a virtual ethnographer to interact with people across space as well. And needless to say it's necessarily partial because the richness of offline face to face interaction is not there. That is why virtual ethnography in many senses is partial. So there are a number of perspectives of the Internet. One of this is that one it can be viewed as a type of a place, a space, a cyberspace where culture is formed and reformed. Internet is also a product of culture so it's a cultural artifact in that particular sense. So online ethnography has to take account as we said earlier of these disrupted boundaries. It's also it can be experienced as a place where one goes to so when we say that let's go on to the Internet. So space has a sense of presence as well. And that space is not just limited to one kind. It could be an online game for example, or it could be through one's discursive activities. So when you take part in certain kinds of interactions, so that creates a space. One's movements through various platforms is also how one we can see Internet as. So these are very important elements of regarding Internet as a place. So another important thing that one has to keep in mind as researchers is the fact that Internet is everywhere. And so more and more of our experiences are mediated by this digital technologies and we virtually carry the Internet with us in our pockets through our mobile phones. So this reflexive understanding of what it is to be a part of the Internet is again a challenge for the researcher. So this reflexive understanding of what it is to be a part of the Internet is a challenge as I said. So another form of ethnography is the ethnography of the contemporary social world in a digital age. So how do we integrate the Internet into our ideas of friendship, into our ideas of who is a celebrity or the ideas of public sphere also for example. Or meaning making or how do we use the Internet as a cultural experience. So this is another form of ethnography as well about the ethnography of the contemporary social world. We can also talk about an ethnography of the networked sociality. So we are not talking about one single platform because when we talk of Internet related ethnography we know that the research environment is dispersed across the web platforms. And that is constantly changing and involves both the physical and the digital localities. So this is very important to realize that we can be taking Internet as a tool or a medium as well. Internet is basically dialogic so online cultures exist because people interact with each other through writing basically over time. So Internet offers unique ways of expressing the self and constructing social reality. And that is why studying the social world on the Internet performs us with all these fascinating perspectives. And one major advantage of social media is that researchers have access to vast amounts of data archived through forums. So there are archives like Way Back Forum and all that and also search engines. So this can provide researchers with lots and lots of information on the cultural members their values and various communication practices. So it allows us as researchers to decide which are the field sites that we should visit and how do we make an entry into these field sites as participants. So this research before entering the field sites is easily possible because there is so much of data already available through the social media platform. So in the next session we are going to talk about specifically how to do this in ethnography. So this ethnography begins with the identification of research topics at first. So what are my research questions so this will help me in pinpointing the relevant online sites. Because before I make an entry to the sites it's important for me to study the sites and their participants to understand what are the social dynamics at play. So that's how I start with I start off with the research topics which helps me identify which are the sites I should be studying and how their participants interact on those sites. So the first core principle of quality ethnography is that of ethnographic siting. So we go site specific. So first of all we concentrate to start with on a small number of postings or a very constrained data set to again a deep cultural sense of what is going on. So that's how we start off with. And it's very important as I've said earlier not to get into the trap of trying to mine as much data as is available because it's important to go deep into what is going on the deep cultural sense of what is going on. And from there on we can broaden in scope or we can deepen in scope as well. But it's important to go site specific right at the beginning. The next step is cultural analysis. So where one can be engaged as a participant in a manner which is appropriate to other community members. So community members of that particular group. So communications are experienced, processed and understood, experienced, processed and understood exactly as the cultural members experience them. So on that particular site we experience process and understand the communication as the members there would experience them. It's important to talk about the concept of the ethnographic timing. So as much as possible these messages and posts are experienced, read or interpreted and analyzed in real time as they become available. So this ethnographic timing is an important concept there. Then we have to make choices about the entry. So how we make an entry into that particular social media group or into that internet platform and how do we collect data from there. So as we said that data can be archival data, it can be field data, it can be elicited data. So that's one choice that we make. Then we make the choice about the field sites, which are the sites that I should engage with. And then finally what are the types of data because as we know that the online world is full of very rich data. So whether we go for the video data or the audio or lots and lots of analytical data which are available. And then finally we'll have to evaluate the quality of the ethnographic research. In my last part of the presentation I'll talk about the quality of ethnographic research. So as we know that to begin with we have access to vast amount of data. For example if we search for the term ethnography itself will come up with millions of hits there. So they are archived through forums and search engines. So it provides us with huge amount of information about cultural members and structures. So from there we have to narrow down and choose the field sites and plan the entry. So which are the social media groups that I can think about. So making a successful cultural entry and you could have one could notice this spelling there. So that's how it's used in ethnographic setting about making an entry into the field site. So this requires understanding the data while we are collecting them. So while we make an entry into that field site as we call them. It's important to have an understanding of the data itself while we are collecting them. And it's also at the same time important being sensitive to the needs and functioning of the social media community. Because if one is not sensitive to the needs and the way that particular community functions then we will have problems as a participant observer. So ethnographic research requires an initial and deepening cultural understanding of the community. So those cultural barriers are not there. And then the process as in tradition ethnography is first of being a participant observer. So participant observation allows the ethnographer to get to know the collective life norms, values and dynamics of a group. And that is followed by an in-depth interview. So that is a gateway to the perceptions and meanings that respondents attach to their own actions. So once we have identified what those actions are we ask those members to explain their actions. So online interviews have their advantages. But one disadvantage is the lack of additional meaning when one interacts face to face through the tone of speech or through body language or through gestures or through facial expressions. So when one is not meeting face to face but if this is a video meeting for example then a lot of those advantages are there. But again this is one thing that the researcher has to contend with. So although there are lots of advantages that we will be talking about so these lack of social cues as we know them is one disadvantage. One major advantage is that one can transcend these geographic and time limitations so one can interact with anybody across the globe at any point of time especially over email. So these are the advantages for the ethnographic. And most importantly, ethnography can leverage the connective power of the internet because a lot of those voices which might not have been available otherwise are available because of the affordances that internet has to provide. So vast variety of virtual voices is possible through ethnography. So these are some of the unique characteristics of ethnography. It provides us with an increased field site accessibility. So one has access to a wide variety of field sites over the internet platform. It's also increased communicative variety so it could be multiple platforms, it could be face to face interactions, it could be emails, it could be through messages, it could be through phone calls and many other forms. So multiple online and mobile platforms are available for the ethnographic researcher. And this connectedness across virtual, across multiple forms and fields. So one could be tweeting at the same time, the same person could be putting up a Facebook post or having a LinkedIn profile or could be there on Instagram and could be interacting on email or through WhatsApp so all these things are there and also the process of auto archiving. Much of it is archived over the internet. The challenges are that of as we've said before or we've identified before is that of data overload. There's so much of data that one has to decide which data not to use. And one major problem especially on the internet platform is that of anonymity. So generally ethnographers have to have what is known as demographic markers. So when we interact with people there are various ways in which we can identify them. But this challenge of anonymity can be really challenging because the online avatar of that person could be very different from what that person is in real life. So this is one challenge that the researcher has to contend with. So after the data is collected one goes through the open coding process and the goal of the open coding is to reach a theoretically relevant understanding of the phenomenon of interest. So it could be from codes to themes to overarching themes and all that. And finally from those themes we make a hermeneutic interpretation to build a more general theory. So once we have a build upon what is known as the grounded theory then new data to test that kind of a theory are collected and analyzed. And apart from these micro perspectives we also go for more macro and holistic approaches in the digital ethnographic process. So in the last two slides I'm going to talk about what are the criteria on which the ethnographic analysis can be judged. So the first is that the analysis has to be internally coherent. It should make sense for the community. It follows the accepted procedures some of which we have discussed today. It recognizes relevant literature and the approaches. It follows from and links to the data. So this analysis follows from the data and is linked to the data. The ideas provide new understanding. So if after the ethnographic research process there are no new understandings then probably that's one criterion that one has to be aware of. A believable sense of culture is presented. So that sense of culture which is believable to most readers and observers. The analysis is open to alternative interpretations. That's also a very important aspect of ethnographic research. The text inspires social action and the analysis accounts for the interaction of online and offline interactions at the same time. Thank you very much.