Netnography. Doing Ethnographic Research Online by Robert V. Kozinets

Netnography. Doing Ethnographic Research Online by Robert V. Kozinets (Sage 2010) was my first choice to dip into the method. And it was not only due to the really great cover (which fully matches my aesthetical needs). Kozinets handbook is a very coherently and clearly written introduction to the whole process of netnographic inquiry from the very begging: selecting the topic and the online community to be investigated, the pre-research reflection on how to enter the community, of how to present yourself, through the problem of keeping field notes during all the research stages and finally how to collect and analyse various kinds of data the netnographical paradigm provides. Last but not least, author covers two procedures of research that are not always taken into consideration in Polish context: how to conduct ethical research (with crucial for netnography: copyrights and data protection) and evaluation (that is generally weak chain of the qualitative, soft disciplines).

Many examples of author’s own work, analyses and mistakes makes an impression of going through the workshop designed by Kozinets for a reader. Exercises to which author strongly encourages and appendix with a ready for use form for conducting online research - it all makes this book very helpful.

The new thing for me, as far as academic discourse is concerned, was using feminine forms when mentioning hypothetical researcher. That is something completely unusual for Polish academic writing. It simply speaks to me.

As an ethnographer I never believed in observant participation – the most “ethnographical” method originally invented and developed by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown and Bronisław Malinowski almost century ago. The observer’s paradox – especially in the small communities – seemed an unavoidable and unacceptable element of inquiry to me. That is why in my research on mediated intercultural communication I have chosen open interviews with communities’ opinion leaders. The intereview-based method has its drawbacks, especially when it concerns media (television) decoding. In this case researcher is not investigating the media decoding itself, but the only data to which he/she has access is the autho-biographical metanarration on how respondent decodes herself media decoding. Not to mention that the process of interview analysis and report writing is another process of decoding (of interview transcription)*. Netnography seems to be the golden solution here. I believe it enables the observant participation much more than traditional ethnography, although (as Kozinets suggests) netnographer should always reveal his/her identity and research intentions to the investigated community.

A bit uneasy part of the research process Kozinsts suggests, is the member check. At first I was distrustful of this procedure. In traditional ethnographic inquiry the researcher is the last agenda to draw conclusions and to make the final interpretations. On the one hand member check is more equal procedure that makes a community member researcher’s partner and in some way co-producer of the final report. Still it is the member who knows his or her community the best. But on the other hand I would be afraid of some form of pressure that community might put on researcher to influence their own representation in the report/book or to somehow use the research for their own purposes**.

I strongly recommend Netnography. Doing Ethnographic Research Online as a basis and introduction to ethnography online, with some historical introduction, a kind of archeology of netnography and a discussion over phenomenons such as the distinction between online communities and communities online or the links and crossroads of ethno- and netnography. It is a very useful training as well as set of problems, issues researcher needs to bear before takien up the study.

Here are my notes - partly in Polish :)






*More on this: Researching Audiences, (2003), red. K. Schroeder, K. Drotner, S. Kline, C. Murray, Arnold Publication, London, p.18.

**No, I am not the conspiracy theory enthusiast, even though I am The X Files fan :)