Netnography

After finishing my PhD thesis the phase of The-Graet-Peace-and-Quiet came. I was just having peaceful life without exams, texts to be written for yesterday, analysis to be finished for today. I had only lectures and classes I to be prepared for tomorrow. I had some back logs. I had to catch up with Dexter, Dr House and finally I refreshed The X Files series (separate post will be devoted to this magnificent series that shaped me and my sister when we were children :). I was learning Czech, visited Malaysia and Singapore - the journey I wanted to undertake for a long, long time.
Just living my life.
But this cheerful time came to an end :) And now I have new plan on my horizon. And its name is netnography :)

For the ethnographer the natural next step is the netnography, the more, as Robert Kozinets states, pure offline ethnography seems impossible today. As online and offilne realities and communities become tighter and tighter bounded and blended the immanent element of “classical” ethnographical inquiry should be the virtual one.

As for an ethnographer researching media nethnography seems the obvious choice of methodology. So far I had been concentrating on television as a mean of intercultural communication. Now I would like to devote to new media and the Internet as a milieu for social movements (with particular emphasis on ethnicity and ethnicity-alike communities).

I am aware of the fact that when planning research on the online communities the administrative, map-grounded boundaries needs to be reconsidered. It may happen that the Polish teenage The X Files fan has more in common with his/her online friend from Hungary or Romania than with the neighbor nextdoor. Nonetheless I would like to limit my study to online communities grounded in four states of Vysehrad Group: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. I hope to discover to what extend countries of such a similar historical experience, and such substantially different (as far as mentality, values are concerned) make a social/ ethnical use of new technologies.

Here on AUDIOVISUAL media ethnography culture I would like to devote mainly to my slowly evolving netnographic project. If you have any suggestions or ideas please feel free to contact me :)