Ethnography in the cyberspace: problems and prospects

This paper outlines some of the issues involved in conducting ethnographic research in the Internet specifically social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. With the advent of Internet and social media, online environments have emerged where millions of people come together in virtual communities to interact, collaborate, share and consume information. The emergence of these online communities has dramatically changed individual engagement and collaboration patterns. It is no longer sufficient to look at individual or small group activities in the real world as many individuals have browsed, searched, communicated and collaborated within the dynamic online social networks. Extending studies from traditional human relationship in the real world to the virtual world is imperative to better understand human behaviour. Ranging from simple textbased news groups to virtual multi-users environments, the Internet has provided new settings and rich sources of information for conducting ethnography research. However, online ethnography also raises the issues of managing scale, researcher presence and field relations when doing research in the digital world