Nethnography: An ecological approach to digital interactions

This paper explores the possibilities and limitations of nethnography, an ethnographic approach applied to the study of online interactions, particularly social media. In this paper, a brief history of Ethnography, including its relation to anthropological theories and its key methodological assumptions is addressed. Departing from a media ecological assumption, considering digital environments as social settings, some strategies related to a naturalistic perspective for data analysis are examined. In addition, the most frequent methodologies applied to the Internet treat logfiles as the only or main source of data and its consequences are analyzed.&nbsp