Potential and limitations of digital ethnographic research: a case study on a web community

This work aims at transposing ethnographic research into digital contexts to 70 probe its potential and limitations in a specific field of study: that of sexuality, 71 particularly suited to ethnographic exploration. We chose as our case study a 72 web community of Italian asexual people. As we shall see, this allowed us to 73 simultaneously explore both the various techniques called into play in digital 74 ethnography and the digital as a specific sphere within which sexuality takes 75 on a very peculiar meaning. Digital sociality is paramount for the definition of 76 imaginaries, meanings, and practices that could not be explored elsewhere. 77 This is due to the implicit characteristics of the population studied, which does 78 not find corresponding physical spaces of aggregation. The paper will present 79 the research design using this specific case study to address some of the 80 typical dilemmas that researchers face when following the digital ethnographic 81 approach and will explore the research results as an example of the kind of 82 analysis available with the information and data collected through this method. 83 The conclusions will attempt to briefly outline the shortfalls and advantages of 84 this method, considering its application to this specific field of study