Practices, Challenges, and Prospects of Digital Ethnography as a Multidisciplinary Method

Book excerpt: Ethnography in the digital age presents new methods for research. It encourages scientists to think about how we live and study in a digital, material, and sensory world. Digital ethnography considers the impact of digital media on the methods and processes by which we perform ethnography and how the digital, methodological, practical, and theoretical aspects of ethnographic research are becoming increasingly interwoven. This planet does not exist in a static state; as technology grows and shifts, we must learn how to appropriately analyze these changes. Practices, Challenges, and Prospects of Digital Ethnography as a Multidisciplinary Method examines the pervasiveness of digital media in digital ethnography’s setting and practice. It investigates how digital settings, techniques, and procedures are reshaping ethnographic practice and explores the ethnographic-theoretical interactions through which “old” opinions are influenced by digital ethnography practice, going beyond merely transferring conventional concepts and techniques into digital research settings. Covering topics such as data triangulation, indigenous living systems, and digital technology, this premier reference source is an essential resource for libraries, students, teachers, sociologists, anthropologists, social workers, historians, political scientists, geographers, public health officials, archivists, government officials, researchers, and academicians.