Netnography or webnography is the study of naturally occurring groups on the web. The value of the approach is that it gives unelecited, spontaneous, culturally embedded information – none of the biases implicit in selecting a sample and asking questions.
The process is to search to identify relevant groups, embed yourself in the sites, filter conversations, collect artifacts and analyse your field notes. As in real life it can be participant ethnography or purely observational. It give you access to detailed, natural, descriptive information, unmediated by a researcher, but beware – its fraught with ethical, validity and data protection issues.
One of the leading proponents of this method is Robert Kozinets, who has been working with Consumerbase to gain access to a broader range of conversations, and is bringing together social media listening and a cultural-analytical perspective. He calls it Computationally Assisted Netnography (not very catchy but practical).
Netnography presentation coming soon.
