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Understanding Online Communities in the Age of Digital Boundaries: What is Netnography?

Year 2023, Volume: 9 Issue: 2, 95 - 103, 31.12.2023

Abstract

Netnography, which has emerged in the last thirty years, is a qualitative research method that is widely used in the field of marketing and has recently spread to different disciplines. It has been widely used in the field of marketing and its field of activity has started to expand with the increase in technology-human interaction. With its ethnography-based starting point, Netnography traces the traces of the culture that people build collectively in the digital world. The fact that the culture shared in this online environment is becoming more and more wide-spread thanks to social media applications is the advantages that bring Netnography to the forefront. However, although it is a research field clustered in the field of marketing in terms of its emergence, Netnography has recently started to find a field of activity in different disci-plines. Therefore, this study reconsiders Netnography as a contemporary qualitative research method rather than a tool used in marketing. It examines the brief history of netnography over time, its philosophical and methodological underpinnings, how it differs from ethnography, how it can be applied, and how it has been and will be used in some areas of business studies.

References

  • REFERENCES
  • Álvarez-Bornstein, B., & Montesi, M. (2016). La comunicación entre investigadores en Twitter. Una etnografía virtual en el ámbito de las ciencias de la documentación. Revista Espanola de Documentacion Cientifica, 39, Article e156. [CrossRef]
  • Arenas Gaitán, J., & Ramírez Correa, P. E. (2023). COVID-19 and telemedicine: A netnography approach. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 190. [CrossRef]
  • Bartl, M., Kannan, V. K., & Stockinger, H. (2016). A review and analysis of literature on netnography research. International Journal of Technology Marketing 11(2), 165–196. [CrossRef]
  • Boellstorff, T., Nardi, B., Pearce, C., & Taylor, T. L. (2012). Ethnography and virtual worlds. in ethnography and virtual worlds. Princeton University Press. [CrossRef]
  • Caliandro, A. (2014). Ethnography in digital spaces: Ethnography of virtual worlds, netnography, & digital ethnography. In Handbook of anthropology in business (pp. 738–761). Taylor and Francis.
  • Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, D. J. (2017). Research design qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. In Research Design. Sage Publications. Discetti, R., & Anderson, V. (2023). The value of netnography for research in HRD. Human Resource Development Review, 22, 59–83. [CrossRef]
  • Dixon, S. (2022). “Social media use during COVID-19 worldwide - statistics & facts | Statista”, Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/topics/7863/social-media-use-during-coronavirus- covid-19-worldwide/#topicOverview.
  • Escobar, A., Hess, D., Licha, I., Sibley, W., Strathern, M., & Sutz, J. (1994). Welcome to cyberia: Notes on the anthropology of cyberculture [and comments and reply]. Current Anthropology, 35, 211–231. [CrossRef]
  • Ferreira, D. A., & Chimenti, P. C. P. de S. (2022). Netnography: Unveiling human narratives in a digital world. Revista Brasileira de Marketing, 21, 1433–1479. [CrossRef]
  • Georgalou, M. (2016). ‘I make the rules on my Wall’: Privacy and identity management practices on Facebook. Discourse and Communication, 10, 40–64. [CrossRef]
  • González, M. C. (2000). The four seasons of ethnography: A creation-centered ontology for ethnography. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24, 623–650. [CrossRef]
  • Hammersley, M. (2018). What is ethnography? Can it survive? Should it? Ethnography and Education, 13, 1–17. [CrossRef]
  • Harrison, R. L. (2013). Using mixed methods designs in the journal of business research, 1990-2010. Journal of Business Research, 66, 2153–2162. [CrossRef]
  • Heinonen, K., & Medberg, G. (2018). Netnography as a tool for understanding customers: implications for service research and practice. Journal of Services Marketing, 32, 657–679. [CrossRef]
  • Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. Sage Publications Ltd. [CrossRef] Jeacle, I. (2021). Navigating netnography: A guide for the accounting researcher. Financial Accountability and Management, 37(1), 88–101. [CrossRef]
  • Jensen, L. X., Bearman, M., Boud, D., & Konradsen, F. (2022). Correction to: Digital ethnography in higher education teaching and learning—a methodological review. Higher Education, 84(5), 1163– 1164. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. (2010). Netnography : Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage Publications.
  • Kozinets, R. (2019). Netnography: The essential guide to qualitative social media research. In M. Ainsley (Ed.), Sage. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V. (1998). On netnography: Initial reflections on consumer research investigations of cyberculture. ACR North American Advances. J. W. Alba & J. Wesley Hutchinson (Eds.), (pp. 366371). Association for Consumer Research.
  • Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography : Redefined. Sage Publications. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V. (2016). Netnography. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (pp. 1–2). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V. (2018). Netnography for management and business research. In the sage handbook of qualitative business and management research methods: methods and challenges. Sage Publications Ltd. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V. (2023). Immersive netnography: a novel method for service experience research in virtual reality, augmented reality and metaverse contexts. Journal of Service Management, 34, 100–125. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V., & Gambetti, R. (2021). Netnography unlimited : understanding technoculture using qualitative social media research. Routledge. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V., & Nocker, M. (2018). Netnography: Engaging with the challenges. In Unconventional Methodology in Organization and Management Research (pp. 127–146). Oxford University Press. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V., Dolbec, P.-Y., & Earley, A. (2014). Netnographic Analysis: understanding culture through social media data. In The Sage handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 262–276). Sage Publications Ltd. [CrossRef]
  • Lee, M. (2017). Don’t give up! A cyber-ethnography and discourse analysis of an online infertility patient forum. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 41, 341–367. [CrossRef]
  • Lin, H. F. (2007). The role of online and offline features in sustaining virtual communities: An empirical study. Internet Research, 17, 119–138. [CrossRef]
  • Lugosi, P., & Quinton, S. (2018). More-than-human netnography. Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 287–313. [CrossRef]
  • Lusiantoro, L., & Pradiptyo, R. (2022). Rebuilding disrupted supply chains: How can a self-organised social group facilitate supply chain resilience? International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 42, 1544–1575. [CrossRef]
  • Matson-Barkat, S., Puncheva-Michelotti, P., Koetz, C., & Hennekam, S. (2022). Destigmatisation through social sharing of emotions and empowerment: The case of disabled athletes and consumers of disability sports. Journal of Business Research, 149, 77–84. [CrossRef]
  • Mkono, M. (2013). Existential authenticity in cultural restaurant experiences in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe: A netnographic analysis. International Journal of Culture, Tourism, and Hospitality Research, 7, 353–363. [CrossRef]
  • Morais, G. M., Santos, V. F., & Gonçalves, C. A. (2020). Netnography: Origins, foundations, evolution and axiological and methodological developments and trends. Qualitative Report, 25, 441–455. [CrossRef]
  • Nascimento, T., Suarez, M. C., & Campos, R. D. (2022). An integrative review on online ethnography methods: differentiating theoretical bases, potentialities and limitations. Qualitative Market Research, 25, 492–510. [CrossRef]
  • Oreg, A., & Babis, D. (2023). Digital ethnography in third sector research. Voluntas, 34, 12–19. [CrossRef]
  • Paoli, A. D., & D’Auria, V. (2021). Digital ethnography: A systematic literature Review. Italian Sociological Review, 11, 243–267. [CrossRef]
  • Paul, G. (1993). Approaches to abductive reasoning: an overview. Artificial Intelligence Review, 7, 109–152. [CrossRef]
  • Pink, S., Horst, H., John, P., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & Tacchi, J. (2016). Digital ethnography: Principles and practice. Sage Publication.
  • Reid, E., & Duffy, K. (2018). A netnographic sensibility: developing the netnographic/social listening boundaries. Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 263–286. [CrossRef]
  • Rokka, J. (2010). Netnographic inquiry and new translocal sites of the social. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 34, 381–387. [CrossRef]
  • Sætre, A. S., & Van de Ven, A. (2021). Generating theory by abduction. Academy of Management Review, 46, 684–701. [CrossRef]
  • Scott, J., & Marshall, G. (2009). A Dictionary of sociology. In A Dictionary of sociology. Oxford University Press. [CrossRef]
  • Steinmetz, K. F. (2012). Message received: Virtual ethnography in online message boards. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 11, 26–39. [CrossRef]
  • Tavakoli, R., & Wijesinghe, S. N. R. (2019). The evolution of the web and netnography in tourism: A systematic review. In Tourism management perspectives (Vol. 29, pp. 48–55). Elsevier. [CrossRef]
  • Thagard, P., & Shelley, C. (1997). Abductive reasoning: Logic, Visual thinking, and coherence. In Logic and scientific methods (pp. 413–427). Springer, Dordrecht. [CrossRef]
  • Toledano, M. (2017). Emergent methods: Using netnography in public relations research. Public Relations Review, 43, 597–604. [CrossRef]
  • Tunçalp, D., & Lê, P. L. (2014). (Re)Locating boundaries: a systematic review of online ethnography. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 3, 59–79. [CrossRef]
  • Van Maanen, J. (2011). Ethnography as work: Some rules of engagement. Journal of Management Studies, 48, 218–234. [CrossRef]
  • Ward, K. J. (1999). Cyber-ethnography and the emergence of the virtually new community. Journal of Information Technology, 14, 95–105. [CrossRef]
  • Whalen, E. A. (2018). Understanding a shifting methodology: A content analysis of the use of netnography in hospitality and tourism research. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30, 3423–3441. [CrossRef]
  • Xi, R. (2023). Translating emotions: a netnography of affect in a conference interpreting case during COVID-19. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice. [CrossRef]
  • Xun, J., & Reynolds, J. (2010). Applying netnography to market research: The case of the online forum. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 18, 17–31. [CrossRef]
  • Zimmer, M. (2010). “But the data is already public”: On the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics and Information Technology, 12, 313–325. [CrossRef]

Dijital Sınırlar Çağında Çevrimiçi Toplulukları Anlamak: Netnografi Nedir?

Year 2023, Volume: 9 Issue: 2, 95 - 103, 31.12.2023

Abstract

Son otuz yılda ortaya çıkan Netnografi, yaygın olarak pazarlama alanında kullanılan ve son zamanlarda farklı disiplinlere yayılan nitel bir araştırma yöntemidir. Pazarlama alanıyla yaygın olarak kullanılmaya başlanmış ve teknoloji-insan etkileşiminin artmasıyla etklinlik alanı gittikçe genişlemeye başlamıştır. Etnografya temelli bir çıkış noktasına sahip olmasıyla birlikte Netnografi insanların çevrimiçi dünyada ortaklaşa inşa ettikleri kültürün izlerini takip eder. Bu çevrimiçi ortamda paylaşılan kültürün sosyal medya uygulamaları sayesinde gittikçe yaygınlaşması Netnografiyi ön plana çıkartan avantajlardır. Ancak yine de ortaya çıkış alanı bakımından pazarlama alanında kümeleşen bir araştırma alanı olmasına karşın son zamanlarda Netnografi farklı disiplinlerde etkinlik alanı bulmaya başlamıştır. Dolayısıyla bu çalışma Netnografiyi pazarlama alanında kullanılan bir araç olmaktan ziyade güncel bir nitel araştırma yöntemi olarak yeniden ele almaktadır. Bu makalede netnografinin zaman içindeki kısa tarihi, felsefi ve metodolojik temelleriyle etnografiden ayrıldığı noktaları, nasıl uygulanabileceğini ve işletme çalışmalarında bazı alanlarında nasıl kullanıldığını ve kullanılacağını incelemektedir.

References

  • REFERENCES
  • Álvarez-Bornstein, B., & Montesi, M. (2016). La comunicación entre investigadores en Twitter. Una etnografía virtual en el ámbito de las ciencias de la documentación. Revista Espanola de Documentacion Cientifica, 39, Article e156. [CrossRef]
  • Arenas Gaitán, J., & Ramírez Correa, P. E. (2023). COVID-19 and telemedicine: A netnography approach. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 190. [CrossRef]
  • Bartl, M., Kannan, V. K., & Stockinger, H. (2016). A review and analysis of literature on netnography research. International Journal of Technology Marketing 11(2), 165–196. [CrossRef]
  • Boellstorff, T., Nardi, B., Pearce, C., & Taylor, T. L. (2012). Ethnography and virtual worlds. in ethnography and virtual worlds. Princeton University Press. [CrossRef]
  • Caliandro, A. (2014). Ethnography in digital spaces: Ethnography of virtual worlds, netnography, & digital ethnography. In Handbook of anthropology in business (pp. 738–761). Taylor and Francis.
  • Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, D. J. (2017). Research design qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. In Research Design. Sage Publications. Discetti, R., & Anderson, V. (2023). The value of netnography for research in HRD. Human Resource Development Review, 22, 59–83. [CrossRef]
  • Dixon, S. (2022). “Social media use during COVID-19 worldwide - statistics & facts | Statista”, Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/topics/7863/social-media-use-during-coronavirus- covid-19-worldwide/#topicOverview.
  • Escobar, A., Hess, D., Licha, I., Sibley, W., Strathern, M., & Sutz, J. (1994). Welcome to cyberia: Notes on the anthropology of cyberculture [and comments and reply]. Current Anthropology, 35, 211–231. [CrossRef]
  • Ferreira, D. A., & Chimenti, P. C. P. de S. (2022). Netnography: Unveiling human narratives in a digital world. Revista Brasileira de Marketing, 21, 1433–1479. [CrossRef]
  • Georgalou, M. (2016). ‘I make the rules on my Wall’: Privacy and identity management practices on Facebook. Discourse and Communication, 10, 40–64. [CrossRef]
  • González, M. C. (2000). The four seasons of ethnography: A creation-centered ontology for ethnography. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24, 623–650. [CrossRef]
  • Hammersley, M. (2018). What is ethnography? Can it survive? Should it? Ethnography and Education, 13, 1–17. [CrossRef]
  • Harrison, R. L. (2013). Using mixed methods designs in the journal of business research, 1990-2010. Journal of Business Research, 66, 2153–2162. [CrossRef]
  • Heinonen, K., & Medberg, G. (2018). Netnography as a tool for understanding customers: implications for service research and practice. Journal of Services Marketing, 32, 657–679. [CrossRef]
  • Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. Sage Publications Ltd. [CrossRef] Jeacle, I. (2021). Navigating netnography: A guide for the accounting researcher. Financial Accountability and Management, 37(1), 88–101. [CrossRef]
  • Jensen, L. X., Bearman, M., Boud, D., & Konradsen, F. (2022). Correction to: Digital ethnography in higher education teaching and learning—a methodological review. Higher Education, 84(5), 1163– 1164. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. (2010). Netnography : Doing Ethnographic Research Online. Sage Publications.
  • Kozinets, R. (2019). Netnography: The essential guide to qualitative social media research. In M. Ainsley (Ed.), Sage. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V. (1998). On netnography: Initial reflections on consumer research investigations of cyberculture. ACR North American Advances. J. W. Alba & J. Wesley Hutchinson (Eds.), (pp. 366371). Association for Consumer Research.
  • Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography : Redefined. Sage Publications. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V. (2016). Netnography. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (pp. 1–2). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V. (2018). Netnography for management and business research. In the sage handbook of qualitative business and management research methods: methods and challenges. Sage Publications Ltd. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V. (2023). Immersive netnography: a novel method for service experience research in virtual reality, augmented reality and metaverse contexts. Journal of Service Management, 34, 100–125. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V., & Gambetti, R. (2021). Netnography unlimited : understanding technoculture using qualitative social media research. Routledge. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V., & Nocker, M. (2018). Netnography: Engaging with the challenges. In Unconventional Methodology in Organization and Management Research (pp. 127–146). Oxford University Press. [CrossRef]
  • Kozinets, R. V., Dolbec, P.-Y., & Earley, A. (2014). Netnographic Analysis: understanding culture through social media data. In The Sage handbook of qualitative data analysis (pp. 262–276). Sage Publications Ltd. [CrossRef]
  • Lee, M. (2017). Don’t give up! A cyber-ethnography and discourse analysis of an online infertility patient forum. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 41, 341–367. [CrossRef]
  • Lin, H. F. (2007). The role of online and offline features in sustaining virtual communities: An empirical study. Internet Research, 17, 119–138. [CrossRef]
  • Lugosi, P., & Quinton, S. (2018). More-than-human netnography. Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 287–313. [CrossRef]
  • Lusiantoro, L., & Pradiptyo, R. (2022). Rebuilding disrupted supply chains: How can a self-organised social group facilitate supply chain resilience? International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 42, 1544–1575. [CrossRef]
  • Matson-Barkat, S., Puncheva-Michelotti, P., Koetz, C., & Hennekam, S. (2022). Destigmatisation through social sharing of emotions and empowerment: The case of disabled athletes and consumers of disability sports. Journal of Business Research, 149, 77–84. [CrossRef]
  • Mkono, M. (2013). Existential authenticity in cultural restaurant experiences in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe: A netnographic analysis. International Journal of Culture, Tourism, and Hospitality Research, 7, 353–363. [CrossRef]
  • Morais, G. M., Santos, V. F., & Gonçalves, C. A. (2020). Netnography: Origins, foundations, evolution and axiological and methodological developments and trends. Qualitative Report, 25, 441–455. [CrossRef]
  • Nascimento, T., Suarez, M. C., & Campos, R. D. (2022). An integrative review on online ethnography methods: differentiating theoretical bases, potentialities and limitations. Qualitative Market Research, 25, 492–510. [CrossRef]
  • Oreg, A., & Babis, D. (2023). Digital ethnography in third sector research. Voluntas, 34, 12–19. [CrossRef]
  • Paoli, A. D., & D’Auria, V. (2021). Digital ethnography: A systematic literature Review. Italian Sociological Review, 11, 243–267. [CrossRef]
  • Paul, G. (1993). Approaches to abductive reasoning: an overview. Artificial Intelligence Review, 7, 109–152. [CrossRef]
  • Pink, S., Horst, H., John, P., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & Tacchi, J. (2016). Digital ethnography: Principles and practice. Sage Publication.
  • Reid, E., & Duffy, K. (2018). A netnographic sensibility: developing the netnographic/social listening boundaries. Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 263–286. [CrossRef]
  • Rokka, J. (2010). Netnographic inquiry and new translocal sites of the social. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 34, 381–387. [CrossRef]
  • Sætre, A. S., & Van de Ven, A. (2021). Generating theory by abduction. Academy of Management Review, 46, 684–701. [CrossRef]
  • Scott, J., & Marshall, G. (2009). A Dictionary of sociology. In A Dictionary of sociology. Oxford University Press. [CrossRef]
  • Steinmetz, K. F. (2012). Message received: Virtual ethnography in online message boards. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 11, 26–39. [CrossRef]
  • Tavakoli, R., & Wijesinghe, S. N. R. (2019). The evolution of the web and netnography in tourism: A systematic review. In Tourism management perspectives (Vol. 29, pp. 48–55). Elsevier. [CrossRef]
  • Thagard, P., & Shelley, C. (1997). Abductive reasoning: Logic, Visual thinking, and coherence. In Logic and scientific methods (pp. 413–427). Springer, Dordrecht. [CrossRef]
  • Toledano, M. (2017). Emergent methods: Using netnography in public relations research. Public Relations Review, 43, 597–604. [CrossRef]
  • Tunçalp, D., & Lê, P. L. (2014). (Re)Locating boundaries: a systematic review of online ethnography. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 3, 59–79. [CrossRef]
  • Van Maanen, J. (2011). Ethnography as work: Some rules of engagement. Journal of Management Studies, 48, 218–234. [CrossRef]
  • Ward, K. J. (1999). Cyber-ethnography and the emergence of the virtually new community. Journal of Information Technology, 14, 95–105. [CrossRef]
  • Whalen, E. A. (2018). Understanding a shifting methodology: A content analysis of the use of netnography in hospitality and tourism research. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30, 3423–3441. [CrossRef]
  • Xi, R. (2023). Translating emotions: a netnography of affect in a conference interpreting case during COVID-19. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice. [CrossRef]
  • Xun, J., & Reynolds, J. (2010). Applying netnography to market research: The case of the online forum. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 18, 17–31. [CrossRef]
  • Zimmer, M. (2010). “But the data is already public”: On the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics and Information Technology, 12, 313–325. [CrossRef]
There are 54 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language Turkish
Subjects Econometrics (Other)
Journal Section Makaleler
Authors

Ali Ekber Akgün 0000-0001-5922-3266

Muhammed Buğrahan Hatiboğlu 0000-0002-3992-6690

Publication Date December 31, 2023
Submission Date October 25, 2023
Acceptance Date December 27, 2023
Published in Issue Year 2023 Volume: 9 Issue: 2

Cite

APA Ekber Akgün, A., & Hatiboğlu, M. B. (2023). Dijital Sınırlar Çağında Çevrimiçi Toplulukları Anlamak: Netnografi Nedir?. Yildiz Social Science Review, 9(2), 95-103.