Netnography: Possibilities and Resourcefulness

Abstract

Since the origins of the Internet, an increasingly greater number of people have transferred much of their life online and have joined web communities. As a consequence, blogs, microblogs, newsgroups, social media, and networking sites, forums, podcasts, etc., have all become important locations for consumer research. To take advantage of this new source of data, qualitative researchers emerged as small marketing research agencies and individual social scientists that provide creative interpretations of online information. An ethnography conducted online is known as a netnography and has also been called cyber anthropology, webnography (Kozinets, 2010), and digital anthropology (Horst and Miller, 2012). The history of netnography runs parallel with the growth of personal content on the Internet where this content became a continuous, rich source of consumer insight. For example, web 1.0 led to discussion boards, chat rooms, and home pages; from web 2.0 developed social networking tools, Facebook, blogs, etc. The origins of netnography can be traced back to Kozinets (1998) and later Hine (2000), Miller & Slater (2000), Kozinets (2002). Netnographies are qualitative, interpretive studies of online observations, interactions, texts, and images. Netnographers use a variety of methods, including autoethnography, discourse analysis, idiosyncratic methods, extended case method, content analysis, and participatory action research (Kozinets, 2010), along with computer animation evaluated with visual scene analysis. All netnography has the choice as to whether to examine in detail existing information that may be found on the Internet or whether to join a discussion forum and to ask questions and interact over a protracted time period. The many approaches to netnography yield cultural insights and understanding of human behavior. Websites and applications are available (e.g., Google Trend and Google+, Digg.com, Reddit, uberVU, socialcomment.com, searchenginewatch.com, socialmention.com, tweetdeck.com, socialmediaexaminer.com, etc.) that trawl large numbers of websites by key word.