Digital Ethnography Research Articles

A hidden form of mass event: the law, politics, and practice of single pickets in Russia

ABSTRACT Single picketing, in which an individual stands in public holding a sign, emerged as a new form of protest in Russia in recent years under the context of increased political repression, and is the last form of protest that does not require prior authorization from authorities. In this article, I develop an understanding of single pickets by examining the evolving dynamics between the state and protestors. I argue that the current practice of single pickets developed as the result of increasingly harsh legal restrictions on public gatherings, and while the Russian state seeks to manage public political action through legal means, protesters continuously find ways to work around or exploit loopholes in the law, in turn shaping new forms of legality in daily life. My analysis is based on tracing the evolution of the laws governing single pickets and online ethnography I conducted during 2020–2021.

‘As if the soul returns to the body’: affect, stuckedness, and (in)voluntary return to Nicaragua from Spain

ABSTRACT This article attends to the emotional resonances of ‘stuckedness’ and (in)voluntary return as experienced by Nicaraguan migrants stranded in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Feeling both figuratively and literally trapped in a context of cascading lockdowns, border closures, and travel restrictions, many viewed Spain’s Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) programme as offering a choice to ‘freely’ depart Spain – a way to simultaneously leave their distressing circumstances behind while returning to the comfort of ‘home’ and family. Building on recent literature that challenges the basis for participation in such programmes as founded on free, voluntary, and individual decisions, this article contends that, for some, the act of ‘choosing’ to return generates a profound and unexpected emotional response. In the case of a Nicaraguan migrant woman explored in detail here, the execution of said return activates feelings of relief, euphoria, and hope, as well as a renewed sense of self. Nevertheless, her response is temporally and geographically contingent, as returning to Nicaragua via AVRR does not necessarily diminish her desire to remigrate or render her less ‘stuck’. The empirical material that informs this paper was collected through digital ethnography and in-person encounters in both Spain and Nicaragua between 2020 and 2021.

Understanding the Interaction between Delivery Robots and Other Road and Sidewalk Users: A Study of User-generated Online Videos

The deployment of autonomous delivery robots in urban environments presents unique challenges in navigating complex traffic conditions and interacting with diverse road and sidewalk users. Effective communication between robots and road and sidewalk users is crucial to address these challenges. This study investigates real-world encounter scenarios where delivery robots and road and sidewalk users interact, seeking to understand the essential role of communication in ensuring seamless encounters. Following an online ethnography approach, we collected 117 user-generated videos from TikTok and their associated 2067 comments. Our systematic analysis revealed several design opportunities to augment communication between delivery robots and road and sidewalk users, which include facilitating multi-party path negotiation, managing unexpected robot behaviour via transparency information, and expressing robot limitations to request human assistance. Moreover, the triangulation of video and comments analysis provides a set of design considerations to realise these opportunities. The findings contribute to understanding the operational context of delivery robots and offer insights for designing interactions with road and sidewalk users, facilitating their integration into urban spaces.

Privileged underdogs: the heterotopias and anti-political correctness of upper-class men in a Swedish digital space

ABSTRACT In this article, we focus on a Swedish upper class digital space called The Good Society, where texts, videos and discussions are published. In this digital space the elite comes out publicly as underdogs in relation to the supposed hegemony of political correctness and the Swedish welfare ideology. The upper class take the position of protectors against the feminization of society and the crisis of masculinity. We argue that this space can be understood in terms of what Foucault described as a heterotopia, a form of peculiar counter-space. Using multi-sited digital ethnography we discern a playful mimicking of the state, the public, the media and public conversation. The article concludes that it is important to acknowledge and critically examine such playful and peculiar heterotopias as counter hegemonic strategies, in order to understand how digital spaces are political and serve right-wing, masculinist populist mobilization.

Xerox soldiers, YouTube commanders and Twitter brigades: information warfare in eastern Congo

Abstract Researching contemporary warfare requires attention to digital connectivity in contexts of crisis and conflict. This article traces the evolution of information warfare with a focus on the digitization, democratization and polarization of conflict-related communication and discourse. We argue that information warfare amplifies with the advent of social media—multiplying the scales for the conduct of hostilities, reducing distance and duration, and democratizing participation—notably in Africa, a continent often considered a trailblazer of digital innovation. Orthodox scholarship, however, tends to focus disproportionately on cases relevant to the global North. Examples include the global ‘war on terror’ or the Russian war against Ukraine. Investigating protracted violent conflict in the global South instead, our analysis fills an important gap in this literature. Through the prism of the African Great Lakes region, the world's deadliest contemporary war zone, we leverage a counterintuitive perspective of a conflict considered backwards in mainstream analysis. Drawing from long-term field research and digital ethnography, we propose the notion of ‘reciprocal warscapes’, where not only do battlefield events influence the underlying politics of conflict but where, reciprocally, digital warfare increasingly shapes the conduct of war itself.

Participación y redes sociales: el uso de Facebook en tiempos de Covid-19 en una ciudad intermedia

The objective of the paper is to know the predominant modes and uses of the social network Facebook by socio-political organizations in intermediate cities, such as Río Cuarto, Argentina. Specifically, it seeks to show how the social organizations La Marcha de la Gorra and La Huella use, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the social network Facebook to make their actions visible in the local public sphere and promote scenarios participatory. Appealing to the specialized literature on social networks and based on a methodological convergence between digital ethnography and discourse analysis, the study investigates the Facebook pages belonging to each of the social organizations to reveal the topics considered important to publish, the social, political and institutional actors involved, the discursive strategies considered at the time of creating the content, and the participation of Internet users in the messages received. The results of the study show uneven use of the social network Facebook by the organizations La Huella and La Marcha de la Gorra during the Covid-19 pandemic. With a varied participation of Internet users before the messages received and with a marked difference in the discursive formulation.

Libros y mediatización en redes sociales: estrategias de comunicación editorial durante la pandemia en la Argentina

This article explores the modalities of circulation and dissemination implemented by publishers operating in Argentina, paying particular attention to how mediatisation in social networks gained new momentum after the pandemic. It is productive to observe this phenomenon in order to reflect on publishing in this context as a field of production and reproduction of old and new inequalities, not only in terms of publication but also in terms of book circulation, as well as communication and dissemination. The corpus to be analysed comprises the results of a survey and analysis of information developed from the dissemination that the publishing houses carried out during the first months, between mid-March 2020 and the partial opening of bookshops with the directives of the national government, consisting of productions that publishers of different types carried out, as well as collectives focused on events such as book fairs. The article is based on a socio-anthropological analysis linked to digital ethnography.

Playful Trauma: TikTok Creators and the Use of the Platformed Body in Times of War

Amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, TikTok has emerged as a pivotal platform, where creators utilize its compressed video formats to mediate the harsh realities of war zones. In this article, we examine 97 videos produced by 12 Ukrainian and Russian TikTok creators in response to the 2022 war in Ukraine. We focus on the playful embodiment of trauma using digital ethnography, analyzing creators’ practices and their interconnected memetic communication on TikTok. We identified the use of play through three dynamic practices where platforms, bodies, and trauma converge: (1) the utilization of POV (point-of-view) aesthetic in shareable templates to convey the realities of war from engaging first-person perspectives; (2) the incorporation of dance as a means of embodied creative expression and amplification of trauma; and (3) the harnessing of platform features to facilitate whimsical dialogues with followers about life under war. We argue that playfulness is entrenched in and enacted through platform vernacular modes, driving creators to forge communal ties during adversities and shape the ongoing representation of trauma and its accelerated visibility in digital spaces. We present the concept of playful trauma as a framework for understanding the structural dissonance that arises when creators utilize their bodies alongside platform-specific humorous, ironic, or subversive dialects to perform and amplify the gravity of trauma. This tension provides a unique space for creators to convert their shared experiences of grief and resilience into participatory coping mechanisms. In doing so, they subject and harness their playful platformed body as both the medium and the message, documenting injustices, bearing witness, and galvanizing crowds into action during times of war.

Social media ecology in an influencer group: Intersection between Fiji's media and social media

Social media use in Fiji has expanded in recent years and has become a ubiquitous feature in wider society. Social media ecology focusses and examines the dimensions of an online environment and its interplay with human experiences in user engagement. These dimensions with human experiences in user engagement, can provide an insight into how influential social media groups can become in shaping discourses and views. To examine and discuss the social media ecology of an influencer group, the article details one of Fiji’s largest and most influential online groups. To do this, the article uses digital ethnography, supplemented with social media analytics. This study provides key findings in the social media ecology of influencer groups and online behavior. These findings may have implications for further research in media, citizen journalism, viral content creation and online political campaigning.

*Corresponding author: suwandi.sumartias@unpad.ac.id E-ISSN: 2289-1528 https://doi.org/10.17576/JKMJC-2024-4002-01 Portrait of Hate Speech Propagators' Behaviour in Indonesia Twittersphere: A Comparative Virtual Ethnography Study

Political life in Indonesia today cannot be separated from the social media platform Twitter (X) because it is often used to express opinions freely. Unfortunately, a handful of parties misused the freedom of communication and expression offered by Twitter (X) to spread hate speech. One of the biggest phenomena is “Cebong” and “Kadrun”. This research examines the characteristics of hate speech spreaders in the political context of "Cebong" and "Kadrun". This study employed virtual ethnography to interpret the phenomenon of political hate speech on Twitter (X) in May 2022. The hate speech made by "Cebong" and "Kadrun" can be concluded as two hostile political camps. They argued with each other to show their identity as supporters of one of the camps and aimed to bring down the opposing political camp. The tweets made by “Cebong” were dominated by arguments classified as arguments by analogy; meanwhile, "Kadrun" was dominated by discovery arguments: arguments from cause to effect. The manipulation strategy carried out by "Cebong" is dominated by connotations, and "Kadrun" is dominated by specific warrants and connotations. The fallacy expressed by "Cebong" is dominated by persuasive definitions; meanwhile, "Kadrun" is dominated by hasty generalizations. These findings could be suggestions for creating a healthier ecosystem in the digital public sphere in Indonesia. Twitter (X) users should be more aware of reporting content that indicates hate speech. By knowing the characteristics of hate speech and the characteristics of hate speech spreaders, Twitter users can stop the spread of hate speech. Keywords: Cebong, Kadrun, hate speech, propagators, Twitter.

Socialising feminism and diversity: the use of gender in young female readers' literary attachments and exclusions

AbstractThis article discusses young women's reading practices and the social uses of literature for enabling gender equality that are present in those practices. Through a digital ethnography study where six young women collaborated as participants, I asked the data: How is literature, precisely its capacity to be used, conceived by young women readers in the search for gender equality? These women's reading engagements are tightly woven with a gender perspective. What are these readers embracing, and what are they rejecting by assuming a gender lens? By tracing these attachments and exclusions, I describe how books affect readers' perspectives and practices on their identities, their choice of authors, the cultural value of books, the social representations of books and reading as education. Participants' close and distant connections between the book and their desire for gender equality allow me to discuss the literature's pedagogical instrumentality and uselessness for achieving gender‐inclusive literacy. Finally, I argue that a plural and non‐functional approach to literature could offer young people heterogeneous and more creative forms to approach the challenge of gender equality.

WhatsApp for pedagogy: initiatives, instructional practices and the nature of knowledge in Israel’s secondary education

ABSTRACT In this study, the paradoxes and difficulties of using WhatsApp for meaningful education are highlighted. As a case study of technology implementation, the author employs virtual ethnography and interviews with supervisors, developers and teachers to examine all significant pedagogical initiatives in Israel’s high schools that utilise WhatsApp. These initiatives are analysed through the theoretical lens of sharing and its cultures of production and circulation. Sharing and circulating are fundamental epistemological aspects of knowledge in new media as they play a major part in how knowledge is created, perceived and learned. Indeed, the findings show that using WhatsApp broadens and diversifies classroom instructional practices, including shifts towards more dialogic teaching, but at the same time, traditional communicative assumptions, conservative school modalities, power structure and epistemologies are maintained. Sharing is now seen as a pedagogical practice, yet implementing WhatsApp in schools happens while its epistemological aspects are narrowed.

The Phenomenon of COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Narratives through Virtual Ethnography on Instagram

This study aims to investigate the conspiracy phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic as disseminated by the Instagram account @unexplnd. This account boasts 842 thousand followers and stands as one of the largest social media propagating the concept of COVID-19 conspiracy theories in Indonesia. Primary data is derived from posts on this account, and secondary data is obtained through interviews with four followers who actively engage in commenting and harbor beliefs in the existence of conspiracies. The research corpus is subsequently scrutinized employing the conceptual framework delineated by Douglas, Sutton, and Cichocka (2017), which delineates the emergence of conspiracies through epistemic, existential, and social motives. The findings of this investigation reveal that incidents perceived as random chance occurrences, motivated by the desire to preserve comfort and freedom, along with suspicion or resentment towards particular entities, serve as grounds for endorsing COVID-19 pandemic conspiracy theories. Furthermore, exposure to media presenting conspiracy theories, such as the Instagram account @unexplnd, contributes to an augmented belief in such theories among proponents. Conspiracy theorists desire to raise awareness among the general populace regarding conspiracy theories by disseminating information containing conspiracy narratives across various media channels.

The Social Media Marketing Mix Trends in Indonesia for 2024: Communication Perspective

Background: 86% of marketers believe social media marketing mix trends have influenced their profits. This condition significantly changes the business world and offers integrated marketing communications strategy options.This is a qualitative research in the interpretive paradigm. Using netnography or virtual ethnography or digital ethnography methods, this research attempts to explore and analyze the complex meaning of Indonesia's latest social media statistical data, compiled from We Are Social and The Global Statistics. We support data from Pew Research Center, Statista, Deloitte, Forbes, Insider Intelligence, Forrester, LinkedIn, GlobalWebIndex, CMO Survey, and the FGD (Focus Group Discussion) method. The analytical tools used are Computer-Mediated Communication Theory, Everett Rogers' Theory of Diffusion of Innovation, etc. In 2024, the social media marketing mix (SMMM) will be dominated by Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) including Generative A.I. and ChatGPT technology, as well as creative content that is entertaining and capable of attracting various kinds of people, and creates social polemics too. The principle, "Give what they want, take what you need," is used to get support from Gen Z and Millennials. This principle is needed to build trust and loyalty. Many companies will carry out promotions focusing only on social media platforms that provide benefits, and social media trends in Indonesia include Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. The promotional message will consist of product quality, price, and comfort. These three aspects will also be communicated extensively using A.I. technology and ChatGPT.

The Rise of Interfaith Dialogue: Social Media, Youth, and Religious Inclusivity in Indonesia

<p class="06IsiAbstrak"><span lang="EN-GB">This paper investigates how interfaith dialogue discourse is now developing significantly with the role of social media and youth. Based on online research and virtual ethnography, this paper argues that creatively utilizing social media with involving youth as media-savvy is the main factor in significantly increasing the acceptance of interfaith dialogue discourse. In-depth content analysis with a focus on interfaith dialogue through YouTube podcasts reveals several strategies applied by the creator. This paper highlights several strategies, namely using hashtag and maximizing thumbnail, propagating podcasts with clickbait titles, consistenly uploading content, and connecting with other platforms. In addition, youth involvement also plays an important role in achieving significant interfaith dialogue such as by engaging them with humor and comedy, eye-catching appearance and millennial style, and visual persuasion. Finally, great acceptability achieved by interfaith podcasts on youtube has proven the existence of religious inclusivity in Indonesia.</span></p>

Fake News as Political Communication: On Fake News, Digital Media and the Struggle for Hegemony in Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe

Fake news has long been used in propaganda, but the proliferation of digital media reinvigorated it. In Zimbabwe, fake news peaks during elections and on the eve of international summits the country’s leadership will be attending. The ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC-A), which re-branded to Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), deploy fake news against each other. These two are the main contestants for power, and they dominate Parliament and Senate. ZANU-PF has the majority in the legislature whilst the opposition CCC dominates Urban Councils. They are permanently engaged in a battle for hegemony. Informed by the three dimensions of fake news as a genre, a label and dramaturgia, the paper interrogates how, when, where and why ZANU-PF and MDC-A deployed fake news in the post-Mugabe era. Data were gathered through archival research and virtual ethnography, and the findings show that both parties used the three dimensions of fake news in intra-party and inter-party struggles, and the battle to influence regional and global public opinion. Fake news was used to confuse the public and discredit the opponent.

Community in times of COVID: building resilience in a self-help neighborhood in Medellin

ABSTRACT This article looks at resilience-building in Moravia, an inner-urban, self-help neighborhood constructed on and around the former principal landfill of Medellin, Colombia. Based on a photovoice project carried out with a group of children and youth in 2019, an image is presented of social cohesion within the neighborhood. Moravia's case shows that social cohesion in the neighborhood fosters three concrete forms of resilience-building: (1) maintaining networks of aid and care, (2) cultivating a sense of neighborhood identity, and (3) engaging in direct and indirect forms of reciprocity. Data from digital ethnography obtained in 2021 demonstrate that these resilience-building practices were maintained online during quarantine. This article contributes to the literature on social cohesion, first, by departing from children and youth views of community dynamics in their neighborhood and, second, by connecting social cohesion to resilience-building in the context of an auto-constructed, underprivileged neighborhood in Latin America and the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it contributes to the literature on the photovoice methodology and the expanding work on digital ethnography, respectively by showing the efficacy of photovoice when researching community-related themes with children and youth, and investigating neighborhood-based Facebook groups as a space for enhancing social cohesion and resilience in times of crisis.

Digital Media Impact on Sufi Practices: Analyzing Ijāza Wirid Dhikr

This article discusses the impact of digital media on Sufi practices, specifically in the context of conducting ijāza (authorization) for wird dhikr rituals through digital platforms. Traditionally, Sufi practices such as the ijāza involve direct teaching from teacher to student. However, with the rapid development of digital media, the ijāza process has undergone significant changes. This study adopts an eclectic approach, which combines digital ethnography to study online participant engagement and a comprehensive literature review to track and measure the transformation of ijāza through digital media. Data were gathered from various sources, including books, scholarly journals, and relevant digital content related to the research topic. The findings show that the evolution of digital media has transformed the implementation of ijāza for wird dhikr from direct (traditional) to indirect transmission through online media, and it is considered valid. Yet, ijāza is not merely dealing with the process of authorization but also the transmission of blessings and spiritual knowledge from the teacher to the student, which needs close engagement and relationships that can only be achieved with direct interaction.Contribution: This article provides an understanding of the impact and validity of ijāza conducted through digital media compared to traditional methods yet considered valid.

Long-term holistic ethnography for new digital worlds

The article contributes to ongoing conversations on digital ethnography as a methodological approach that in the last two decades has gained popularity across a large variety of disciplines and fields. It argues that the principles that lie at the heart of long-term holistic ethnographic fieldwork are of crucial importance for studying new digital worlds, especially communicative practices in private and semi-private digital spaces. It also claims that methodological innovations in the ethnographic study of new digital media are not necessarily beneficial to scientific knowledge production. Finally, the article invites anthropologists to contaminate the interdisciplinary field of digital ethnography with their commitment to long-term holistic fieldwork.

‘We can’t lose you’: social media and school culture during remote schooling

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent school closures forced educators to seek new means of engaging students, especially in schools serving low-income communities hit hard by the pandemic. This exploratory virtual ethnography, part of a larger study on the culture of progressive (or student-centered) schools, follows one innovative urban high school as it shifted from in-person to remote schooling. It documents how the school attempted to use Instagram to reach students and counter the social isolation associated with the COVID-19 shutdown. We find the school used virtual spaces to enact culturally sustaining pedagogical practices in the absence of ‘real world’ interactions. The school’s Instagram emphasized positive relationships, celebrated resilience in the face of challenges, and affirmed student cultures and identities. Our data suggest that this forum played an important role in sustaining school culture and student-adult connections during an extremely challenging period for the school community.